Pursuit of Wellness: Changing Everyday Health Practices in Uncertain Times

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Introducing a 60 Minutes story in 1979, Dan Rather declared, “Wellness, there’s a word you don’t hear every day.” More than four decades later, this word is everywhere. What happened?

Niko Besnier contextualizes the unexpected explosion of interest in changes that our societies have experienced in recent decades, including transformations in healthcare provision, changing views of the body, and the increased politicization of health, which became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wellness has emerged as a concern in many societies, but in different forms that reflect local conditions.

Niko Besnier, Ph.D. is a socio-cultural and linguistic anthropologist, and the author or editor of ten books. He has taught at the University of Illinois, Yale University, Victoria University of Wellington, UCLA, the University of Amsterdam, and currently is Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

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