Tension

“This beautifully written book offers a glimpse into how ordinary people in the Indian Himalaya experience economic, social, and political upheaval as an intensification of tension in the domain of everyday life. Simpson’s loving attention to the texture of intimate relationships, the waning and waxing intensity of atmospheric affects, and the multiplicity of somatic orientations to tension is ethnography at its finest.“­­—Radhika Govindrajan, author of Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas“This is ethnography at its finest, showcasing compelling theoretical arguments rooted in the thought and experiences of individuals whose lives Simpson explores in loving detail. The book is a major contribution to medical anthropology, South Asian studies and the study of aging, exemplifying what nuanced attention to materiality, relation, atmosphere, and affect can achieve.”—Lawrence Cohen, author of No Aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things

Nikita Kaur Simpson is Reader in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London.