ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ways in which happiness and unhappiness are intertwined in Botswana in two frameworks for understanding happiness. On the one hand, Botswana’s rapid movement from one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income country, coupled with liberal democracy and solid government investment in development and health, has also brought new forms of frustration, disappointment, and despair. People live in more comfort and with more opportunities, yet many feel left out and struggling. In another dimension, emotions have long been understood to be intersubjective, such that an emotion can directly affect the well-being of others, and especially its object. A new material plenty, visible in shopping malls and the profusion of things circulating, complements the ways in which emotional experiences are shared between people, but also is part of an attenuation of some relationships and intensification of others as mediated through consumer pleasure.
