Syllabus
* WEEK 1 Kinship in anthropology.
Reading:
Yanagisako, Sylvia J. (2007). Bringing it All Back Home. Kinship Theory in Anthropology. In Sabean, D. W. - Teuscher, S. - Mathieu, J. (eds.), Kinship in Europe. Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300-1900). Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 33-48.
Further reading:
Carsten, Janet (2004). After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peletz, Michael G. (2001). Ambivalence in Kinship since the 1940s. In S. Franklin - S. McKinnon (eds.), Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 413-444.
Schneider, David (1984). A Critique of the Study of Kinship. University of the Michigan Press.
* WEEK 2 Kinship: consanguine, affine, fictive kinship. Relatedness.
Reading:
Bodenhorn, Barbara (2000). „He used to be my relative“: exploring the base of relatedness among Inupiat of Northern Alaska, In J. Carsten (ed.), Cultures of relatedness, Cambridge University Press, 128-148.
Further reading:
Parkes, Peter (2001). Alternative Social Structures and Foster Relations in the Hindu Kush: Milk Kinship Allegiance in Former Mountain Kingdoms of Northern Pakistan, Comparative Studies in Society and History 1/43: 4-36.
Parkes, Peter (2004). Milk kinship in southeast Europe, Social Anthropology 3/12: 341-358.
Strathern, Marilyn (1991). After Nature. English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press.
Vilaça, Aparecida (2002). Making Kin out of Others in Amazonia, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2/8: 347-365.
* WEEK 3 Genealogy, genealogical method, genealogical grid.
Reading:
Rivers, W.H.R. (1900). A Genealogical Method of Collecting Social and Vital Statistics. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 30: 74-82.
Further reading:
Astuti, Rita (2009). Revealing and Obscuring River´s Pedigrees. Biological Inheritance and Kinship in Madagascar, In S. Bamford - J. Leach (eds.), Kinship and Beyond. The Genealogical Model Reconsidered. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 214-236.
Barnes, James A. (1967). Genealogies, In A. L. Epstein (ed.), The Craft of Social Anthropology, Social Science Paperback, 101-127.
Bouquet, Mary (1996). Family trees and their affinities: the visual imperative of the genealogical diagram, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 2: 43-66.
Pálsson, Gísli (2009). The Web of Kin. An Online Genealogical Machine, In S. Bamford - J. Leach (eds.), Kinship and Beyond. The Genealogical Model Reconsidered. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 84-110.
Parkin, Robert (1996). Genealogy and Category: An Operational View, L´Homme 139: 87-107.
* WEEK 4 Kinship and relationship terminologies.
Reading:
Goodenough, Ward H. (1965). Yankee Kinship Terminology: A Problem in Componential Analysis, American Anthropologist, 5/67, Part 2: Formal Semantic Analysis: 259-287.
Further reading:
Read, Dwight W. (2007). Kinship Theory: A Paradigm Shift, Ethnology 4/46: 329-364.
Scheffler, Harold (1972). Kinship Semantics, Annual review of Anthropology 1: 309-328.
Schneider, D. M. (1965): American Kin Terms and Terms for Kinsmen: A Critique of Goodenough´s Componential Analysis of Yankee Kinship Terminology. American Anthropologist, New Series (Oct., 1965), 67, 5, s. 288-308.
* WEEK 5 Family and household: typologies, developmental cycles.
Reading:
Kaser, Karl (1994). The Balkan Joint Family: Redefining a Problem, Social Science History 18/2: 243-269.
Further reading:
Goody, Jack (1972). The evolution of the family, In P. Laslett, P. - R. Wall (eds.), Household and family in past times, Cambridge University Press, 103-124.
Hajnal, John (1965). European marriage patterns in perspective, In D. V. Glass - D. E. C. Eversley (eds.), Population in History: Essays in historical demography, Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., London, 101-143.
Todorova, Maria (2001). On the Epistemological Value of Family Models: the Balkans within the European Pattern, In R. Wall - T. Hareven - J. Ehmer (eds.), Family History Revisited. Comparative Perspective. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 242-255.
WEEK 6 The choice of a marriage partner. Endogamy, exogamy, hypergamy, hypogamy.
Reading:
Parkin, Robert (2021). Arranged marriages: Whose choice and why? Reflections on the principles underlying spouse selection worldwide, History and Anthropology 32/2: 271-287.
Further reading:
Gamella, Juan F. - Álvarez-Roldán, Arturo (2023). Breaking secular endogamy. The growth of intermarriage among the Gitanos/Calé of Spain (1900-2006), The History of the Family DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2159852
Mathieu, J. (2007). Kin Marriages: Trends and Interpretations from the Swiss Example. In D. W. Sabean, S. Teuscher, & J. Mathieu (eds.), Kinship in Europe. Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300-1900). Oxford: Berghahn Books, 211-230.
Sabean, D. W. (2007). Kinship and Class Dynamics in Nineteenth-Century Europe. In D. W. Sabean, S. Teuscher, & J. Mathieu (eds.), Kinship in Europe. Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300-1900). Oxford: Berghahn Books, 301-313.
Tahir, Naema T. (2020). Understanding Arranged Marriage. An Unbiased Analysis of a Traditional Marital Institution, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 00/2021: 1-20. doi: 10.1093/lawfam/ebab005
* WEEK 7 Marriage: types of marriage, marriage prestations, postmarital residence.
Reading:
Goody, Jack (1990). The oriental, the ancient and the primitive. Systems of marriage and the family in the pre-industrial societies of Eurasia. Cambridge University Press (kap. Land, polyandry, and celibacy in Tibet, 137-153).
Further reading:
Clignet, Remi (1971). Determinants of African Polygyny, In J. Goody (ed.), Kinship. Selected Readings. Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, 163-179.
Goodenough, W. H. (1956). Residence rules, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 12: 22-37.
Marlowe, Frank W. (2004). Marital Residence among Foragers, Current Anthropology 2/45: 277-284.
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. (1971). Dowry and Bridewealth, In J. Goody (ed.), Kinship. Selected Readings. Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, 119-133.
* WEEK 8 Kinship and descent. Descent groups. Unilineal descent. Segmentary system.
Reading:
Whitaker, Ian (1976). Familial roles in the extended patrilineal kin-group in northern Albania, In J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Mediterranean Family Structures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 195-203.
Further reading:
Holy, Ladislav (1979). The Segmentary Lineage Structure and Its Existential Status, In L. Holy (ed.), Segmentary Lineage Systems Reconsidered. Belfast: Queen´s University of Belfast, 1-22.
Kuper, Adam (1982). Lineage theory: a critical retrospect, Annual review of Anthropology, 11: 71-95.
Sahlins, Marshall D. (1961). The Segmentary Lineage: An Organization of Predatory Expansion, American Anthropologist 2/63: 322-345.
* WEEK 9 Cognatic kinship. Kinship and locality.
Reading:
Astuti, Rita (2000). Kindreds and descent groups: new perspectives from Madagascar, In: Carsten, J. (ed.), Cultures of Relatedness. New Approaches to the Study of Kinship, Cambridge University Press, 90-103.
* Further reading:
Campbell, John (1963). Kindred in a Greek mountain community, In G. Peristiany (ed.), Mediterranean Countrymen. Essays in the Social Anthropology of the Mediterranean, 73 -96.
Freeman, Derek (1961). On the Concept of Kindred, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2/91: 192-220.
Goodenough, Ward H. (1955). A Problem in Malayo-Polynesian Social Organization, American Anthropologist 1/57: 71-83.
Murdock, George P. (1960). Cognatic Forms of Social Organization, In G. P. Murdock (ed.), Social Structure in Southeast Asia. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1-14.
* WEEK 10. Marriage as alliance. Reciprocity and exchange.
Reading:
Dumont, Louis (1971). The Marriage Alliance, In J. Goody (ed.), Kinship. Selected Readings. Penguin Books Ltd. Harmondsworth, 183-198.
Further reading:
Dumont, Louis (1983). Affinity as a Value: Marriage Alliance in South India, with Comparative Essays on Australia. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Leach, Edmund (1964). Political Systems of Highland Burma. A Study of Kachin Social Structure. London: The Athlone Press.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1969). The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press.
Strathern, Marilyn (1998). The Gender of the Gift: The Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
* WEEK 11. Kinship and the concept of personality. Created kinship, chosen kinship. Kinning of foreigners.
Reading:
Strathern, Marilyn (2014). Kinship as a Relation, L´Homme 210: 43-62.
Further reading:
Astuti, Rita (1993). Food for Pregnancy: Procreation, Marriage, and Images of Gender Among the Vezo of Western Madagascar, Social Anthropology 1/3: 277-290.
Busby, Cecilia (1997). Permeable and Partible Persons: A Comparative Analysis of Gender and Body in South India and Melanesia, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2/3: 261-278.
Carsten, Janet (1995). The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness Among the Malays in Pulau Langkawi, American Ethnologist 2/22: 223-241.
Howell, S. (2003). Kinning: The Creation of Life Trajectories in Transnational Adoptive Families, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9 (3): 465-484.
McKinnon, Susan. 1995. Nourishing Kinship Theory: A Commentary on Weismantel's 'Making Kin,', American Ethnologist 22 (4): 704-6.
* WEEK 12 Kinship and new reproductive technologies.
Reading:
Fox, Robin (1993). Reproduction and Succession. Studies in Anthropology, Law, and Society. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers (Kap. The Case of the Reluctant Genetrix, 53-125).
Further reading
Annotation
The course will introduce the ways kinship has been conceptualized in social anthropology. Students will learn about anthropological discussions on important concepts like nature and nurture, consanguinity and affinity, or unilineal and cognatic descent.
The ways of conceptualizing relatedness in cross-cultural perspective will be discussed, from the Western notion based on the reference to biological reproduction to milk kinship, blood brotherhood, godparenthood, or “chosen kinship”. Variety of possibilities of the forms of marriage and family households will be presented.
Students will read important texts on anthropological analyses of kinship terminology, strengths and weaknesses of the genealogical method and the new reproductive technologies.