1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455968403321

Autore

Lamb Sarah <1960->

Titolo

White saris and sweet mangoes [[electronic resource] ] : aging, gender, and body in North India / / Sarah Lamb

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2000

ISBN

1-280-09487-7

9786613520425

0-520-93526-8

1-59875-004-6

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (326 p.)

Disciplina

305.26/0954/14

Soggetti

Older people - India - Bengal - Social conditions

Aging - Family relationships - India - Bengal

Older people - India - Bengal - Psychological aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Tables -- Preface -- Note on Translation and Transliteration -- Introduction: Perspectives through Age -- Part One. PERSONS AND FAMILIES -- Part Two. AGING AND DYING -- Part Three. GENDERED TRANSFORMATIONS -- Afterword -- Notes -- Glossary -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This rich ethnography explores beliefs and practices surrounding aging in a rural Bengali village. Sarah Lamb focuses on how villagers' visions of aging are tied to the making and unmaking of gendered selves and social relations over a lifetime. Lamb uses a focus on age as a means not only to open up new ways of thinking about South Asian social life, but also to contribute to contemporary theories of gender, the body, and culture, which have been hampered, the book argues, by a static focus on youth. Lamb's own experiences in the village are an integral part of her book and ably convey the cultural particularities of rural Bengali life and Bengali notions of modernity. In exploring ideals of family life and the intricate interrelationships between and within generations, she enables us to understand how people in the village construct, and deconstruct, their lives. At the same time her study



extends beyond India to contemporary attitudes about aging in the United States. This accessible and engaging book is about deeply human issues and will appeal not only to specialists in South Asian culture, but to anyone interested in families, aging, gender, religion, and the body.