Att bli sitt bästa jag

Abstract

Self-care has become an increasingly prominent concept in contemporary popular culture, where it is often associated with health, well-being, and empowerment. Drawing on six semi structured interviews with young women in Sweden, the study examines their understandings and practices of self-care. Through the concepts of aesthetic entrepreneurialism and affective labour, the study explores the forms of work on the self that emerge from these understandings and practices. The findings show that self-care can be understood as an extensive and ongoing project of managing and working on the self. This work is not primarily focused on bodily or appearance-oriented forms of self-development, but rather on cultivating certain affects and shaping one's relationship to oneself. The study contributes to the limited research into how young women themselves understand, motivate, and experience self-care in contemporary life, as well as how this largely inward-oriented work on the self encompasses affective, aesthetic, and moral forms of labour.