Anthropology of Kinship

Another look at kinship: Reasons why a paradigm shift is needed

by Dwight Read

published in 'Algebra Rodtsva' (in English and Russian), 2009

The ontological relationship between a genealogical space determined through genealogical tracing of links connecting... more The ontological relationship between a genealogical space determined through genealogical tracing of links connecting individuals and kin relations as they are identified through the use of kin terms can be clarified by uncovering the underlying logic of a kinship terminology through which the kin terms form a computational system with reference to a genealogical space. Then we need to consider how the ontological connection between the computational system for genealogical relations and the computational system for kin term relations are connected together to form a conceptual system for identifying and constructing kin relations. Finally, we need to show that delineation of the logic underlying the structure of the kinship terminology leads to new insights into the properties of kinship systems and differences among kinship systems.

What is Kinship?

by Dwight Read

published in 'The Cultural Analysis of Kinship: The Legacy of David Schneider and Its Implications for Anthropological Relativism,' R. Feinberg and M. Ottenheimer eds. University of Illinois Press,

I hypothesize that the terminological space provides a framework for defining the world of kin without presupposing... more I hypothesize that the terminological space provides a framework for defining the world of kin without presupposing that the kinship world is genealogical. Cultural rules of instantiation give kin terms genealogical reference and thereby the problem of presuming parenthood defined via reproduction as a universal basis for kinship is circumvented. The terminological space is constrained by general, structural properties that make it a “kinship space” and structural equations that give it its particular form. A mapping from the terminological space to the genealogical grid can be constructed under a straightforward mapping of the generating symbols of the terminological structure onto the primary kin types. This implies that it will always be possible to provide a genealogical “meaning” of the kin terms. Whether the genealogical “meaning” so constructed has cultural salience is at the heart of Schneider’s critique of kinship based on a presumed universal genealogical grid.

Tongan Kinship Terminology: Insights from an Algebraic Analysis

by Dwight Read

Formal analysis of kinship terminologies and its relationship to what constitutes kinship (complete text)

by Dwight Read

Published in Mathematical Anthropology and Cultural Theory: An International Journal Vol 1 No. 1

The goal of this paper is to relate formal analysis of kinship terminologies to a better understanding of who,... more The goal of this paper is to relate formal analysis of kinship terminologies to a better understanding of who, culturally, are defined as our kin. Part I of the paper begins with a brief discussion as to why neither of the two claims: (1) kinship terminologies primarily have to do with social categories and (2) kinship terminologies are based on classification of genealogically specified relationships traced through genitor and genetrix, is adequate as a basis for a formal analysis of a kinship
terminology.

The social category argument is insufficient as it does not
account for the logic uncovered through the formalism of rewrite rule analysis regarding the distribution of kin types over kin terms when kin terms are mapped onto a genealogical grid. Any ormal account must be able to account at least for the results obtained through rewrite rule analysis. Though rewrite rule analysis has made the logic of kinship terminologies more evident, the second claim must also be rejected for both theoretical and empirical reasons. Empirically, ethnographic evidence does not provide a consistent view of how genitors and genetrixes should be defined and even the existence of culturally recognized genitors is debatable for some groups. In addition, kinship relations for many groups are reckoned through a kind of kin term calculus independent of genealogical connections. Theoretically, rewrite rule formalism is descriptive and not explanatory of kinship terminology features. Four substantive
problems with rewrite rule formalism are identified and illustrated with an example based on the concepts, Friend and Enemy. In Part II these problems are resolved when a kinship terminology
is viewed from the perspective of a structured, symbolic system in which there is both a symbol calculus and a set of rules of instantiation giving the symbols empirical content.

Kinship theory: A paradigm shift

by Dwight Read

Published in 'Ethnology', 2007

The received view regarding the centrality of kinship terminologies in kinship systems assumes that terminologies are... more The received view regarding the centrality of kinship terminologies in kinship systems assumes that terminologies are genealogically constrained. This assumption ignores the generative logic of kinship terminologies, hence the need for a new paradigm. It is argued that kinship systems are based on two conceptual systems: the logic of genealogical tracing and the logic of kin term products. Structural implications of the generative logic of terminological structures are discussed, including the logical basis for the difference between descriptive and classificatory terminologies and transformations that may be made between different kinship terminologies through simple changes in structural equations. Connection between ethnographic observations and structural properties are identified. (Cultural anthropology, kinship, formal models, genealogy)

Formal analysis of kinship terminologies and its relationship to what constitutes kinship

by Dwight Read

An Algebraic Account of the American Kinship Terminology

by Dwight Read

Published in Current Anthropology, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Aug. - Oct., 1984), pp. 417-449

To be demonstrated in this article is the manner in which the AKT is structured as being generatable from a few, basic... more To be demonstrated in this article is the manner in which the AKT is structured as being generatable from a few, basic prin- ciples. The minimum goal is to demonstrate explicitly that the set of terms for the AKT is inherently structured as a system of objects (= kin terms), operations (= kin term products), and equations (e.g., Parent of Child as a consanguineal relation equals Self) and that the whole terminology can be mapped isomorphically onto an appropriately defined algebraic struc- ture. In turn, through this isomorphism, the machinery used in the study of algebraic structures can be invoked to examine the structural properties of the AKT as engendered by the set of objects, operations, and equations.

Cuerpo, sujeto, persona: Rodeo etnológico a la ética y la política de las tecnologías reproductivas

by Daniel Alberto Alegrett Salazar

Nociones de cuerpo, sujeto y persona fundamentarían debates éticos-políticos sobre lastecnologías de reproducción... more Nociones de cuerpo, sujeto y persona fundamentarían debates éticos-políticos sobre lastecnologías de reproducción asistida (ART). Éstas encarnarían promesas y amenazas para la“vida humana”. El desarrollo de las ART resolvería la infertilidad, superaría obstáculos a la procreación y satisfacería el deseo de familia. En un contexto tecno-científico, tienen una posición en el mercado y los regímenes de poder. Participarían problemáticamente en procesos de producción de individuos y relaciones. Reemplazarían al parentesco, unaimaginación moral para la que la persona es una especificación. Tal impacto sugeriría undesvío etnológico en la discusión. El registro etnográfico contextualizaría y recontextualizaríalas nociones de cuerpo, sujeto y persona. Recupero la etnología clásica del parentesco como principio de organización y recojo las intenciones de los llamados “nuevos estudios de parentesco” de ir más allá de supuestos naturalistas acerca de las relaciones. Trato de problematizar los usos discursivos de lo humano, natural, biológico, psicológico, social ycultural, incorporados en los debates sobre la intervención tecno-científica en la creación delhijo deseado.

All About My Mothers: The Work of Kinship and Gender in the Migration Practices of My Family

by Dada Docot

To state it succinctly, this paper is about the creation and negotiation of power among kin. In this essay, I... more
To state it succinctly, this paper is about the creation and negotiation of power among kin. In this essay, I introduce the three matriarchs in my immediate family, located in three different “sites” of home. These three matriarchs have replaced the patriarch of the family, my grandfather, who built up his career from being a street peddler during his youth, to a successful bamboo basket exporter and furniture maker from the early 1970s until the 1990s. The patriarch, Tatay (father), was based all throughout his life in our hometown, until his death in 1992. Nanay (mother), the grandmother, was briefly a matriarch until she passed away in 2006. Since then, the new matriarchs, three daughters out of his twelve children, have had varying degrees of hold over the members of the clan living in three locations, namely: barangay (district or village) San Nicolas, located in the agricultural town of Nabua in the Bicol Region of southeastern Luzon Island, Philippines; a house on P. Tuazon Blvd., in the commercial district of Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila, and; in the Greater Los Angeles Area, California. I argue in this paper that the maintenance of these “homes,” and the assignment of gendered roles for each site was, and continues to be, necessary for the maintenance and propagation of kin unity and kin success. Likewise, I argue that in the case of my family's migration, the assignment of gendered status, such as “surrogate motherhood,” and others that I will later explicate on, should be understood according to traditional kinship patterns, and must thus be seen as a markedly localized practice of kinship. As I will show in this paper, a look into the complex practices of kinship and gender provides an insight into the contemporary dynamics of Filipino migration.

In looking at the work of kinship in rural-urban-overseas migration, I create a framework that follows feminist literature on kinship, such as those by Jane Collier and Sylvia Yanagisako (1987), which call for the exploration of gender and kinship as a “unified form or analysis.” I likewise consider kinship as being fluid and constantly changing, following Janet Carsten's arguments in the book After Kinship. In this paper, I reflect on several questions: Why do women assume or accept these gendered roles as matriarchs, as caretakers, or plainly as “powerless” members of the clan? By taking on these highly gendered roles, do women family members become complicit to the reproduction of gender inequality, or do they only perform roles according to the traditional worldviews of the Filipino family? What motivates the activation of these kinship and gendered practices?

To answer the above questions, I merge critical "peminist" work (used as reference to the Filipino school of feminism; in the Filipino language, the alien letter/sound f is often replaced with the more natural p, such as in Pilipino/Pilipinas) with Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, particularly his concepts of doxa and habitus. Feminist critique of Bourdieu's work, such as the writings of Beverly Skeggs and Julie McLeod, has called for more sensitivity in looking at how material, emotional and intimate aspects of the everyday overlap and interact with social fields that transform gendered practices. Skeggs' and McLeod's suggestions are particularly useful when looking at the contemporary work of specific family values and practices. In this paper, I argue that there is more to the “hard work” (Aguilar 2009) in the maintenance of Filipino homes. I argue that it in locating “hard work,” it will be useful to look at Fredrik Barth's (1966) concepts of transcationalism and reciprocity, using in addition lenses from indigenous Philippine scholarship.

Finally, I find it necessary to return to an analysis of the “shadows of colonialism” that haunt contemporary Filipino life, as a way of understanding my own family's increasing idealization of the “home” in the United States – that “fragrant” place, where the sweet-scented “stateside” goods in the balikbayan boxes come from. As Melinda de Jesus (2005) writes, the first step towards peminist empowerment and decolonization is the recognition of the “imperial trauma.” Following native feminist writers (de Jesus 2005; Narayan 1993; Okely 1996; Ryang; 2005), I use an autobiographical style of writing, and hopefully this does not appear to the readers of this text as a classic case of navel-gazing, but as part of a feminist project in which one engages the self as a methodology for theorizing the intersections of the political and the personal experience (de Jesus 2005).

Love travel

by Dorota Szawarska

"Io voleva tuor quello che mio padre me daria". Autorità parentale e scelte matrimoniali dei figli: Venezia XV e XVI secolo, in: D. Lombardi, I. Fazio (ed.), Generazioni: legami di parentela tra passato e presente, Roma: Viella, 2006, 205-221.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Ritratto di una cortigiana del Cinquecento: Caterina de Medici da Verona e le sue vicende (1518-1582). In: Ritratti. La dimensione individuale nella storia (secc. XV- XIX), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Pierce, R. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 147-176.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent (1420- 1545). In: The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, Hg. Matthews- Grieco, S. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 173-197.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Marriage and Consent in Pretridentine Venice: Between Lay Conception and Ecclesiastical Conception, 1420-1545. In: The Sixteenth Century Journal, 39, 2008, 389-418.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice... more The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice (1420-1545). This article analyzes the differing conceptions of marriage held by the laity and by the ecclesiastical hierarchy as these ideas were expressed in a dialectical relationship in court. Central to this analysis is the concept of consent, since consent, with widely differing interpretations, formed the foundation and the essence of both canonical and lay customary marriage. In the pre-Tridentine ecclesiastical court, custom played a leading role in deciding matters related to the marriage bond. These sources allow access to aspects of marriage that are usually not recorded and make it possible to reevaluate social phenomena which have been defined from a post-Tridentine perspective as transgressive. Practices such as bigamy, concubinage, and stuprum appear not as deviant, but as part of socially accepted marital behavior that is much broader and more heterogeneous than historians have appreciated.

Global Affinities: Portuguese Marranos (Anusim), Traveling Jews, and Cultural Logics of Kinship (2011)

by Naomi Leite

Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 2011.

This dissertation explores issues of identification, relatedness, and belonging on a global scale, through an... more This dissertation explores issues of identification, relatedness, and belonging on a global scale, through an ethnographic study of Portugal’s urban Marranos (descendants of fifteenth-century forced converts to Catholicism) and foreign Jews who travel from abroad to meet them. Although not Jewish according to Jewish law, given centuries of intermarriage, Marranos are nonetheless widely considered to be part of “the Jewish family,” “lost brethren” who should be welcomed back to the Jewish people. Many Jews view them within the metanarrative of Jewish destruction and survival, the “eternal spark” that remains despite the Inquisition’s attempted elimination of Judaism from the Portuguese landscape. However, for numerous local reasons the present-day Marranos are not welcomed by Portugal’s tiny normative Jewish community. As a result, the urban Marranos, who feel strongly that they are Jews by descent, turn to foreign Jewish travelers as sources of educational, spiritual, and material assistance in their bid to join the Jewish world and attain recognition as Jews in the present.

Based on two years of fieldwork in Marrano organizations in Lisbon and Porto and traveling alongside Jewish tourists and outreach workers, the dissertation undertakes a processual analysis of the constitution of ancestral Jewish identity and of the role of transnational, cross-cultural affective ties in affording a sense of global Jewish belonging. The primary questions driving this work are, first, how and why do far-flung people come to feel that they are related to one another, and what terms do they use to characterize and think through that feeling of relatedness? Second, to what extent are their perceptions of essential connection disrupted or transformed by face-to-face contact? By interrogating the cultural logics of kinship writ large—the language and conceptual frameworks people use to articulate and make sense of their feelings of relatedness to one another—and then examining how those logics play out “on the ground,” this study provides a fine-grained ethnographic analysis of the mechanisms through which global and ancestral imaginings become concretized in social interaction. Ultimately, I argue, physical proximity remains the productive sphere for identification and belonging, even as global interconnection provides new opportunities for encounter.

«Être parent aujourd'hui: la construction du lien de filiation dans l'univers symbolique de la parenté»

by Hélène Belleau

Kinship in the Past Tense: Language, Care and Cultural Memory in a Mexican Community

by Magnus Pharao Hansen

MA paper in linguistic anthropology, 2012, Brown University.

The community of San Jeronimo Acazulco, Mexico State, Mexico is in the process of drastic social change, in which... more The community of San Jeronimo Acazulco, Mexico State, Mexico is in the process of drastic social change, in which patterns of both social organization and of language are shifting. The indigenous Otomí language is the first language of the senior generation, while the rest of the community speaks only Spanish. I show how the use of the Otomí language has come be associated with the community's past to the extent that every time the language is used it indexes a set of ideologies and narratives about the past. Using the Bakhtinian concept of the chronotope, I show how the Otomí language has become indexical of an ideology of relatedness and kinship associated with the past (the Ndõngũ chronotope), and how speakers draw on the chronotope to perform social and communicative functions in the present. I argue that in this way elderly Otomí speakers use the Otomí language to place demands of care on the younger generations, by contrasting contemporary patterns of sociality with those of the past.

Erweiterte Fallstudien zu Verwandtschaft und Reproduktionstechnologien. Potenziale einer Ethnografie von Normalisierungsprozessen

by Stefan Beck

Co-authored with Michi Knecht, Maren Klotz, Nurhak Polat;
In: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 107, 2011/1, pp. 21–47

The Personal is Patrilineal: Namus as Sovereignty

by Diane E. King

King, Diane E. 2008 The Personal is Patrilineal: Namus as Sovereignty. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 15(3):317-342.

In this article I propose a new model of namus, the concept recognized in some circum-Mediterranean, Middle Eastern,... more In this article I propose a new model of namus, the concept recognized in some circum-Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Central and South Asian cultures and usually translated as “honor.” One way to understand namus is to regard it as patrilineal sovereignty, particularly reproductive sovereignty. After an “honor killing,” a “defense of honor” explanatory narrative is told by both perpetrator and community alike. I argue that an honor killing represents a show of reproductive sovereignty by people who belong to a patrilineage. I first describe ethnographic contexts in which “honor killings” are operative, and then, relying on Delaney’s (1991) model of namus as deeply bound up with patrogenerative theories of procreation, argue that a hymen is both a symbolic and real border to membership in the group. Finally, I apply this new conceptualization to statecraft, specifically to killings carried out in Iraqi Kurdistan following the founding of the Kurdish statelet there in 1991. Here, reproductive sovereignty and defense of borders were operative writ large as “honor killing” logic was expanded from lineage to state.

Lineal Masculinity: Gendered Memory within Patriliny

by Diane E. King

King, Diane E. and Linda Stone 2010 Lineal Masculinity: Gendered Memory within Patriliny. American Ethnologist 37(2):323-336.

In this article, we present a model of gender within patrilineal descent for a broad region covering Asia, Europe, and... more In this article, we present a model of gender within patrilineal descent for a broad region covering Asia, Europe, and North Africa. We develop the concept of "lineal masculinity," a perceived ontological essence that flows to and through men over the generations. It is especially expressed through people's notions of the past, present, and future of their patrilineages. We elaborate lineal masculinity in terms of male achievement, lineage founders, lineage segmentation, and male reproduction. Our model offers cross-cultural analysis and so provides an alternative to the position of strong cultural relativism in kinship and gender studies. [patriliny, masculinity, lineage theory, kinship, gender, identity, memory]