Paper short abstract

This introductory paper summarizes the main debates in wellbeing scholarship and policy debates, and their underpinning premises.

Paper long abstract

This introductory paper summarizes the main debates in wellbeing scholarship and policy debates, and their underpinning premises.The paper argument is that the development of wellbeing scholarship mirrors the development of changing ideas and discourses about the individual, society and nature in "the West". As such, it is part of a "parochial" narrative about human-ness whose universality must be discussed rather than assumed.