"Where were they until now?" Aging, Care and Abandonment in a Bosnian Town Cover Image

"A gdje su oni bili dosad?" Starenje, skrb i napuštanje u jednom bosanskom gradu
"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 Stubbs
Subject(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.

  • Issue Year: 45/2015
  • Issue No: 38
  • Page Range: 30-57
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Croatian
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