Led workshop: WISERD annual conference workshop, University of Swansea: Exploring four key questions concerning how academic and political debates about well-being relate to issues of social participation and civil society through the life course.

Drawing from research conducted across the network, a thirty-minute paper will be presented outlining four key questions concerning how academic and political debates about wellbeing relate to issues of social participation and civil society through the life course. These questions will then form the basis for discussion within the workshop for the remainder of the session, exploring how innovative well-being research across a range of academic disciplines, can be conducted to address this conference theme. The questions are (and in no prioritised order): (i) When conducting interdisciplinary well-being research, are there common theoretical and methodological themes which can be applied to the examination of human experience across life courses? (ii) How is well-being both understood and promoted across different forms of social participation, and through various cultural activities and creative endeavours engaged in within civil society? (iii) What aspects of the well-being debate need particular attention when considering intergenerational issues, and the differences between how adults and children are often viewed and treated in civil society? (iv) In what ways does the environment, and how human beings behave within that environment, impact on well-being and the ability to engage in social participation and civil society across life courses?