The Peripheralization of structural realities: a critical social theory of well-being

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dc.contributor.authorLayton, Tanner Reid
dc.contributor.authorUniversity of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science
dc.contributor.supervisorMair, Kimberly
dc.date.accessioned2019-04-05T22:22:21Z
dc.date.available2019-04-05T22:22:21Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.degree.levelMastersen_US
dc.description.abstractIn recent years, expectations to pursue happiness have shifted to well-being—a concept that has been increasingly taken up by the field of positive psychology and mental health organizations in North America. I use critical discourse analysis to examine four mental health and well-being texts: Martin Seligman’s Flourish, a Bell Let’s Talk advertisement, and two Canadian Mental Health Association brochures. By embodying traces of the eudaimonic tradition that links well-being to particular ways of living, ways of thinking, and emotion management, these discourses psychologize and individualize emotion by producing a depoliticized, responsible, and normative subject. With their insistence on responsibility, balance, and resiliency, I argue that these discourses support neoliberalism and its inherent violence by disciplining readers to think of their emotions primarily in individualized terms. By doing so, these discourses center mental health in a way that renders ongoing structural inequities peripheral to the cultivation of personal well-being.en_US
dc.embargoNoen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10133/5324
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.proquest.subject0626en_US
dc.proquest.subject0422en_US
dc.proquest.subject0621en_US
dc.proquestyesYesen_US
dc.publisherLethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Department of Sociologyen_US
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Sociologyen_US
dc.publisher.facultyArts and Scienceen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesThesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science)en_US
dc.subjectWell-beingen_US
dc.subjectCritical discourse analysisen_US
dc.subjectMental healthen_US
dc.subjectNeoliberalismen_US
dc.subjectPositive psychologyen_US
dc.subjectEmotionsen_US
dc.subjectDissertations, Academicen_US
dc.subjectnegative emotionsen_US
dc.subjectsociality of emotionen_US
dc.titleThe Peripheralization of structural realities: a critical social theory of well-beingen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
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