Spatialising happiness economics: Global metrics, urban politics, and embodied technologies

Happiness has become a high-profile goal for national governments, city authorities, and technology developers finding new ways to map measure emotions through happiness economics, urban management, digital emotion-sensing. This paper advances critical geographical analysis of the neglected rationales, mechanisms, implications promoting emotion happiness. Researchers, policy-makers, publics alike are intrigued troubled by how growing concern with mapping monitoring human can co-occur increasing levels social inequality, suffering, anxiety, sadness. The outlines intersection between three key trajectories (economisation, spatialisation, technologisation) in order demonstrate particular assumptions about space, time, scale, subjectivity implied framing as an objective scientific construct be measured, problem government. These combine create what I term spatial science emotions, which is yet defined, empirically documented, critically analysed. It considers kind economic futures contested knowledge practices laid out this emotions. By bringing together insights from geographies neuroscientific behavioural forms governance, well-being, theories embodied technologies, challenges researchers shift attention subjective well-being public well-being.