Why is our network focusing on Wellbeing?

There is increasing concern in political circles, the media, and academia, about the rise of authoritarian populism worldwide and its association with misogyny, racism, and hatred of minorities. Researchers identify that authoritarian populism is, at least in part, a response to the last 50 years of neoliberal economic, social, and cultural policies which have created extreme levels of inequality, social division, and precarity across the globe, decimating communities, and creating living conditions that take a severe toll on physical and mental wellbeing. Nonetheless, the belief that there is no alternative (the ‘TINA’ doctrine) hinders development of state-level political practices that could protect democracy by seeking to respond to this decline. This impasse is further aggravated by the lack of conceptual work defining authoritarianism (commonly used to simply mean ‘anti-democratic‘); and by widespread disagreement concerning the relationship between, and means of measuring, authoritarianism, populism, and wellbeing. In response, this network notes that growing calls to attend to human wellbeing invoke the ethos of the 20th C welfare state. Far from a nostalgic turn to the past, this network promises to mobilise today’s wellbeing discourse to update and transform our conception of human flourishing as a resource to help collectively confront the challenges of the 21st C. The network will draw on feminist, gender, decolonial, and critical race theory, bringing together academics, policymakers, and practitioners, to re-conceptualise the welfare state as a ‘wellbeing state’ – a state that transforms as it enacts a politics of care, collaboration, and sustainability.