Tension
Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas
Book •
Nikita Kaur Simpson's 'Tension' examines how the Gaddi people of the Western Himalayas experience and describe various forms of mental and bodily distress through the term 'tension.
' Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Simpson traces how rapid development, land dispossession, and inequalities of caste, class, and gender shape intimate life, bodily complaints, and atmospheres of distress.
The book argues that 'tension' is a relational idiom that reveals who in a community is made to feel, hold, and absorb suffering.
Through multi-sensory narrative, household histories, and case studies — including possession, bodily weakness, and accusations of madness — it offers a gendered and relational theory of distress.
The work situates local expressions within broader historical and conceptual debates about mental health, care, and ecological change.
' Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Simpson traces how rapid development, land dispossession, and inequalities of caste, class, and gender shape intimate life, bodily complaints, and atmospheres of distress.
The book argues that 'tension' is a relational idiom that reveals who in a community is made to feel, hold, and absorb suffering.
Through multi-sensory narrative, household histories, and case studies — including possession, bodily weakness, and accusations of madness — it offers a gendered and relational theory of distress.
The work situates local expressions within broader historical and conceptual debates about mental health, care, and ecological change.
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Mentioned by 
Miranda Melcher
Nikita Kaur Simpson, "Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas" (Duke UP, 2026)
Mentioned by 
Miranda Melcher
Nikita Kaur Simpson, "Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas" (Duke UP, 2026)
