Writing the ‘Good Life’ in Narratives of Canada (Journal Canada & Beyond)
In her book The Promise of Happiness (2010), Sara Ahmed explains how the concept of happiness is related to heteronormative notions of the “good life”: “The good life is the life that is lived in the right way, by doing the right things, over and over again” (Ahmed 2010, 36).Questioning the promise of a good life leads to unhappiness, but unhappiness (unlike happiness) can be productive for social change as it fosters a possibility to open to new affective spaces in the subject’s life. Ahmed describes individuals’ urges toward “the good life” as frequently grounded in attachments that, while often toxic and ultimately unfulfilling, are not recognized as such by the people who engage in these negative relations.