ICA 3: Kinship and descent

5 important questions on ICA 3: Kinship and descent

Why is kinship such an important topic in anthropology?

  • Universal in human societies, each society has a kinship system (enabling comparative analysis)
  • Reproduction (biological, social, cultural)
  • Organization of economy: one important 'function' of kinship is that a lot of economic activities in societies are organized around kinship relations
  • Identity and solidarity
  • Status (political, legal): nuclear family in Western societies, are a kind of legal unit. As a parent responsible for what your -18 y/o children do

How does Roger M. Keesing define kinship?

Relationships based on or moduled on the cultural recognized connections between parents and children (and extended to siblings and through parents to more distand relatives)

How does Maurice Godelier define kinship?

Those biological and/or social ties arising from the union of persons and which determine the belonging and social identity of the children born to, or adopted, by this couple
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What is a fictive kin?

Social ties, created by reciprocal choices and according to certain conventions between two unrelated persons or between an individual and a kin group that recognizes the person as one of them without going through formal adoption

  • Use of 'brother/sister', 'cousin' in peergroups, secret societies, monastic orders (nons)
  • Calling intimate genetically unrelated person 'uncle/aunt(ie)'

What are the two kinds of kinship ties?

  • Ties of consanguinity: (by blood) ties with the father's kind, and with the mother's kin (ascendants and collaterals)
  • Ties of affinity: (by marriage broadly defined) created by marriage or other forms of union between opposite sex or same-sex partners

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