Tension by Nikita Kaur Simpson

Tension by Nikita Kaur Simpson

In Tension, Nikita Kaur Simpson examines the effects of rapid development in the Himalayas on the minds and bodies of the Gaddi people who inhabit them through attention to the multifaceted state of distress they call “tension.” This “tension” takes many forms: Kamzori, or weakness, in the bodies of elderly women; “Future tension” accumulating in the minds of young girls; or Opara, or black magic, afflicting whole families. Through her long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Simpson follows the ways in which Gaddi people tie this distress to broader structural changes, such as land dispossession and caste, class, tribal and gender inequality, which are growing alongside modernity and prosperity. In doing so, she shows how “tension” acts as an everyday diagnostic of the problems of cultural, economic and environmental change as they shape intimate life. At once a lived historical account, a cartography of care relations, and a multi-sensory exploration of the intimate experiences of atmosphere and body, Tension puts forth a novel theory of distress, that inequality is often determined by who is made to feel, hold, and absorb distress.

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

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781478033295
Title	Tension
Author	Nikita Kaur Simpson
Series	Critical Global Health: Evidence Efficacy Ethnography
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Duke University Press
Year published	2026-03-17
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.