Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper discusses how the concept of well-being is applied in the research project on changing development strategies and cultural spaces of Latvia’s rural inhabitants,* focusing on the ideas of ‘belonging to one’s place’ as an important aspect of well-being among rural people. *This paper complements the presentation proposed for this panel by Agnese Cimdina, another researcher of the mentioned EU-funded interdisciplinary project.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper discusses how the concept of well-being is applied in the research on changing development strategies of Latvia's rural inhabitants. Based on fieldwork in the Latvian countryside, I examine the ideas of 'belonging to one's place' as an important aspect of well-being among rural people. 'Place' encompasses diverse meanings, such as attachment to one's land and family /predecessors (and thus continuity), close relationships with one's neighbours, living in accord with the rhythms of nature, feeling free etc., which play significant role in people's understandings of a good life. Under the conditions of unemployment and depopulation in the Latvian countryside, it is often the attachment to one's place that motivates people to stay at home rather than migrate to cities or foreign countries in search for a better living.

More generally, this paper looks at the merits of introducing the concept of well-being into Latvian social sciences and humanities research. Inspired by the fruitful use of the concept by the WeD group at the University of Bath (2002-2008), I argue that well-being as an analytical tool holds great potential not only for Latvian social anthropological studies, but also for academic and applied research done within other fields or across different disciplines.