Running as a happiness therapy in contemporary Argentina: theoretical dilemmas on “therapeutic cultures”

Résumé

The systematic reflection on so-called “therapeutic cultures” has coalesced around a set of definitions that portray them as raw expressions of neoliberal ideology. In this view, highly diverse therapeutic frameworks involving heterogeneous actors are described in a linear fashion as promoters of individualistic values, primarily expressed through the pursuit of happiness. Based on ethnographic research on running as a lifestyle in contemporary Argentina, I aim to highlight the limitations of these normative approaches which, relying on a priori definitions, fail to grasp the situated appropriations that actors make of these dispositifs – appropriations that reveal a wide range of differential uses.