On October 13 th, at 17:00, Ilia State University Anthropology Seminar Series will host Niko Besnier’s public lecture “The Pursuit of Wellness: Changing Everyday Health Practices in Uncertain Times”.

Niko Besnier is a socio-cultural and linguistic anthropologist. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has previously taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1986–88), Yale University (1989–95), Victoria University of Wellington (1996–2002), UCLA (2002–05), and the University of Amsterdam (2005–22). He has held visiting appointments and fellowships at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, University of Auckland, Kagoshima University, Waseda University (twice), University of Melbourne, École normal supérieure Paris, Université de Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, University of Manchester, La Trobe University Melbourne, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Universidad de la República Montevideo, and Charles University Prague.~

The Pursuit of Wellness: Changing Everyday Health Practices in Uncertain Times

Alongside the increase of insecurity about health and healthcare around the world since the 1980s, the concept of wellness has emerged as a new way of thinking about bodies and health in relation to the social and natural world. This multifaceted expansion deserves more systematic analysis than it has received to date. Its different manifestations all share a concern with maintaining the body in good working order and with preventing illness, and thus the Covid-19 pandemic placed it at the centre of public debates and day-today concerns. While many people experience the pursuit of wellness as a personal quest of self-improvement, it is everywhere a quintessential manifestation of neoliberal modernity. I will present a proposal I have submitted to ERC to study wellness in its socio-political, cultural, and economic context across four nation-states. It proposes to investigate how people strategize to maintain a healthy balance of the body with the mind, soul, and environment, however these may be defined. Wellness serves as a barometer of changes in experiences of the body in the new economy, relationships of citizens to institutions, and ways of coping with and adapting to change in an uncertain world.

Working language: English

Time: October13, 17:00, 2023

Venue: F303