After KinshipThis innovative book takes a look at the anthropology of kinship and the comparative study of relatedness. Kinship has historically been central to the discipline of anthropology but what sort of future does it have? What is the impact of recent studies of reproductive technologies, of gender, and of the social construction of science in the West? What significance does public anxiety about the family, or new family forms in the West have for anthropology's analytic strategies? The study of kinship has rested on a distinction between the 'biological' and the 'social'. But recent technological developments have made this distinction no longer self-evident. What does this imply about the comparison of kinship institutions cross-culturally? Janet Carsten gives an approachable view of the past, present, and future of kinship in anthropology, which will be of interest not just to anthropologists but to social scientists generally. |
Common terms and phrases
adopted American Kinship analysis of kinship analytic anthropology apparently argues artificial insemination biogenetic biological birth kin birth mother blood bodily substance body Carsten central chapter child conceived conception concerns connection contexts contrast critique debates described Diane Blood's discourses discussion distinction domain domestic donor Dravidian Edward Evans-Pritchard egg donor ethnography everyday example father focus Franklin gender genetic hearth HFEA husband ideas identity idiom India individual involved Jewish Kabyle kind kinship studies Langkawi Lévi-Strauss lineage linked living Malay male Marilyn Strathern marriage Marriott Maurice Bloch meanings Melanesia metaphor nature and culture non-Western notions organ donation particular patrilineal person personhood political posthumous conception processes relatedness relations relationship reproductive technologies ritual role Schneider sense separation sex and gender sexual procreation significance social societies sperm Strathern 1988 study of gender study of kinship substance and code suggests symbolic Tallensi theme transformation Trobriand understandings Vezo vitro fertilization West Western women Yanagisako