Kamzori: Aging, Care, and Alienation in the Post-pastoral Himalaya

Main author: Simpson, Nikita
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-38594
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description As the Gaddi community of Himalayan India transition from agro–pastoralism to waged labor, configurations of kinship and care have shifted. Such shifts have introduced relational tensions, especially between elderly women, who have labored in the house and fields, expecting care in old age, and younger generations, who experience their own pressures of class aspiration. This article examines how the myriad tensions of the post-pastoral economy are experienced in the bodies of elderly women. It presents insights on kamzori, bodily weakness that is experienced by women who feel that their contribution of labor and care is unreciprocated by their kin or wider milieu. It recuperates alienation as a concept that captures distressed social relations. Alienation might be used by anthropologists studying aging, care, and debility to envisage the body in scalar relation to people, things and places, and illness or distress as disruption of such relations.
format Journal Article
author Simpson, Nikita
author_facet Simpson, Nikita
authorStr Simpson, Nikita
author_letter Simpson, Nikita
title Kamzori: Aging, Care, and Alienation in the Post-pastoral Himalaya
publisher Wiley
publishDate 2022
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/38594/