Lecture 7: Relatedness

Question 1

Foreign Accents

Answer 1

• there’s a distinction between not being a “typical” Canadian and “not being a Canadian”
• if someone has a Swedish accent, they don’t speak like a “typical” Canadian, but it doesn’t make them any less of a Canadian
• it’s important to make these distinctions
• foreign accents connect biology with construction
• maturation period – after a certain age (14), people don’t learn a foreign language without an accent (however, in certain cases, some people who learn different languages as adults can still not have an accent)
• this is provided that the two languages are quite different (e.g. not two Germanic languages)
• accent: an ascribed – something that’s given by the community – identity
• one of the markers of ethnicity is a foreign accent
  
  • another marker of ethnicity is not being as accustomed to a culture as a native person
• in our society, we construct different kinds of foreign accents; most accents are stereotypical that takes an accent and educates people’s imaginations
  
  • e.g. our idea of an “Indian” accent is fairly stereotypical; although it may be somewhat true, most people don’t sound exactly like that
• foreign accents are something that do exist in the physical world, but social/cultural factors have a large association

Question 2

Relatedness: Corporate Groups

Answer 2

• “corporate” meaning that they’re not random; they’re an extended person
  
  • e.g. family, kin, imagined communities
  • the family is also socially constructed – what is meant by family varies from society to society
• these groups share an identity, produce things together, live together; are a kind of imagined person because you can say “we” this and that
• related groups are the basis of social organization; society can be thought of as the relationships between related groups (i.e. groups of groups)

Question 3

Kinship

Answer 3

• a relationship imagined to be by blood (i.e. biological relationship; consanguineal)
• contrasted with affinal relationships (i.e. through marriage)

The Social and Biological Aspects of Kinship

• kinship is socially constructed from physical fact
• the biological and social overlap flexibly meaning different from society to society and different over time

Question 4

Descent

Answer 4

• could be biological or not
• ascribed category when imagined ­– e.g. adoption, fostering

Question 5

Lineages

Answer 5

• patrilineage: everyone descended from the same male line ­– you reckon your descent as being on your father’s side
  
  • your mother is not a part of this lineage; her children belong to her husband’s lineage
• matrilineage: reckoned on the female side only
  
  • father is not part of this lieange; his children belong to his wife’s lineage
  • this is not the thing as matriarchy – actually, typically, the most powerful individual is the mother’s brother (even more so than your father)

Question 6

Clan

Answer 6

• clan: when two or more lineages are descended from a single imagined ancestor
• remember that when we say “imagined” it does not mean the same thing as “imaginary”
• the ancestor may be real (with or without proof) or mythical
• e.g. Scottish: Davison meaning “sons of David”
• e.g. Cohen: meaning “sons” of Aaron (the bother of Moses) – priests

Question 7

Phratry

Answer 7

• joins two or more clans

Question 8

Moiety

Answer 8

• moiety: the society is divided into two imagined descent groups
• typically exogamous – members marry out, marrying each other may be incest
• incest is really frowned upon in these cases

Question 9

Kinship Systems

Answer 9

• all of the kinship terms used in every society are not necessarily transferable to other systems
• up until 40 years ago, almost every anthropology department had courses on kinship systems because it was so important to understand kinship systems
• the top three types of kinship we must know are: Hawaiian Kinship, Sudanese Kinship, Eskimo Kinship
• the “ego” is you; it’s Latin for “I”
• the different colours mean that these people are treated/called differently from one another
• emotion towards people with the same kinship role tends to be the same in each society

Question 10

Case Study: Relatedness Among Malay in Palau Langkawi

Answer 10

• Janet Carsten – in 1995 she argued for overlap between the social and the biological relatedness in Malay
• nowadays, it’s considered a won battle (i.e. nobody tries to prove this anymore)
• relatedness can be defined by some sort of imagined “substance”
• in the West, this means “blood relations”
• in Palau, blood relations don’t necessarily mean descent in the same way
• “The core substance of kinship in local perceptions is blood, and the major contribution to blood is food.” (Carsten, 1995; p.224)
• “Siblingships, houses, and hearths are […] central to the way shared substance is conceived.” (p.225)

The House

• many families live together
• most women spend most of their lives around the hearth part; the men go out hunting (in traditional societies; nowadays most go get jobs)
• belonging to the same house forms a relationship
• if they live in the same house they don’t go to other houses to eat
• commensality strengthens the relationship among members of the house
• it means that you eat with this person; it’s a way to form a relationship with someone ­­– you have more of a relationship with them than a roommate (or anyone) you don’t eat with
• it’s important cross-culturally
• e.g. in most societies, it’s considered impolite (and perhaps even an insult) to reject food; it means you’re rejecting being related
• who will you invite for dinner? who will invite you to dinner?

Blood and Food

• food, especially rice, produces blood
• the “blood” here is an imagined substance (as well as a physical one)
• eating together (commensality) produces related blood

Siblings

• siblings are conceived of as people who eat together
• birth used to take place in the house – they eat together and are born together
  
  • (today, they’re taken to hospitals and birthing centers)
• the placenta is considered to be a person’s younger sibling
  
  • nobody is born without a sibling; nobody is an only child
  • the placenta is buried near the house; it’s considered to be a younger sibling until one is born
• “The uterus may be considered the siblings’ first house, and the placenta sibling can be considered as the child’s first commensal relation.” (p.226)
• in the womb, and child and its “sibling” (the placenta) are nourished by the mother’s blood
• detour: how did the anthropologist figure this out? she didn’t take an ultrasound or something; she had to live with people for a long time and talk to them, gather anecdotal evidence
• after birth, blood is said to be transformed into breast milk

Fostering Relations

• it’s very common in Palau Langkawi
• very common among many aboriginal groups in Canada
• the result is that if you’re fostered you end up being commensal with people you wouldn’t otherwise eat with (since you don’t eat outside of the house); but if you’ve been given to another house your commensality relationships change
• this contributes to the flexibility of relatedness – it’s not totally by descent
• when you’re in another house, you might be drinking the milk (blood) of a mother who isn’t your biological mother
• milk siblings: people who have drunk milk from the same mother’s breast
  
  • this creates a sibling-style relation that is not biological
• marriage among milk siblings is considered incestuous

Question 11

The Flexibility of Relatedness

Answer 11

• Palau Langkawi: if you move out, you’re still a house relative but you’re treated less like a relative
• Toronto: do you treat a sister differently from a half-sister?
• (Most) Canadians: cousins are entitled to visit, but are some cousins more so than others?