Happiness as an Affective Practice: Self, Suffering and Biography

Abstract

Sociology has been reluctant to engage with the question of happiness because of a perceived emphasis within psychological framings on positive subjective experience, the prioritisation of inner resources, and its role within neoliberal strategies of government. This chapter argues for a reparative reading because of the centrality of happiness within the social imaginary. To highlight the relational aspects of happiness and how it is implicated in evaluations of the relationship between self and others and self and world, happiness is theorised as an affective practice. The chapter illustrates the utility of narrative methods for exploring people’s experiences and understandings of happiness, arguing that such an approach generates insights into how happiness functions normatively, framing understandings of good and happy lives. The chapter concludes by arguing that happiness is worthy of sociological research because of the way experiences and understandings are biographically and socially situated.