Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures
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- Description
- Contents
- About
Wellness has become a mainstream concept, yet we have limited sociological understanding of how wellness functions in contemporary Western culture. Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures is the first collection to bring together scholars examining wellness practices within various sociological sub-disciplines across and in related fields including anthropology, cultural studies, and internet studies.
Investigating the growing field of wellness practices and practitioners, in order to understand the role of wellness practice in negotiations of the Western medical system. Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures explores the various ways and spaces in which wellness is constructed, produced, circulated and contested, with contributing authors exploring everything from the intersections of wellness movements and far-right conspiracy spaces to the competing discourses at work in popular “What I Eat in a Day” videos on YouTube.
Introduction: Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures; Naomi Smith, Clare Southerton, and Marianne Clark
- Section 1. Wellness, Whiteness and Conspiracy Cultures
- Chapter 1. The Body Complex: (Con)spirituality, Wellness and Covid-19 in Australia; Anna Halafoff, Ruth Fitzpatrick, and Cristina Rocha
- Chapter 2. COVID-19 mis/disinformation in online wellness communities: Narratives of individualism and practices of networked resistance; Ashleigh Haw, Jay Daniel Thompson, and Rob Cover
- Chapter 3. Looking good, feeling good and refusing the jab: Tracing the relationships between healthism, wellness culture and COVID vaccine hesitancy; Naomi Smith, Marianne Clark, and Clare Southerton
- Section 2. Lived Wellness Practice
- Chapter 4. Measuring wellbeing: A critical rapid review of scales used in advanced cancer contexts; Alexandra Smith, Rebecca Olson, Maddison Cuerton, Keesha Abdul Khalil, Philip Good, and Janet Hardy
- Chapter 5. Search Inside Yourself: Google, Mindfulness, and Workplace Wellbeing; Leanne Downing
- Chapter 6. Wellness washing: Wellness, work and the transformation of pleasure; Naomi Smith, Alexia Maddox, Jenny L. Davis, and Monica Barratt
- Section 3. The ‘Wellness Body’, Food and Diet Culture
- Chapter 7. “I just have to remember that my body is different”: Asian-Australian women’s experiences with wellness culture; Clare Davies
- Chapter 8. ‘Relaxed restriction’: ‘What I Eat In A Day’ videos and the persistence of diet culture; Justine Topham
- Chapter 9. Combatting wellness misinformation on YouTube: the case of Abbey Sharp; Edith Hill
- Chapter 10. ‘Having it all’: Wellness culture, Instagram bodies and ‘perfect lives’ in a Time of Global Ecological Crisis; Julia Coffey
Naomi Smith is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Her research explores emerging technology, place, and bodies.
Clare Southerton is a Lecturer in Digital Technology and Pedagogy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She researches how social media platforms and other digital technologies are used for learning and sharing knowledge.
Marianne Clark is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada. Her research explores the intersections between digital and physical cultures as well as socio-cultural perspectives of gender and health.