Collaborative Happiness: Building the Good Life in Urban Cohousing Communities

Catherine Kingfisher

Published by Berghahn Books 2021

Collaborative Happiness

Building the Good Life in Urban Cohousing Communities

Catherine Kingfisher

Volume 8 in the series Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800732407

Overview
Contents

About this book

Understudied relative to other forms of intentional community, and under-recognized in policy-making circles, urban cohousing communities situate wellbeing as simultaneously social and subjective, while catering for groups of people so diverse in age. Collaborative Happiness looks at two such urban cohousing communities: Kankanmori, in Tokyo; and Quayside Village, in Vancouver. In expanding beyond mainstream approaches to happiness focused exclusively on the individual, Quayside Village and Kankanmori provide an alternative model for how to understand and practice the good life in an increasingly urbanized world marked by crisis of both social and environmental sustainability.

Author / Editor information

Catherine Kingfisher is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Lethbridge. She is the author of A Policy Travelogue: Tracing Welfare Reform in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada (Berghahn, 2013) and Women in the American Welfare Trap (UPenn, 1996). She is also the editor of Western Welfare in Decline: Globalization and Women's Poverty (UPenn, 2002)

Reviews

“This is a very useful book for established as well as forming communities. It gives the most complete view of cohousing community life that I have seen. And it will allay many fears related to the question, ‘Can cohousing work for me?’” • Communities Magazine

“[This book] is a valuable contribution to the literature on happiness and living well. Bringing together stories of residents in two co-housing projects, one in Japan and another in Canada, Catharine Kingfisher offers insights into a particular vision of living well together, with its pleasures, as well as the trials and tribulations.” • Iza Kavedžija, University of Exeter

“This is a very interesting book and a pleasure to read—Kingfisher writes well, and the book has many interesting ideas.” • Gordon Mathews, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“I think it is unusual and unusually interesting. It takes on the challenge of dragging happiness/wellbeing studies into a much needed ‘social’ direction.” • John Clarke, The Open University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
NOTES ON TEXT Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
INTRODUCTION How Urban Cohousing Communities Can Expand How We Think about Well-Being Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 KANKANMORI AND QUAYSIDE VILLAGE An Overview Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
2 QUAYSIDE VILLAGE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
3 KANKANMORI Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
4 THE EXCHANGES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
CONCLUSION Policies of Well-Being Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
APPENDIX The Film Shorts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 254

eBook

Published: October 15, 2021
ISBN: 9781800732407