SOC1016A - Lecture 02

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SOC1016A - Lecture 02

• Family and Kinship

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Last week

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

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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 somebodys kin. There are not
  necessarily related to blood ties.

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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

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Kinship basic terminology (2)

• Transmission of kin
• patrilineal
• matrilineal
• double
• cognate
• parallel
• crossing
• Corporate kin group new members are recruited
  through genealogical principles

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• Kin groups can form the basis for political
  stability. One can trust ones 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

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Kinship conventional signs
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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
  womens natural powers.

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On the Trobrianders

• A. B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New
  Guinea, 1988
• Film The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New
  Guinea, 1952

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Case-study 2 the Nuer of Sudan
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• The Ghost Marriage
• Genitor / Pater
• Genitrix / Mater
• For the Nuer people, then
• - Lineage does not depend on blood
• - Kinship ? genealogical connections

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On the Nuer

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

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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

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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