The Downfall of Kinship(Question 2) In the past, kinship has been an integral part of explaining societies in the anthropological field, as it is one of the bases of social structure in most societies to varying degrees. However, with the eventual spread of what is modernly western ideals, the importance of kinship was lost and thought to be outdated for western philosophy. So, with the western ideals and the newer action of globalization, making these western ideals the norm, kinship is seen as less important for societal structure, though moderately important from a biological perspective. Nevertheless, with the rise of western society, the downfall of kinship has caused it to only seem relevant in ethnic, traditional based societies that still exist and are thought to below western societies. Though currently thought to be insignificant, kinship is still an important, if not the most important, part of a societies structure, though it may not be the only means of forming the structure, such as economy, politics and religion. In earlier and traditional societies, kinship was an important social institution because it would set up a persons life, regulating who would help take care of individuals, what careers they would take on, who they would marry, who would protect them, and most importantly, give them their social identity (Eriksen SPLI 100). Even in the societies where kinship if not the most important social structure, where “kinship has given way to other principles of organising politics, religion, the economy and so on, but it continues to be a crucial part of people’s identity and their webs of commitments to others” (Eriksen SPLI 100-1). In these societies, kinship is important in giving individuals social ident... ... middle of paper ... ...ems to lose more of its significance due to the globalization of these ideas, its contributions still must be recognized as one of the starting forces in creating civilization. Works Cited Carsten, Janet. Constitutive Knowlege: Tracing Trajectories of Information in New Contexts of Relatedness. Anthropology Quarterly 80.2 (2007) 403-426 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Small Places, Large Issues. London: Pluto Press, 1995 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. What is Anthropology? London: Pluto Press, 2004. Herzfelf, Michael. Global Kinship: Anthropology and the Politics of Knowing. Anthropology Quarterly 80.2 (2007) 313-323 Howell, Singe. Changes in Moral Values About the Family: Adoption Legislation in Norway and the US. Social Analysis 50.3(2006) 146-163 Yngvesson, Barbara. Refiguring Kinship in the Space of Adoption. Anthropology Quarterly 80.2 (2007) 561-579
The idea of “family” is almost entirely socially constructed. From grandparents, to friends, to wives and fiancés, the means by which we decide who is related to us and who is not is decided by the person and their milieu. In Mignon R. Moore’s “Independent Women: Equality in African-American Lesbian Relationships”, Eviatar Zerubavel’s Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity and Community, and Franz Kafka’s The Judgement, this idea is tested. Who do we consider close enough to us to share our most intimate details and how do we choose them? Each piece offers a different view, which is the “right” way for each of the people described, whether broad (as in Zerbavel’s reading) or specific (as in Moore’s reading), but there are also many similarities in the ways family is defined and actualized.
Kinship is studied primarily in social and cultural anthropology. While there is no concise definition for what kinship means in the field of anthropology it can generally be thought of as the relationships within a society that are usually based off of blood or marriage. These two things in some way shape or form are recognized in nearly every society. Links of kinship form off the basis of property rights, division of labor, and political organization
Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions & Encounters: A Global Persepective on the Past. Ed. Jessica Portz. 5th ed., 2011. 290-295. Print.
There are many different cultures and groups of people that we don’t know anything about. There are a lot of people in the world trying to close that gap. People like Catherine J. Allen, author of The Hold Life Has and Napoleon A. Chagnon, author of Yanomamo. In each of their respective books, they brought us closer to societies I had never heard of until now. We learned about the different aspects of the lives of the Sonqo (Allen) and the Yanomamo (Chagnon). They brought us insight on certain things like gender differences, family relationships and how where they live affects their lives. In this following essay, I’ll be discussing gender differences in both the Sonqo and Yanomamo societies as well as how each tribe uses kinship, reciprocity
Robbins Burling, David F. Armstrong, Ben G. Blount, Catherine A. Callaghan, Mary Lecron Foster, Barbara J. King, Sue Taylor Parker, Osamu Sakura, William C. Stokoe, Ron Wallace, Joel Wallman, A. Whiten, Sherman Wilcox and Thomas Wynn. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 25-53
Desjarlais, R., & Throop, C. J. (2011). Phenomenological approaches in anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 87-102. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092010-153345.
Nanda, S and Warms, R.L. (2011). Cultural Anthropology, Tenth Edition. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. ISBN – 13:978-0-495-81083-4.
In the novel Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria, kinship plays a key role in the depiction of Dakota society in the novel. Throughout the novel, kinship is instrumental in the development of community ties and familial relations throughout Dakota society. With her depiction of kinship roles and obligations, Deloria argues that kinship brings honor and interconnectedness between the members of society. Through her portrayal of Waterlily’s communities ties, her view of kinship practices is strengthened through her illustration of the Dakota civilization’s view that kinship practices help extend graciousness throughout their community and create bonds that last throughout generations.
Kinship communities face scarcity of economic resources and fragility of environmental sustainability. Unlike in modern nation-state structures, in kinship communities, status is determined by relationships to ancestors according to blood ties. Families, clans, and tribes operate according to blood lineages that determine economic and social identities of members of the kinship society. Identity, belonging, and ascribed status in the group, is determined by a relationship to a specified ancestor. Therefore, economic, social, and political identities are a function of descent. Descent communities ensure order by employing a wide range of symbolic interactions that attempt to bring ancestors back to life such as totem poles or shrines and temples
Since its inception, the academic discipline of anthropology has gone through constant paradigm shifts. In the nineteenth century, anthropology began as a nomothetic study based upon the development of cultures and societies through the process of evolution. Later on, several anthropologists, particularly Franz Boas, shifted the nomothetic approach of American anthropology into an idiographic approach, which focuses on assessing the development of cultures individually as their own separate entity. (Moore 2012:161) In the twentieth century, however, anthropology ushered in another paradigm shift.
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
Park, M.A. (2008). Introducing anthropology: An integrated approach, with PowerWeb, 4th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978–0-07-340525-4
Schultz, E.A. & Lavenda, R.H. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition, Sixth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.
Nikolay, Kradin N. "State Origins in Anthropological Thought." Social Evolution & History 1st ser. 8 (2009): 25-43. Print.