Paper short abstract:

This paper examines insecurity and vulnerability as experienced by the people of central Bhutan. I argue historical wealth inheritance systems as the primary reason why precarity, particularly among older adults, persists at their home spaces.

Paper long abstract:

Precarity has attracted renewed interest across the academic spectrum. It has become a byword for the lives of many people within the labour market of neoliberal capitalism of the post-industrialized Global North. Because of the ubiquity of displacement, social exclusion and precarity in the capitalist world on the one hand, and the prevailing notion of pre-industrialised worlds as secure arenas on the other, precarity is often understood as a phenomenon of urban, market-based societies.

In this paper, I examine precarity within the home in a non-industrialised milieu. I take home spaces as the site of my analysis where social security, integration and sustainability are usually found but where vulnerability, precarity, and disconnectedness may also occur. On the basis of participant observation and interviews, I demonstrate that older adults in central Bhutan, who are characterised by immobility due to frailty and disability, experience spatial injustice and alienation not only from the larger community but also within their home spaces. The paper argues that while old age, stigmatised sicknesses, and limited health services contribute to precarious status, the main cause of precarity in later life is attributable to the historical wealth inheritance system. I present a critical analysis of the land inheritance and descent system, considering its linkages to the transformation of one's home from a secure and inclusive to an insecure and disorienting place.