Health-Centered Adulting and Community Building in Uncertain Times

• In Event: Joint Roundtables: Social Psychology Section and Sociology of Emotions Section
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 4 - Mental Health

Abstract

Might health become a route that feeds into social change, as well as community-building and shared connective labor in uncertain times? My research shows that health is a primary site of agency and activation in our post-COVID context, and new and important milestone for adulthood. This is a chapter in a larger ethnographic research project focused on adulting. This paper emphasizes small acts of agency that take the form of advocating for one’s own health and well-being while also confronting social problems (e.g. destigmatizing mental health).

This paper is based on data collected over the course of a 5-year qualitative study focused on 30 diverse college-aged young adults, ages 18-28. For the young adults interviewed, health is a primary site of agency and marker of maturity. This became especially true during the pandemic, when financial independence and leaving home, traditional markers of adulthood, seemed impossible. Instead, health rituals, in the form of self-care routines, became a primary arena for self-activation and adulting. For example, many young adults have referred to finding a therapist as a “personal milestone” in their lives. While health is largely conceptualized as an individualist goal in a consumer market, the sheer repetition of this call in social media spaces, neighborhoods, and on campuses adds up to a larger movement about centering care and mental health.

A good number of my study participants are young women of color who have pivoted to become health agents in their lives. Latinx, Black, and South Asian college graduates are leading the way in the project of doing health, specifically by centering attentiveness to mental health and avoiding “toxic” environments. Importantly, these young women are working in their communities as social workers, mental health clinicians, and doulas – thus, by doing health they are sustaining their energy for their social change work – self-care as a radical act.

Author

• Meika E. Loe, Colgate University