‘Field Notes’ is a fortnightly column in which Regen Melbourne’s Lead Convenors provide on-the-ground updates and insights from their work and focus areas.

Having recently returned from Bhutan, the country famous for Gross National Happiness, Director of Research Alison Whitten shares her reflections on three key concepts we might apply to Melbourne’s regeneration: sufficiency, spirituality and new approaches to systemic measurement.

In the six weeks since I returned from Bhutan, I’ve received a range of responses when I mention the trip:

“Oh wow, what was it like?  I’ve heard it’s amazing and not many tourists visit there.” 

Yes, in summary it was an amazing experience, and no, we did not see many tourists relative to many places of similar cultural and natural interest.

“Did you actually fly into the airport there? It sounds wild.” 

Yes – please refer to this piece for a description! Heart-racing stuff.

“Ah, Gross National Happiness – I’ve heard it’s a great intention but there are a lot of issues with how it plays out.”

Well, yes, and yes and…not surprisingly, like many things, it’s not simple.

I’ve welcomed healthy conversations about all angles of Gross National Happiness (GNH) since releasing my first field note from my time in Bhutan. Some of the tensions that exist in the country’s social, economic and political systems were visible in the places that we visited. 

For example, younger generations see less appeal and opportunity in rural, agrarian lifestyles, contributing to rapid urbanisation in a few cities and significant out-migration (including heavily to Australia) in pursuit of work and study. The influence of social media and its impact on mental health is evident. And discussions with government representatives indicated that cultural norms may at times hinder the kind of robust debate required for effective and fully informed policy-making. 

Some tensions were less visible to us as first-time visitors, perhaps most notably the impacts of policies developed prior to the current constitution that pursued national cohesion at a significant cost to the rights of minority groups within the population. This has drawn unfavourable international attention to Bhutan, and as a result, led some to question the underlying premise of GNH. Why should we pay attention to this system if the country championing it contains such knotty flaws?

“Just as Bhutan did when it studied global democracies to pick the ‘best’ elements to inform its own constitution, we have the opportunity to identify the aspects of GNH that are most useful, and most suitable, to our context here in Australia.”

It would take a PhD (or a few) to meaningfully unpack these points, and I won’t pretend that my musings here can serve as a substitute. However, I can reflect briefly on how I am grappling with these tensions. 

First, to note the obvious, no place is perfect. This does not excuse exclusionary and discriminatory policies, but it acknowledges that Bhutan is not unique in this sense. I have lived in three democracies – the US, South Africa and Australia – that have all leaned heavily on exclusionary race-based policy frameworks in recent times.

Second, the visible challenges to Bhutan’s social and economic development are very similar to those facing other emerging economies, and you can argue that many of these issues have become more acute as a result of western influence. GNH offers a coherent and intentional way of responding to such challenges, something that is lacking in many other developing contexts where I have spent time. As Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley noted to the United Nations in 2012, when GNH was beginning to influence what are now the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Bhutan is not a country that has ‘attained’ GNH… Like most developing nations, we are struggling with the challenge of fulfilling the basic needs of our people. What separates us, however, from most others is that we have made happiness – the foundation of human needs – as the goal of societal change.”

And third, just as Bhutan did when it studied global democracies to pick the ‘best’ elements to inform its own constitution, we have the opportunity to identify the aspects of GNH that are most useful, and most suitable, to our context here in Australia. This is where going back to the existence of GNH is noteworthy, including all of the ways in which it has facilitated constructive and innovative approaches to governance, healthcare delivery and ecological preservation, among other societal priorities.

Within the GNH system, there are three themes that I am currently exploring with the greatest curiosity, though I’m sure others will emerge over time.

Sufficiency, or what constitutes a good life

Gross National Happiness is oriented towards a wellbeing goal of ‘sufficiency’, which is defined through its formal framework and the set of metrics that measure individual happiness. A cynic might look at this as a bland approach that limits aspiration: where is the glamour or appeal in sufficiency? 

For me, though, this is a refreshing reframing of how we understand what we need, individually and collectively. When Regen Melbourne released the Greater Melbourne City Portrait last year, the obvious visualised message was that our lifestyles are putting enormous and unsustainable pressure on global ecological systems. We consume way more than we need (how much of that stuff advertised at Southern Cross Station actually makes our lives better?), and it’s literally costing us the planet.

A sufficiency lens reframes what we are aiming for to focus on what we genuinely need. This is not about tolerating suffering, but it is about shifting our expectations around what constitutes a good life. 

We have started to explore this already through the City Portrait: when we set targets for the measures within each Social Foundation dimension, we focused on describing what ‘basic needs’ look like for people here. We grappled with whether our standards in Melbourne should align with or extend beyond global targets. In some cases, we identified that Melbourne’s access to resources means that some basic needs (food security, affordable housing) should be universally met. In other cases, our targets were not absolute. What would it look like to frame these targets with a Bhutan-influenced ‘sufficiency’ lens? 

Reorienting our understanding of wellbeing to focus on individual sufficiency doesn’t mean compromising on a good quality of life. Instead, it generates new possibilities through shifting resources to contribute to collective benefits, the idea of ‘private sufficiency and public luxury’. This renders images of lush public parks, sleek public transport systems and – just imagine! – urban rivers fit for swimming. In this mindset, the beauty of private sufficiency opens up opportunities for abundance that can be shared and celebrated by everyone. Now that is aspirational.

Spirituality, or the interconnectedness of all things

Bhutan is a deeply spiritual place, and this spirituality permeates through society and is directly connected to personal wellbeing in the GNH index. The question of whether GNH can exist outside of a predominantly Bhuddist place often comes up, and was a point of interest to me when I arrived. 

Of course, Australia is not a place where centering religion makes sense. Even ‘spirituality’ can be a contested concept – who has the right to propose how anyone else should feel? In Bhutan, however, the spiritual aspects of Buddhism link back to a few key elements that can translate to our place, and perhaps should more strongly. First is the idea of interconnectedness, identifying that all entities are connected to all other entities, human and non-human. Second, and related to this, is an emphasis on compassion. If we are all connected, then showing compassion and care for others becomes a natural priority and inclination. 

“Reorienting our understanding of wellbeing to focus on individual sufficiency doesn’t mean compromising on a good quality of life. Instead, it generates new possibilities.”

As one of the speakers on our trip pointed out, compassion is at the heart of any religion in its purest form. What also struck me was how these concepts link closely to Indigenous understandings of caring for Country, which similarly begin with an understanding of interconnectedness and interdependence.

There are many hints of these concepts in Regen Melbourne’s work, not least in the ‘hug’ on the Melbourne Doughnut that speaks to ‘healing and reconnecting to Country and each other.’ I am keen to unpack these further, particularly how we can continue to build the visibility and centrality of Indigenous knowledge systems in our work. After all, we need to look no further for a foundational understanding of regeneration in practice.

Systemic measurement, or how we take a person-centric approach to our data

On a more tactical level, I’ve been exploring the technical aspects of how GNH is measured, relative to our approach to measuring wellbeing through the City Portrait. 

The primary difference is that the data comprising the GNH index comes from a dedicated survey of thousands of Bhutanese people. What this enables is a sense of each person’s overall wellbeing, which is then aggregated into an overall national happiness index. Returning to the idea of sufficiency, this approach allows for an understanding of how individuals are faring across a full range of standards: are individuals’ needs being met across all measures? Only some? This is where ‘sufficiency’ is defined, not as perfection across all of the measured domains, but as a ‘happiness threshold’ across most domains.

In contrast, the data behind the City Portrait comes from a variety of sources, telling us what proportion of the population has needs met on each dimension. But this compilation of data sets is unable to tell us whether it is the same people who are facing social shortfall across multiple dimensions. For example, are the same people facing housing affordability challenges and food insecurity? We can assume that there is likely overlap, but we aren’t certain.

This methodological difference offers an opportunity to explore how we might take a person-centric approach to future data collection. Not only would a survey-based data collection method help to show correlations across dimensions and parts of the population, but it would also support new forms of systems-based storytelling, describing the personal experiences of individuals within Melbourne’s urban system. I look forward to exploring this as we extend the City Portrait’s capabilities and narratives.

As I noted in my first post-Bhutan piece, I know that these reflections and observations only scratch the surface. I’ll close out this series with one more set of notes on my trip, but in the meantime, reach out to me at alison@regen.melbourne if anything piques your interest or you’d like to add to my understanding of this special place, from which I’ve learned much already.

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