Daena Funahashi Book Chat

In Untimely Sacrifices (Cornell, 2023), Daena Funahashi (Anthropology Department, UC Berkeley) questions why individuals may give their time and energy to the collective against their own self-interest. Turning to Finland - where public health officials named occupational burnout a "new hazard" of the new economy - Funahashi asks what moves people to work to the point of pathological stress.
Contrary to health experts who highlight the importance of self-management and energetic conservation, Funahashi questions the very economic premise of cognitive psychology that one could "economize" one's energy and thus save oneself. By pitting anthropological takes on sacrifice against clinical discourses on pressure, work, and coping, Funahashi offers ways to rethink what drives stress.
Funahashi is joined by C.D. Blanton (English Department).