“Kungathi silahliwe lana ”: Estrangement and the diminishment of amandla among institutionalised elders in Mlozane, rural KwaZulu-Natal

The ethnographic study on which this article is based explored the (inter)subjective experiences of aging among institutionalised elders in Mlozane, rural KwaZulu-Natal. Centring elders’ isiZulu language concepts and utterances as they articulate their self-perceptions of aging, I demonstrate that the process of aging is shaped by the diminishment of one’s capacity to exercise amandla and a resultant triadic estrangement from one’s familiar self, accustomed ways of being in the world, and familial care obligations. The concepts and utterances elders use to describe this experience are not mere metaphors but direct articulations of this severed condition. Their expressions and silences alike illuminate aging as a socially embedded unravelling where the diminishment of amandla casts aging and institutional life as realms of social and physical death.