Kinship in Action: Self and Group

by Strathern; Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780131844841
• ISBN10: 0131844849
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2010-06-30
• Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

Summary

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Author Biography

In This Section:

 

I. Author Bio

II. Author Letter

 

 

I. Author Bio

 

Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern are a wife and husband research team with a long history of joint publications and research.

 

They are based in the Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh and are also Visiting Research Fellow and Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Durham; Visiting Research Fellows in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen; and have been Visiting Research Fellows, at the Institute of Ethnology, Academic Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan over many years.

 

They have published many books and articles on their research in the Pacific region, especially in Papua New Guinea; and in Europe (primarily Scotland and Ireland); and in Asia (mainly in Taiwan and China).

 

They are the editors of the Ritual Studies Book Series, and the Medical Anthropology Book Series with Carolina Academic Press and the Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific with Ashgate Publishing. 

 

They are also the long-standing Co-Editors of the Journal of Ritual Studies. Their coauthored books include: Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip (Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

 

Their co-edited books include: Asian Ritual Systems: Syncretisms and Ruptures (Carolina Academic Press, 2007); Exchange and Sacrifice (Carolina Academic Press, 2008); Religious and Ritual Change (Carolina Academic Press, 2009); and Ritual (Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming, 2010).   

 

A list of their recent writings can be found at (http://www.pitt.edu/~strather/sandspublicat.htm).     

 

 

 

II. Author Letter

 

Dear Colleague,

 

Kinship has made a startling come-back into the field of anthropological studies. Kinship, like many other social phenomena, is studied nowadays as a process of conducting one's life as much as a structure that regulates people's lives. The definitional questions about kinship that engrossed many scholars in the past with debates about genealogical versus other bases for the recognition of kinship ties, have been superseded by discussions about the continuing significance of kin relations in contexts labelled by analysts as "modern" - although we prefer the more neutral term "contemporary".

 

Our book on kinship is based on an action-oriented approach. If we discuss formal structures, it is in order to show how these affect, and are affected by, the vicissitudes of experience and the forces of change and continuity. We have striven to avoid the labyrinths of kinship charts while fully representing the complexity and creativity of different ways of organizing kinship in the world.

We have also, through our ethnographic examples and our analyses of these, continuously sought to show the complex interplays between senses of self and senses of group affiliation, which we think are human universals. We stress neither the individual as such nor the group as such, but always their relationship in action.

 

We draw our examples from around the world, in accordance with strategically chosen classic and new case studies. Many of our examples are drawn directly from our own field areas in Papua New Guinea (as we did also in our book Curing and Healing: Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective, 2nd ed., Carolina Academic Press 2010), because we can deal with these in the most direct way.

 

We have written the book out of a strong conviction that both ethnography and theory are vital for anthropology, and that they must be convincingly inter-related in analysis. Our theoretical approaches are informed equally by long-term fieldwork and by a strong awareness of changing scenes, both in the world of kinship itself and in anthropologists' accounts of that world.

 

The book is based also on extensive teaching over the years in different parts of the world, the UK, the USA, Australia, and Papua New Guinea, and it blends together different styles of debate and discussion about kinship.

 

We would be delighted to hear from teaching practitioners and theorists alike about their responses to the book and ways in which it could be developed further in future editions. Our webpage is http://www.pitt.edu/~strather.

 

Good wishes,

 

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart (Strathern)

 

University of Pittsburgh

[e-mail] & [e-mail]

 

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
About the Authors	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Early Studies	p. 3
The Revival of Kinship Studies	p. 5
What Is Kinship?	p. 5
Mobilizing Kin	p. 7
Family	p. 9
Marriage	p. 10
The Fair Maid of Perth	p. 12
Conclusion	p. 14
Questions to Consider	p. 14
Notes	p. 14
Life Cycles	p. 17
Life Cycle and Family: Basic Concepts	p. 17
Marking Birth and Making Identities	p. 18
Names and Namings	p. 20
Maturation	p. 22
Conclusion	p. 31
Questions to Consider	p. 31
Notes	p. 32
Concepts in Reproduction	p. 34
Birth and Social Reproduction	p. 34
Trobriand Concepts of Reproduction	p. 36
Ideas of Reproduction and Social Structure	p. 38
Legal Contexts	p. 41
New Reproductive Technology	p. 43
Adoption	p. 46
Conclusions	p. 52
Questions to Consider	p. 52
Notes	p. 52
References	p. 56
Groups	p. 58
The Scottish Clan: A Complex Case	p. 59
Cognatic Groups among the Duna	p. 62
Clanship and Exchange: Other Cases from the New Guinea Highlands	p. 66
Self, Group, and Personhood	p. 71
Other Cases, Other Types	p. 72
Matriliny among the Tolai	p. 72
Other Cases, Other Types	p. 77
Bilateral Kindreds among the Iban	p. 77
Conclusions	p. 80
Questions to Consider	p. 80
Notes	p. 81
Reference	p. 83
Structures of Marriage	p. 86
Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea	p. 87
Huaulu, Eastern Indonesia	p. 91
The Business of Marriage in Telefomin	p. 94
Ruth Craig's Early Account of Telefomin Marriage	p. 96
Exchange Relations and Intergenerational Continuity: Wiru and Duna	p. 98
The Category of ôPolyandryö	p. 101
Marriage, Filiation, and Descent: The Na People of China	p. 103
Cousin Marriage Systems	p. 107
Conclusions	p. 111
Questions to Consider	p. 112
Notes	p. 112
Reference	p. 115
Euro-American Kinship: Concepts and History	p. 117
ôThe Familyô	p. 117
Historical Factors: Households, Property, and Inheritance	p. 119
Influences of the Church	p. 124
Contemporary Cases: David Schneider on American Kinship	p. 128
Conclusions	p. 133
Questions to Consider	p. 133
Notes	p. 133
Reference	p. 134
Euro-American Kinship: A Diversity of Examples	p. 136
Appalachian Valley, United States	p. 136
Newcastle, Australia	p. 138
Tory Island, Ireland	p. 142
The Sarakatsani, Greece	p. 145
Conclusions	p. 148
Questions to Consider	p. 148
Notes	p. 149
Reference	p. 149
Conclusions: Issues of Change and Continuity	p. 151
Robin Fox: Reproduction and Succession	p. 153
A Continuum of Themes: From Reproductive Technology to Lesbian Motherhood	p. 156
A. F. Robertson: Beyond the Family	p. 159
Reissuing and Reframing Definitions: Ideology and Practice	p. 160
Relatives and Relatedness: Substance as a Key	p. 163
Filiation, Affiliation, Sociality: Reworking Pacific Models of Kinship	p. 166
Conclusion	p. 175
Questions to Consider	p. 175
Notes	p. 176
References	p. 177
Kinship Terminologies	p. 182
Incest and Exogamy: Sex Is Good to Prohibit	p. 190
Further Readings	p. 200
Name Index	p. 203
Subject Index	p. 205
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