From self-care to social-self care: toward a sociology of wellbeing.

AbstractTo move beyond the hyper-individualism of popular neoliberal understandings of self-care, we must reconceptualize self-care as <italic>social-self care</italic>—care for fundamentally social selves. First, I examine how self-care has—and has not—been conceptualized around sociality by tracing historical lineages in modern medical discourse, Black Feminist thought, Ancient Greek and Foucauldian philosophy, the popular self-help tradition, and contemporary literatures of refusal. Next, I explore current popular neoliberal conceptualizations of “self,” “care,” and “self-care” that prioritize the individual and depoliticize wellbeing, trapping people in myopically individualistic worldviews. Finally, I argue that the social psychological concept of the “social self” (Cooley; Mead) as well as Mills’ “sociological imagination” necessitate a reframing of self-care to <italic>social-self care.</italic> This reframing emphasizes sociality and relationality and has the potential to free people from neoliberal disconnection and promote resistance against systemic injustice—positioning <italic>social-self care</italic> as transformative and counter-hegemonic. Desires to protect financial interests, pass blame, and retain individual autonomy stand as barriers to this reframing. Still, reconceptualizing self-care around a fundamentally social self is imperative, holding the potential to shape daily lived experience and broader understandings of wellbeing in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]