Happiness Across Cultures: Views of Happiness and Quality of Life in Non-Western Cultures

ISBN-13: 9789400799295 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 504 str.

Helaine Selin; Gareth Davey

Opis

There seems to have been a view that different cultures experience happiness differently. The West is considered materialistic, and happiness comes from achievement and acquisition. The East is said to be more people-oriented, where happiness is a result of deep personal interactions. Thus, poor people can be happier in the East than the West, because they are not so concerned with possession and more with society. It is certainly true that people experience happiness differently. Some people are resilient, and can put difficult times behind them easily; others cling to sorrow and hard times. Some are philosophically inclined to accept their situation the glass is half full not half empty. Whether this is a matter of culture or personality is hard to gauge; most likely it is a combination of both. This book will explore notions of happiness in different non-Western cultures. Some of the essays will do some comparison with the East, but I have tried to keep the essays culture-specific when possible. There are also some cross-cultural essays and some philosophical and scientific studies that are not related to one culture only. There are some obvious problems. Most obvious is the fact that no political state has one culture. In a country the size of China, almost any explanation of one group might not apply to another. I have tried to include a few chapters on China to correct for this. This is even the case in a country as small as Bhutan; there is a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu people in the country, and there ideas of what makes one happy could be quite different. In South America, there is more likely a connection between mountain dwellers in different nations and rainforest dwellers than with, say, all Peruvians."

Spis treści

INTRODUCTION.- 1: HAPPINESS IN INDIA: Ed Diener, Robert Biswas-Diener and Louis Tay.- 2: HAPPINESS ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU: Dave Webb.- 3:  HAPPINESS AND LIFE SATISFACTION IN MALAYSIA: Ryan T. Howell, Wan Tien Chong, Colleen J. Howell, & Kurt Schwabe.- 4: HAPPINESS AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: Gareth Davey.- 5: QUALITY OF LIFE OF AN ASIAN METROPOLIS IN A GOVERNANCE CRISIS: THE CASE OF HONG KONG: Ming Sing.- 6: QUALITY OF WORK LIFE IN MACAU: Ricardo Rato and Gareth Davey.-  7: SATISFACTION AND SOCIETAL QUALITY IN KAZAKHSTAN: Pamela Abbott and Claire Wallace.-  8: SINGAPORE: A HAPPY STATE OF MIND: Siok Kuan Tambyah.-  9: HAPPINESS IN THAILAND: Rossarin Soottipong Gray.- 10: THE POLITICS OF WELLBEING IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: RESEARCH WITH ORGANIC FARMERS IN CAMBODIA: Alice Beban.- 11: FARMERS' HAPPINESS FROM FISH PRODUCTION; A CASE STUDY IN VIETNAM: Nguyen Minh Duc.- 12: CONSTRUCTIONS OF HAPPINESS AND SATISFACTION IN THE KINGDOM OF TONGA: Sean E. Moore and Heather E. Young Leslie.- 13: HAPPINESS IN AN ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY; WHAT IT MEANS ‘TO BE WELL’ AND ‘TO ENJOY LIFE’ IN CENTRAL-WESTERN NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA: Daniela Heil.- 14: HAPPINESS IN THE AMAZON: FOLK EXPLANATIONS OF HAPPINESS IN A HUNTER-HORTICULTURALIST SOCIETY IN THE BOLIVIAN AMAZON: Victoria Reyes-García and Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study (TAPS).- 15: HAPPINESS IN BRAZIL: Gazi Islam.- 16:  HAPPINESS IN MEXICO: THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RELATIONS: Mariano Rojas.- 17: HAPPY VILLAGES AND UNHAPPY SLUMS? UNDERSTANDING HAPPINESS DETERMINANTS IN PERU: Mònica Guillen-Royo and Jackeline Velazco.- 18: LIFE SATISFACTION IN MALAWI: Tim Hinks and Simon Davies.- 19: HAPPINESS IN NIGERIA: A SOCIO-CULTURAL ANALYSIS: Aaron Agbo, Thaddeus Nzeadibe and Chukwuedozie Ajaero.- 20: GHANAIAN HAPPINESS: GLOBAL, CULTURAL, AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES: Vivian Afi Abui Dzokoto.- 21: LIVING THE GOOD LIFE: AN ECONOMIC VIEW OF HAPPINESS IN SOUTH AFRICA: Jeffrey Bookwalter.- 22: CONCEPTS OF WELLBEING AMONG ORGANIC FARMERS AND PLANTATION WORKERS IN MADAGASCAR: Cathy Rozel Farnworth.- 23: HAPPINESS IN A POST-CONFLICT SOCIETY: RWANDA: Pamela Abbott and Claire Wallace.-  24: HAPPINESS IN NAVAJOS (DINÉ BA’ HÓZHÓ): Angela Willeto.- 25: IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY: WELL-BEING AMONG INUIT IN ARCTIC CANADA: Michael Kral and Lori Idlout.- 26: CLIMATE, CASH, AND CULTURALLY EMBEDDED HAPPINESS: Evert Van de Vliert.- 27: HINDUISM, HAPPINESS AND WELLBEING: A CASE STUDY OF ADULTHOOD IN AN ORIYA HINDU TEMPLE TOWN: Usha Menon.- 28: THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS: A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: Stephen G. Morris.-  DOES HAPPINESS DIFFER ACROSS CULTURES?: Ruut Veenhoven.- INDEX.                        

O autorze

Helen Selin is a science librarian and staff faculty associate at Hampshire College. She is also the editor of the Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Her interests concern difference ways of doing medicine and science.

Blurb

Different cultures experience happiness differently. Traditionally, the West is considered materialistic, and happiness is said to come from achievement and acquisition. The East is said to be more people-oriented, where happiness is a result of deep personal interactions. Thus, poor people can be happier in the East than the West, because they are not so concerned with possession and more with society. This book considers happiness and quality of life in non-Western countries and cultures. Its coverage is diverse and spans the breadth of the non-Western world, revealing unique perspectives of happiness and life quality embedded in rich cultural traditions and histories.