Anthropology Of Care Research Articles

Khidmat as Understanding: Muslim Women, Marriage, and Ethics of Care in Muslim Households

The present ethnographic research falls within the field of cultural anthropology; it delves into the concept of khidmat among newly married Muslim women in Patna, Bihar, and its impact on their daily lives and family relationships. Rooted in Islamic theology, khidmat encompasses labor, service, devotion, and care, and thus endows household duties with spiritual meaning. Highlighting these spiritual epistemologies of ordinary caregiving, I emphasize that khidmat is not merely a chore, but a sacred responsibility intertwined with religious meaning. Seen as a means of securing divine blessings, such ordinary care practices at home foster mutual understanding (apsī samajhdārī) among spouses and in-laws, aiding in the prevention and resolution of household and marital conflicts. Through khidmat, women infuse their everyday lives with spiritual depth, transforming the mundane into the sacred. In doing so, this study challenges conventional approaches to ordinary ethics that divide the everyday from the transcendental; instead, it situates khidmat within Islamic ethics as a framework for piety in which relationality is central. Aligning with contemporary scholarship on the anthropology of care and ethics, this ethnography reveals how khidmat operates as a complex ontological concept, offering new perspectives on ordinary acts of care in gendered Muslim households in contemporary India.

Apresentação do Dossiê : O Cuidado e suas Matérias: diálogos entre a antropologia do cuidado e os estudos sociais da ciência e tecnologia

Apresentação do Dossiê : O Cuidado e suas Matérias: diálogos entre a antropologia do cuidado e os estudos sociais da ciência e tecnologia

Dear Sylvie: A Handful of Letters to Nearly Perfect Strangers

SummaryIn this collection of letters addressed to nearly perfect strangers, I consider the ways fleeting connections can move with and shape us despite never becoming deep relationships. Drawing on the anthropology of care and kinship, I revisit the summer my father and I spent living in an apartment building for cancer patients and their caregivers. My journal entries from that summer are filled with stories about people I hardly knew and, in some cases, whose names I never learned. The letters in this essay are written to and about these strangers, who landed in my journal right alongside the people in the world I hold most dear. They are the words I wish I would have said to them then and what I would like to say to them now. Read together, these letters suggest that chance encounters need not transform into ongoing relationships to play a part in making us who we are.

The “Last Child”: Lone Family Caregivers in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands

ABSTRACTI investigate local explanations for a common family configuration of care for older relatives on the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: the “lone family caregiver.” Through the examination of a paradigm case emerging from these explanations, I argue that local logics can divest some children of obligations to care for their older parents. I suggest that this case is an important addition to recent discussions within the anthropology of care that emphasize how families practice “care across distance,” as it offers an alternative example of how families manage care in the context of migration.

Waste is not the end. For an anthropology of care, maintenance and repair

Waste is not the end. For an anthropology of care, maintenance and repair

Towards an anthropology of care: Breastfeeding as a care work

Towards an anthropology of care: Breastfeeding as a care work

An intricate anthropology of care

Comment on Roberts, Nathaniel. 2016. To be cared for: the power of conversion and foreignness of belonging in a Chennai slum. Oakland: University of California Press

Recursos naturales: una alternativa utilizada como complemento terapéutico por las personas que viven con el virus/síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida (PVV), Tampico Tamaulipas, México

Aims: Were centred in understanding and explaining the meaning of natural resources for those people living with AIDS, from the perspective of anthropology of care, at the same time to determine which are those resources and their effectiveness from the users' perspective and to know how they apprehend those natural resources, who recommend them, as well as their influence in persevering with traditional medicine. Also to request opinions about such natural resources among their own traditional medical doctors. Methodology: A qualitative descriptive study was performed by means of action investigation type based on an ethnographic method. The sample was constituted by 1263 individuals living with the virus or AIDS, registered cases within the Jurisdiccion Sanitaria II in Tampico (Mexico) (CONASIDA -2002), from whom 180 form a self-aid group fully coordinated with the Frente Nacional de Personas Afectadas de Virus de SIDA (FRENPAVIH-2004). 14 individuals were selected as key informants in a convenient sample. Doctors opinions were considered due to their paramount knowledge with respect to the matter, their selection done at random but for their premise of being directly involved in AIDS patients. Results: 39 different types of vegetables (medical plants, fruits and greens). No specifically taken into consideration for the treatment were some mineral or animal resources. The AIDS people declare having used some green resources, as from their personal point of view they have experienced an improvement in their health, they feel better. They buy them locally (natural resources shops, herbal shops or are cultivated in their own gardens). They have been recommended by people of their own environment, their social group, their family or got them from the self-aid group where they belong to. Doctors participant in the study express that natural resources as an alternative or complement to traditional medical treatment to AIDS are not scientific but they confess not to be familiarized with those medical plants o alternative medicine. Conclusions: According to testimonials the conclusion is that there is evidence that within these type of groups their common habits and health beliefs are present in their lives thus the use of natural resources in AIDS patients go parallel to the traditional medical treatments and together with their own values and way of life, social environment where they belong to what allows them to have their personal cosmos-vision idea. Leininger and his model of trans-cultural nursing suggests different cultures are to be considered with their own convictions of health and illness, what would allow a specific traditional sanitary care as well, because patterns and life styles have an important influence in people's decisions. He also takes into account Emicos' point of view, the essence of human being and he suggests as well that combining them with traditional professional knowledge would help to adopt actions and take decisions coherent with cosmos-vision.

Cultura dos cuidados: mulheres negras e formação da enfermagem profissional brasileira

This paper intends to analyze the exclusion of black women process from the origins of the Brazilian professional nursing. Based on the proposition of the anthropology of care, this study shows that black women cared sick people before the nursing professionalization in Brazil. Results of this process have created a professional identity for Brazilian nursing essentially characterized by white woman, daughter of elite. A reflection allows us to suppose that black representations in Brazil have reiterated stereotypes that has prevented from inclusion of blacks into modern nursing, while the black representation within Brazil has projected black women as morally disqualified, characterizing them as inappropriate for practicing the art and science of caring.