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SOC1016A - Lecture 02

SOC1016A - Lecture 02. Family and Kinship. Last week:. Social Anthropology explores the cultural dimension of social institutions. Its perspective is: Holistic Comparative. In this lecture:.

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SOC1016A - Lecture 02

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  1. SOC1016A - Lecture 02 Family and Kinship

  2. Last week: Social Anthropology explores the cultural dimension of social institutions. Its perspective is: • Holistic • Comparative

  3. In this lecture: • Kinship is the most important social institution in many simple, stateless societies. In these settings, social organisation is often structured along kinship principles. • Cultural dimension of kinship. In different societies one finds different ideas about how to classify somebody’s kin. There are not necessarily related to “blood ties”.

  4. Kinship: basic terminology (1) • Lateral relatives (aunts, uncles, and cousins) • Lineal relatives (through generations) • Lineage = set of individuals who can indicate their common descent from a common ancestor • Clan = set of individuals who assume a shared descent

  5. Kinship: basic terminology (2) ■ Transmission of kin: • patrilineal • matrilineal • double • cognate • parallel • crossing ■ Corporate kin group = new members are recruited through genealogical principles

  6. Kin groups can form the basis for political stability. One can trust one’s relatives because there is a web of obligations/sanctions. • Kinship is thus related to • political stability • Inheritance, transmission of resources • Succession, transmission of rights, duties, status

  7. Kinship: conventional signs

  8. Case-study 1: the Trobriand Islanders • Society based on matrilineal clans (“dala”). • But this does not mean that this is a matriarchal society. Each clan has a male chief, and men control political and economic activities (e.g. land rights) • Why then matrilineal clans? The answer is to be found in their beliefs about conception and women’s natural powers.

  9. On the Trobrianders A. B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea, 1988 Film: The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, 1952

  10. Case-study 2: the Nuer of Sudan

  11. The “Ghost Marriage” Genitor / Pater Genitrix / Mater For the Nuer people, then: - Lineage does not depend on blood - Kinship ≠ genealogical connections

  12. On the Nuer E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer, 1951.

  13. Conclusions • Kinship is a social institution, which has to do with politics, economics, religion, cosmology, etc • Kinship systems do not merely follow from biological kin relations, but are socially constructed

  14. Why this is relevant to us: 1- Against Sociobiology 2- Current socio-political issues. Case-study on East London (M. Young, P. Wilmott, Family and Kinship in East London) 3- Current debates on new reproductive technologies

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