Paper short abstract:

This paper shows that aging in the city of Zanzibar is embedded in transnational care spaces, whereby elderly people understand 'good' aging as a narrow path of agency between acceptance and resistance of bodily, mental and social changes to which they find cosmopolitan answers.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past centuries, a transcultural space has been created between urban Zanzibar and Oman through political expansion and an exchange of goods, people and ideas resulting in dense networks across the Indian Ocean. What happens if moral aspects of aging, agency and care are negotiated in a city and over national boarders in a cosmopolitan and transnational environment? Cosmopolitan moralities become visible in the aging process, especially once elderly people become ill or frail and are confronted with the finiteness of life. Based on seventeen months of multi-sited ethnographic research in the city of Zanzibar and Muscat, this paper analyses ideas of 'good' aging and caregiving from the perspective of elderly Zanzibari, as well as their relatives and acquaintances within these transcultural and transnational networks. It argues that we can observe a crystallization of cosmopolitan moralities in two aspects: First, when we look at how elderly Zanzibari deal with situations in which they experience frailty, serious health problems or disablement and second, in their agentic negotiation of caregiving. These cosmopolitan moralities are negotiated during regular and long visits, frequent calls, the sending of gifts, medications and money through visitors or specialized companies and when organizing medical treatments for major health issues. The findings of this paper show that aging in the city of Zanzibar is embedded in a crystallization of moralities, whereby elderly people understand 'good' aging as a narrow path of agency between acceptance and resistance of bodily, mental and social changes to which they find cosmopolitan answers.