Joanna Cook

How mindfulness came to be regarded as a psychological support, an ethical practice and a component of public policy Mindfulness seems to be everywhere—in popular culture, in therapeutic practice, even in policy discussions. How did mindfulness, an awareness training practice with roots in Buddhism, come to be viewed as a solution to problems that range from depression and anxiety to criminal recidivism? If mindfulness is the answer, asks Joanna Cook, what is the question? In Making a Mindful Nation, Cook uses the lens of mindfulness to show how cultivating a relationship with the mind is now central to the ways people envision mental health. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with patients, therapists, members of Parliament and political advocates in Britain, Cook explores how the logics of preventive mental healthcare are incorporated into people’s relationships with themselves, therapeutic interventions, structures of governance and political campaigns. Cook observed mindfulness courses for people suffering from recurrent depression and anxiety, postgraduate courses for mindfulness-based therapists, parliamentarians’ mindfulness practice and political advocacy for mindfulness in public policy. She develops her theoretical argument through intimate and in-depth stories about people’s lives and their efforts to navigate the world—whether these involve struggles with mental health or contributions to evolving political agendas. In doing so, Cook offers important insights into the social processes by which mental health is lived, the normative values that inform it and the practices of self-cultivation by which it is addressed.

Mental Health and Governance in the Twenty-First Century

Making a Mindful Nation

Nicholas J. Long

Jacob Copeman

Lam Minh Chau

Dialogues, encounters and interactions through which particular ways of knowing, understanding and thinking about the world are forged lie at the centre of anthropology. Such ‘intellectual exchange’ is also central to anthropologists’ own professional practice: from their interactions with research participants and modes of pedagogy to their engagements with each other and scholars from adjacent disciplines. This collection of essays explores how such processes might best be studied cross-culturally. Foregrounding the diverse interactions, ethical reasoning, and intellectual lives of people from across the continent of Asia, the volume develops an anthropology of intellectual exchange itself.

Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond

An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange

In contemporary Thai Buddhism, the burgeoning popularity of vipassanā meditation is dramatically impacting the lives of those most closely involved with its practice: monks and mae chee (lay nuns) living in monastic communities. For them, meditation becomes a central focus of life and a way to transform the self. This ethnographic account of a thriving Northern Thai monastery examines meditation in detail, and explores the subjective signification of monastic duties and ascetic practices. Drawing on fieldwork done both as an analytical observer and as a full participant in the life of the monastery, Joanna Cook analyzes the motivation and experience of renouncers, and shows what effect meditative practices have on individuals and community organization. The particular focus on the status of mae chee - part lay, part monastic - provides a fresh insight into social relationships and gender hierarchy within the context of the monastery.

Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life

Meditation in Modern Buddhism

Henrietta L. Moore

What makes people lose faith in democratic statecraft? The question seems an urgent one. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, citizens across the world have grown increasingly disillusioned with what was once a cherished ideal. Setting out an original theoretical model that explores the relations between democracy, subjectivity and sociality, and exploring its relevance to countries ranging from Kenya to Peru, The State We’re In is a must-read for all political theorists, scholars of democracy, and readers concerned for the future of the democratic ideal.

Joanna Cook

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