The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging: Life Course and Personal Destiny in Niger

by Susan Rasmussen

Overview

To what degree does culture influence our concepts of age and aging? In our own culture, chronology is crucial to perceptions of the aging process. Our expectations for a twenty-year-old, for example, are different from those we have for a sixty-year-old. So entrenched are our ideas about aging that the notion of measuring age in ways other than chronology may be startling.

In this unique ethnographical study of the people of the Kel Ewey confederation of Tuareg, Rasmussen explores age and aging in an African culture. A seminomadic community in northern Niger, the Tuareg understand aging in a way that is distinctly nonlinear—a dimension of life they measure outside of a chronological time frame. Instead, rituals related to marriage, childbirth, and death mark the process of aging. In this way the life course of an individual is more important to the notion of age than the literal age. A sense of private power and transformation of self over time are thus achieved through ritual.

Rasmussen draws on field experience conducted between 1974 and 1995. The longevity of her ethnological study provided the opportunity for extended interaction with local residents, who eventually took an active role in studying the researcher. She explores the mutual exchange of knowledge about aging and life course—an interaction that itself sheds light on the need to deconstruct standard age-related categories for studying other cultures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875802206
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1997
Edition description:	1
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Susan J. Rasmussen is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Houston and the author of Those Who Touch, Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg, and Healing in Community.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: The Kel Ewey Tuareg Ethnographic Background
1 Phases of Life Course and Household Cycles
2 Aging, Gender, and Social Stratum
3 Life Course Rituals: Rites of Passage, Rites of Containment
4 Intergenerational Relationships and Intercultural Encounters
5 Parents and Children, Anthropologist and Residents
6 Aging, Power, and Resistance
7 Youths, Elders, and Ancestors
8 Tuareg Aging and Economical/Jural Authority
9 Aging, Ethnographic Authority, and "Objectivity"
Conclusions
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Rasmussen has captured the essence of Kel Ewey concepts of aging as a process.... I know of nothing quite like this in the aging literature."—Maria G. Catell

From the Publisher

Rasmussen (anthropology, U. of Houston) draws on field experience conducted between 1970 and 1996 to provide an ethnographical study that explores concepts of age and aging in an African culture. She describes how aging is a dimension of life they measure not in a literal, chronological frame but in terms of rituals related to marriage, childbirth, and death, thus achieving a sense of private power and transformation of self over time. The longevity of her study provided the opportunity for an extended mutual exchange of knowledge about aging and life course<-->an interaction that sheds light on the need to deconstruct standard age-related categories for studying other cultures. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

Rasmussen has captured the essence of Kel Ewey concepts of aging as a process.... I know of nothing quite like this in the aging literature.

Maria G. Catell