ANTH/WMNS 326 Cross cultural families and households
6 January 2010
Introduction to the anthropology of kinship
Required reading: Peletz, Michael (1995) "Kinship Studies in late twentieth-century anthropology." Annual Review of Anthropology 24:343-72. JSTOR
The history of the area of study:
early approaches:
- classificatory kinship (http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/kintitle.html)
- structural functionalism
challenges to these highly abstract and rigid models:
- Schneider: symbolic approaches
- Levi-Strauss: structuralism (especially those who followed him)
- recognition of the importance of history (i.e. social, political, economic context in time and place)
- increasing attention to gender, power and difference which add nuance to analysis of kinship models and practices
- lineage mode of production (a marxist approach proposed by Meillassoux)
- kinship, class and state (also marxist)
- Goody’s work combining mode of production, communication systems, religion, state formation, law, etc. (heavily marxist)
- ways in which gender and inequality are embedded in kinship
- recognition of ways in which actual kinship practices display contradiction, paradox and ambivalence
- current reformulation of kinship in studies on other topics (e.g. economy, politics, etc.);
- impact of New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs)
How is kinship present in current issues, both in your own lives and in current events?