The essential relationship between sustainability and human well-being is increasingly acknowledged across various governance levels, highlighting an urgent need for grounded understandings of how people define and assess their own well-being. These definitions, values, and indicators are fundamentally dynamic, shifting across scales, time, and in response to changing ecological and socioeconomic contexts, even within the same community.
This presentation introduces a longitudinal methodological framework designed to identify the situated values and indicators of well-being. We describe research conducted with both coopérateurs (grape growers supplying cooperatives) and vignerons (independent growers and winemakers) across two distinct wine-producing regions in southwestern France. The study utilized a mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis to capture in-situ expressions of well-being.
Initial individual engagement with winegrowers involved detailed, qualitative techniques: participant observation, informal discussions, open-ended surveys, and the use of aquarelles (watercolor representations) to capture key interview themes. Following this, a subset of participants attended structured working sessions where they engaged with academic researchers, used drawing and writing to articulate their own well-being, utilized historical and current farm maps to discuss their attachment to their place, and developed optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for their future as winegrowers.
Subsequently, the emergent well-being values were ranked using a complex system of notation applied via standardized questionnaires. Statistical and correlative analyses were then employed to identify the core values of well-being among winegrowers utilizing organic practices in the South of France.
This work aims to bridge the persistent gap between local practitioners' experiences and policy-makers' actions. The methodology presented emphasizes the importance of utilizing diverse, multi-modal data collection forms to achieve a comprehensive, biocultural-informed understanding of well-being as a dynamic, lived experience.
This talk is intended for the session named “Reimagining well-being: Measuring what matters through shared biocultural experiences”