Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship
Cambridge University Press, 1/12/2008
EAN 9780521656276, ISBN10: 0521656273
Paperback, 228 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
Our understanding of what makes a person a relative has been transformed by radical changes in marriage arrangements and gender relations, and by new reproductive technologies. We can no longer take it for granted that our most fundamental social relationships are grounded in 'biology' or 'nature'. These developments have prompted anthropologists to take a fresh look at idioms of relatedness in other societies, and to review the ways in which relationships are symbolised and interpreted in our own society. Defamiliarizing some classic cases, challenging the established analytic categories of anthropology, the contributors to this innovative book focus on the boundary between the 'biological' and the 'social', and bring into question the received wisdom at the heart of the study of kinship.
List of illustrations
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
cultures of relatedness Janet Carsten
2. Chinese patriliny and the cycles of yang and laiwang Charles Stafford
3. Identity and substance
the broadening bases of relatedness among the Nuer of southern Sudan Sharon Elaine Hutchinson
4. Sentiment and substance in North Indian forms of relatedness Helen Lambert
5. Kindreds and descent groups
new perspectives from Madagascar Rita Astuti
6. How Karembola men become mothers Karen Middleton
7. 'He used to be my relative'
exploring the bases of relatedness among Iñupiat of northern Alaska Barbara Bodenhorn
8. Including our own Jeanette Edwards and Marilyn Strathern
9. Figures of relations
reconnecting kinship studies and museum collections Mary Bouquet
Bibliography
Index.