Abstract
As described in Chapter 1, the call to go ‘beyond economics’ is central to the wellbeing agenda. One dimension of this is to go ‘beyond GDP’ (Gross Domestic Product) in measuring national progress. Another is the extended debate on the theme of ‘does money make us happy?’ which has animated the new field of ‘happiness economics’ (Graham 2011). While the tenor of that debate is strongly positivist, defining itself in terms of ‘what we know’,2 it can also be read against the grain as a discourse on Western cultures of wellbeing, using statistics to debate the relative importance of income, wealth, inequality, human rights, health, employment and family relationships to ‘good lives’ and ‘good societies’. Continuing the well-worn pattern of ‘modernity’ seeking to know itself in contrast to ‘tradition’ (Grossberg 1996), this questioning about wellbeing has also looked to ‘other cultures’ for inspiration, as less materialist, more spiritual, more holistic. Buen vivir and allied approaches have inspired significant mobilisation for cultural and political rights in Latin America. However, their celebration in the West also indicates the particular place of indigenous worldviews as a cultural mirror for self-questioning Western modernity. But this is only one side of the picture. The contradictory dynamic within Western modernity is to generalise its own patterns of thought as universal (Mazrui 2001).
This work is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council/Department for International Development Joint Scheme for Research on International Development (Poverty Alleviation) grant number RES-167-25-0507 ES/H033769/1.
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White, S.C., Ramirez, V. (2016). Economics and Subjectivities of Wellbeing in Rural Zambia. In: White, S.C., Blackmore, C. (eds) Cultures of Wellbeing. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137536457_5
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