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Contribution short abstract:

This contribution considers the tensions between the desire for connection, community, collective care and emotional well-being and the increasing commodification of these experiences; and their implications for understanding the commons in psychological anthropology.

Contribution long abstract:

This contribution considers the tensions between the desire for connection, community, collective care and emotional well-being alongside the increasing commodification of these experiences in this particular contemporary moment. Drawing on examples from 'wellness' spaces and economies in Southeast Asia, questions about the boundaries of the psychological commons are raised with regard to inclusion and exclusion - whose well-being and at what cost? - and the links between wellbeing as labour, service, and experience. While the commons are often seen as an antidote to commodification and exclusionary capitalist dynamics, this project reflects on their frequent, if uneasy, entanglements in the quest for psychological wellbeing.