Kinship and Descent Flashcards
The importance of studying kinship
Universal (enabling comparative analysis)
Organization of economy (subsistence)
Reproduction (biological, social, cultural)
Identity & Solidarity
Status (political, legal)
Role of kin group
Eriksen: “The kin group, in many cases, takes care of one’s livelihood, one’s career, one’s marriage, one’s protection and one’s social identity. Bereft of kin, one is naked and vulnerable in the world, although kinship substitutes such as government institutions (schools, welfare provisions, etc.) compensate somewhat for the loss”
Eriksen: “In many societies, especially those either lacking a state or where the state is
weak, the kin group usually forms, along with locality, the basis for political stability and for the promotion of political interests”
Roger M. Keesing kinship definition
“Relationship based on or modeled on the culturally recognized connections between
parents and children (and extended to siblings and through parents to more distant relatives)”
Maurice Godelier kinship definition
“Those biological and/or social ties arising from the union of persons (most often of the
opposite sex) and which determine the belonging and social identity of the children born
to or adopted by this couple.”
Consanguinity
Kinship through biological ties with the father and father’s kin and mother and mother’s kin (ascendants and collaterals) - sharing blood
Affinity
Kinship created by marriage or other forms of union between opposite sex or same sex partners
Kinship as a social construct
Sahlins: Anything that is constructed genetically may be constructed socially. Eg the way brothers by compact may be “closer” and more solidary than brothers by birth.
Surrogacy
In most cases, a child born is partly or wholly unrelated genetically to intended mother and father
“Fictive kin”
Godelier: “Social ties created by reciprocal choices and according to certain conventions between two unrelated persons or between an individual and a kin group that recognizes the person as one of them without going through formal adoption” eg bro/sis, cuz or calling unrelated people “”uncle/auntie”
Nurture kinship or “kinning”
Critique of ethnocentric view on kinship as consanguineally based, because it is also achieved through nurturant acts
Kinning
An effort to transform strangers into relatives and citizens. Occurs through fostering familiarization of family members, taming the child’s genetic foreignness, building sibling relationships between children of gay households, legitimizing the rights of particular family members in the eyes of political and health institutions, or obtaining social, juridical and political recognition
Dekinning
Used to symbolically cancel, obscure or hide the presence of the procreative other(s) and to formally, socially disconnect from them
Rekinning
Martin: “The deliberate process through which someone reaffirms existing kin relationships, which have been jeopardised by information or an event that was unknown to them. It involves the active participation of those to whom the information was unknown.”
Unkinning
Refers to the efforts made by surrogates who do not use kinship idioms to express their relationship with the intended parents (IPs), or the efforts made by IPs to protect against any imagined or real kinning with their children by choosing anonymous sperm donors. These efforts are made before and throughout surrogate procedures, in order to avoid particular participants being identified as kin by either internal actors or outside observers.
Bilateral (Cognatic) descent
Traced along maternal and paternal lines (they are of equal importance). Typical features:
Nuclear family central social unit: social, economic, and legal unit
Ego-centered
Strong state
Industrial society, high mobility
Individual network of relevant kinfolk: the kindred
Eriksen: “Resources can be transmitted through kin on both mother’s and father’s side (bilaterally).”
