The Pursuit of Wellness in Southeast Asia: New Encounters and Inequalities in an Emerging Industry

WELL-ASIA studies the commercialization of wellbeing as ‘wellness’ in twenty-first century Southeast Asia, a region with one of the fastest growing wellness industries in the world.

People from within and beyond Asia are travelling more than ever before in search of yoga, meditation and spa retreats, detoxifying diets, anti-ageing therapies, and emotionally-healing experiences.

This growing interest in wellness takes shape in the context of increasing anxiety, longevity in a rapidly ageing world, and a growing global middle-class.

WELL-ASIA examines the people and places involved in producing, sustaining, and contesting the idea of wellness in contemporary Asia.

The project asks: What social, economic and moral transformations, and what new patterns of inequality does the pursuit of wellness generate?

How are diverse interests brought into tension and negotiated in the transnational encounters between (i) those who labour in the industry, (ii) the travellers who consume its services, and (iii) the local communities involved?

Situated in Southeast Asia, where multiple healing traditions circulate transnationally, often with deep historical roots, this multi-sited ethnographic study focusses on three sites that exhibit both the diversity and distinctiveness of wellness in the region: Singapore, Chiang Mai, and Ubud.

The project will involve an interdisciplinary team working in the fields of social anthropology, political and economic geography, media and cultural studies.

WELL-ASIA contends that the expansion of commercial wellness is unevenly transforming local economies, reconfiguring transnational mobilities, and bringing to light emergent, highly mobile, and marketable visions of what it means to be well in a hyper-capitalist and interconnected world, in ways that transcend the boundaries of health itself.