Ethics of Neighborly Intimacy among Community Health Activists in Delhi

Abstract

What makes community health activism an ethical undertaking? I examine how, among Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in an urban poor neighborhood in Delhi, health work is underscored by relational sensibilities. By primarily situating the inquiry into the everyday lives of ASHAs, and beyond the formal trajectories of their work, I show how their care work and relational commitments exceed the forms of care foregrounded in public health program protocols. ASHAs operate through an ethics of neighborly intimacy – relational knowledge and acts, guided by ethical obligations toward their neighbors, and underscored by existing dependencies and care, and the detachments and differentiations of relationships.

Topics & Concepts