"Where were they until now?" Aging, Care and Abandonment in a Bosnian Town
"Where were they until now?" Aging, Care and Abandonment in a Bosnian Town
Author(s): Azra Hromadžić, Jason Danely, Miloš Milenković, Sonja Podgorelec, Tihana Rubić, Željka Petrović Osmak, Paul StubbsSubject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
Published by: Hrvatsko etnološko društvo
Keywords: care; aging; the state; family; semi-absence; socialism and postsocialism; war and postwar
Summary/Abstract: This article delves into Bosnia-Herzegovina, and especially into the town of Bihać, to ethnographically examine the changing nature of the state and family, as visible through practices of elder care. I use my ethnographic data gathered at a nursing home Vitalis in Bihać, and especially the predicament of an elderly Bosnian woman whom I call Zemka, to argue that both the state and family in postwar and postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina materialize as semi-absent. In the process of unpacking these multiple semi-absences, I reveal the lived effects of changing postwar and postsocialist state, and altering kinship relations as they affect "ordinary" people.
Journal: Etnološka tribina : Godišnjak Hrvatskog etnološkog društva
- Issue Year: 45/2015
- Issue No: 38
- Page Range: 3-29
- Page Count: 27
- Language: English