Tension

Name: Tension
Price: 277 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781478029830

Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas

Nikita Kaur Simpson

$277

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Duke University Press
17 March 2026

Ethnic studies; Social & cultural anthropology; Diseases & disorders; Psychiatry

Series: Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography

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.

By: Nikita Kaur Simpson
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 572g
ISBN: 9781478029830
ISBN 10: 1478029838
Series: Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 17 March 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

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

Reviews for Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas

""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