The ‘possibility’ of happiness: going beyond the discreet charm of happiness

The importance of emotions, and human happiness in particular, has been described by scholars in terms of a dramatic theoretical turn or even in terms of ‘industry’, with a growing amount of literature providing instruction on how to be happy, and significant amounts of academic research being carried out on the subject. Happiness is both produced and consumed through such literature as a form of emotional, cultural and social capital. Whilst research on happiness has stimulated some critical reflection on potentially deceptive assumptions on happiness, it still tends to locate happiness in certain places - which are described as the ‘primary happiness indicators’- and to be trapped, as a result, into conventional, dominant and somehow prescriptive definitions of happiness. This arguable object of human desire manifests itself in describing not only what we allegedly aim for but also what we should aim for. There are also significant grey areas implicit in the contemporary uses of the words ‘happiness’ and ‘happy’. Even assuming that happiness may be associated with ‘feeling good’, can we assume that unhappiness automatically involves ‘feeling bad’ and not rather ‘feeling good in a different way’ or simply wishing things were different?” Drawing on Ahmed's work, my critical approach to ‘happiness’ involves giving voice to subjects often silenced in such debates (for example, feminists, sexual and ethnic minorities) and introducing issues of difference and inequality into current debates.