Paper short abstract:

Becoming old and diabetic in Tanzania means a chronification of progressive insecurity and an entangled control and management of cure and (self-)care on household and community level. ‘Kinning’ social relations – including diabetes-induced biosociality – become increasingly meaningful.

Paper long abstract:

Rapid demographic and epidemiological transition in Tanzania leads to two major dynamics: a substantial ageing of the Tanzanian society, and a considerable increase of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This paper examines cases of elderly people in coastal Tanzania who grow old with diabetes in rural and urban environments. 'Becoming old and diabetic' is not only about intricate therapeutic itineraries and promising resorts of curative hope, but also about newly emerging flows of diabetes knowledge, control and management. They constitute a 'diabetic mapping' of health and illness, which is intrinsically centered on the household and its members. Sophisticated technologies such as insulin injections and glucose inhibiting medication, professional biomedical knowledge, for instance, about metabolic disorders through health education in a diabetes clinic, tight control (e.g. daily tests of blood sugar level), trendy global concepts of 'active ageing'/'healthy ageing' referring to a substantial, self-responsible change of lifestyle (e.g. doing physical exercise, going on a diet), and changes in care arrangement (for example leading to new 'carescapes' including kin/non-kin caregivers, health professionals, lay advisers, mobile phone assistance, medication-based selfcare) meet the older Tanzanian diabetics' risks of physical disability, economic hardship, social marginalization, and emotional despair. To provide answers for the overall question 'How does an elderly person deal with diabetes and its care in coastal Tanzania?' we focus on households with older diabetics, which represent a place where a progressive chronic illness, an ageing body and mind, different social dimensions, and these new flows converge - and where major care is provided.