ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the effects of metaphors, discourses and other framing devices on the understandings of health and well-being at work. It explores a Foucauldian politics of self-care and suggests that discourses of self-care are helping to turn the healthy life-style into an individual rather than an organizational or societal responsibility. The chapter considers Foucauldian influences on connections between age and well-being, and the construction of health in terms of competitive performance and fitness. It focuses on the relationship between health and learning, and the case of the neo-liberal learner-subject, who disciplines him/herself into becoming a desirable and successful employee through a career- and life-long commitment to skills-refresh and self-reinvention. The book also focuses on the interesting yoking of health to safety in the 'health and safety' discourse, which helps to cast the unhealthy employee as one who is unsafe.
