title: Beyond Components of Wellbeing: The Effects of Relational and Situated Assemblage.
abstract: Despite multiple axes of variation in defining wellbeing, the paper argues for the dominance of a 'components approach' in current research and practice. This approach builds on a well-established tradition within the social sciences of attending to categories whether for their identification, their value or their meanings and political resonance. The paper critiques the components approach and explores how to move beyond it towards conceptually integrating the various categories and dimensions through a relational and situated account of wellbeing. Drawing on more fluid social sciences, wellbeing is framed as an effect, dependent on the mobilisation of resources from everyday encounters with complex assemblages of people, things and places. Through such a framing, wellbeing can be conceived of as stable and amenable to change, as individual and collective and as subjective and objective. Policy interventions then need to attend to the relationalities of particular social and spatial contexts.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical Humanities, c/o Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE UK.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Atkinson
keywords: Components; Performance; Process; Relational; Situated; Wellbeing
references.citation: Health Place. 2005 Dec;11(4):337-48
references.pmid: 15886142
references.citation: Annu Rev Psychol. 2001;52:141-66
references.pmid: 11148302
references.citation: Am Psychol. 2000 Jan;55(1):110-21
references.pmid: 11392855
references.citation: BMJ. 2011 Jul 26;343:d4163
references.pmid: 21791490
references.citation: Ann Behav Med. 2010 Feb;39(1):16-26
references.pmid: 20146038
references.citation: Theor Med Bioeth. 2001;22(1):5-15
references.pmid: 11334379
references.citation: Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2012 Oct;14(5):561-7
references.pmid: 22878974
references.citation: Annu Rev Public Health. 2004;25:397-418
references.pmid: 15015927
references.citation: Psychol Med. 2010 Jan;40(1):9-24
references.pmid: 19476688
references.citation: Sociol Health Illn. 2008 May;30(4):583-98
references.pmid: 18298628
references.citation: Behav Res Ther. 2012 Nov;50(11):719-25
references.pmid: 22985998
references.citation: Scand J Public Health Suppl. 2005 Oct;66:53-60
references.pmid: 16214724
references.citation: Environ Plann C Gov Policy. 2010 Oct 20;29(1):133-148
references.pmid: 25729122
references.citation: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2004 Sep 29;359(1449):1383-94
references.pmid: 15347530
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Dec 4;109(49):19953-8
references.pmid: 23169627
references.citation: BMJ. 2011 Nov 16;343:d7323
references.pmid: 22088397
references.citation: Health Place. 2009 Jun;15(2):455-465
references.pmid: 18948052