Sociology of Well-being: Lessons from India / Edition 1

by Steve Derne

Overview

Identifies the nature of well-­being through analysis of in-­depth interviews with Indians on what good life means to them

This book explains well-being through insights gathered from qualitative interviews with Indians from different walks of life. It shows that well-being is mixed and transient, shifting in interactions. It reveals the universals that lead to well-being, bringing out interlinkages between health, wealth, and pleasure. Explaining variations by gender, class, age, and individual choice, the book highlights the distinctive insights in Indian religious traditions about life satisfaction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789385985720
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	11/14/2016
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Steve Derné is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Geneseo. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright program (1986–1987, 2012), the Rockefeller Foundation (2002), the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997, 2005), and the American Institute of Indian Studies (1991). In five research stints over 30 years, he has conducted 31 months of fieldwork in India. His previous books explore family life and emotion in India (Culture in Action, 1995), filmgoing in India (Movies, Masculinity, and Modernity, 2000), and cultural, economic, and family changes since India’s economic liberalization (Globalization on the Ground, SAGE, 2008). The interviews on well-being engaged him and the people he interviewed more than any of his previous studies in India.

Derné enjoys India’s people, food, music, religions, ambiance, and ways of life. He once lived in Banaras for 15 months, has been visiting the Himalayas for more than 30 years, and has completed a bus pilgrimage to Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath. He has been to four jyotirlingas and discovered a fifth in North America! Insights and practices from life in India shape his daily life in the USA: He starts his morning with Indian tea, worships Lord Shiva atop a local hill, lives in walking distance of a samosa shop, and listens to ragas on his way to teach at university. He has kayaked off Burma in the Bay of Bengal, in Baja, California, and around the islets off the Hawaiian islands. One of his pleasures is riding horses fast in places like the Sahara, Patagonia, and the Genesee valley. He has ridden horses with his wife in Rajasthan and in Assam. He enjoys running every day, whether through crowded lanes in Indian cities or amidst the vibrant spring, steamy summer, colorful fall, or snowy winters of upstate New York. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his wife Lisa Jadwin and three cats.

Table of Contents

Preface: How I Came to Study Well-being in India
Introductiion
Universals
Health and Wealth
Connections to Others (and the Specialness of the Self)
Meanings and Approaches
Pleasure
Variations
Age, Gender, Class, and Individual Lives and Choices
Indian Ways of Living the Good Life
Lessons
What Have We Learned about Well-being?
Toward a Better Sociology
Living the Good Life
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Index

Editorial Reviews

Eloquently written … it [is] an essential reading for scholars of sociology, psychology, and cultural studies [and] those engaged with the pursuit of happiness and well-being.

Professor of Sociology, Indira Gandhi National Open University - Nita Mathur

… this important book … is a model for how well-being should be studied, not just in India, but in societies across the globe.

Professor of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Gordon Mathews