Abstract:
This paper explores the ways in which community wellbeing is, and could be, related to individual subjective wellbeing by mapping current practice, teasing out the assumptions underlying a dominant approach and flagging neglected issues. The notion of community is widely understood as about something more than the sum of the parts. Capturing subjective aspects of local life that are not simply individual but reflect the ways in which people feel and are well together is a challenging undertaking. Most existing frameworks for assessing community wellbeing are premised on a theory of the self as an autonomous, rational and independently acting or feeling individual, and the primary interest is on how community aspects of life impact on individual subjective wellbeing. This dominant approach consistently neglects spatial and social inequalities, multiple settings and scales and temporal choices and legacies, all of which constitute important political dimensions to community wellbeing. Social theories of the self as relational put relations as prior to subjectivity and as such afford ways to conceptualise community wellbeing in terms of being well together. A relational approach can also offer routes to tackling the complex interactions of inequality, scale and time. Such an approach is not, however, easily translated into quantitative measures or simple policy interventions. The approach taken to community wellbeing is not a technological issue but a political choice.
摘要:
本文探讨了社区福祉的方式,可能是,通过绘制当前实践与个人主观幸福感相关,梳理主导方法的假设,并标记被忽视的问题。社区的概念被广泛理解为不仅仅是各部分的总和。捕捉当地生活的主观方面,这些方面不仅是个人的,而且反映了人们感觉和相处融洽的方式,这是一项具有挑战性的任务。大多数现有的评估社区福祉的框架都以自我作为自治的理论为前提,理性和独立行动或感觉个人,主要兴趣在于生活的社区方面如何影响个人的主观幸福感。这种占主导地位的方法一贯忽视空间和社会不平等,多种设置和尺度以及时间选择和遗产,所有这些都构成了社区福祉的重要政治层面。自我作为关系的社会理论将关系放在主观性之前,因此提供了将社区福祉概念化的方法。关系方法还可以提供解决不平等的复杂相互作用的途径,规模和时间。这种方法不是,然而,很容易转化为定量措施或简单的政策干预。社区福祉的方法不是技术问题,而是政治选择。