ANTH/WMGS ISSUES IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF KINSHIP
Winter 2018

IMPACTS OF COLONIALISM ON KINSHIP
Jan. 17, 22
Required readings: Peers, Laura and Jennifer Brown (2000) “‘There is no end to relationship among the Indians’: Ojibwa families and kinship in historical perspective.” The History of the Family 4(4): 529-555.

Holmes, J. Teresa (1997) “Contested kinship and the dispute of customary law in colonial Kenya.” Anthropologica 39: 79-89.

- what is colonialism?
    - class develops a definition
        - what and who does it involve?
            - is it only connected to European expansion, or can earlier Roman, African, South American, and more recent US, Chinese expansion be included?
            - does it involve settlers, shorter term colonial administrators, others?
            - what kinds of inter-group relations? “Ethnicity”? “Race”? Etc.
        - what forms and practices are related to colonialism?
            - how might conquest, domination, expulsion, disenfranchisement, extermination, assimilation, trade, inter-marrying, etc. be involved?
    - some possible sources: Gough (1968; 1993); Horvath (1972); Asad (1973); Veracini (2013)

Human Relations Area Files: http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/ehrafe/

Peers and Brown
- on what kind of literature are they basing their discussion?
- how do they characterize Ojibwa kinship before colonialism?
    - what is the time period they discuss? What are their sources?
- what features/practices of colonialism affected their kinship system and how?
- what is happening now?

Holmes
- on what kind of literature is she basing her discussion?
- how did European colonial practices register and work to transform Luo/Kager and Bantu-speaking Abaluyia peoples’ kinship systems?
    - why?
    - what are the effects for rights to territory?

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Asad, Talal, Ed. (1973) Anthropology and the colonial encounter. London: Ithaca Press.
Gough, Kathleen. (1993). " Anthropology and Imperialism" Revisited. Anthropologica, 35(2), 279-289.
Horvath, Ronald. J. (1972). A definition of colonialism. Current anthropology, 13(1), 45-57.
Veracini, Lorenzo. (2013). ‘Settler colonialism’: Career of a concept. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41(2), 313-333.