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1002:2024:4.1 [2024/07/25 22:04] – created - external edit 127.0.0.11002:2024:4.1 [2024/08/25 22:16] (current) – [What is a cousin?] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 **Other reading:** Carsten (1995) **Other reading:** Carsten (1995)
 +
 +===== Use your quiz score as a diagnostic =====
 +
 +  * 64% quiz takers got 10/10 :)
 +  * 24% quiz takers got 9/10
 +  * ~7% got 8/10
 +  * ~3.5% got 7/10
 +  * 1% got less than 50%
 +
 +Overall, about 88% of the people who took the quiz got either 9 or 10.
 +
 +If you missed some questions, don’t worry about what the right answers are.
 +
 +Instead, think through your weekly routine and make changes so you are taking stock of the main ideas each week.
 +
 +===== Are genetic relatives your “roots”? =====
 +
 +Are you flummoxed about whom to include in your family tree? You can buy at-home DNA testing kits to discover your relatives.
 +
 +Would you be interested in a “heritage” vacation in the land of your ancestors?
 +
 +Valle, Gaby Del. 2019. “Airbnb Is Partnering with 23andMe to Send People on ‘Heritage’ Vacations.” //Vox//. May 22, 2019. https://www.vox.com/2019/5/22/18635829/airbnb-23andme-heritage-vacations-partnership.
 +
 +Is "Asian" not specific enough? Now you can get an "ancestry breakdown": 
 +
 +“Unlock Your Genetic Heritage: Ancestry Breakdown Central and South Asian.” 2024. 23andMe Blog. July 8, 2024. https://blog.23andme.com/articles/central-and-south-asia.
 +
 +===== Nature and culture =====
 +
 +DNA-based ancestry reports want users to believe that they have a fixed, natural essence. In their philosophy,
 +
 +  * Kinship is an essence that one shares with one’s genealogical relatives. Kinship and family are relationships based on sameness.
 +  * This essence is passed down unchanged over time. Kinship is continuous with one’s ethnicity and origins.
 +
 +Do we in fact have natural relationships? What is the line between natural existence and social membership in a community?
 +
 +  * Everyone who has ever lived was already part of a larger social order, and had ties to other people when they were born.
 +    * Children are dependent on adults and need to have an intensive relationship with adults.
 +    * There are no societies in which some form of kinship is not recognized.
 +  * In each society and in every community, people organize kinship relationships differently, and each society assigns different degrees of importance to these ties.
 +
 +Kinship is universal, but takes variable forms. A classic problem for anthropology. Which matters more?
 +
 +===== Biological kinship and social kinship =====
 +
 +Reproduction and birth are universal, but whether they count as kinship is different everywhere.
 +
 +==== A useful distinction ====
 +
 +  * Genitor (is to) Pater (as) Biological (is to) Social
 +  * Genetrix (is to) Mater (as) Biological (is to) Social
 +
 +Everyone has a //genitor// and a //genetrix//, but //pater// and //mater// are positions in a social system.
 +
 +In societies with temporary marriages,
 +
 +  * a child is created by a //genetrix// and //genitor//,
 +  * and has a //mater// and maternal relatives,
 +  * **but** does **not** have a //pater// and paternal relatives.
 +
 +Some historical and contemporary examples are:
 +
 +  * Nayar (Nair) people of Kerala state, India (Gough 1961)
 +  * Musuo (Na), Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, China (Hua 2001)
 +
 +===== Many forms of family =====
 +
 +I expect that the idea that family comes in many forms, and that people in different cultures have different ideas of families, is not surprising and controversial.
 +
 +Yet do we see this diversity in family form the right way?
 +
 +We need to see it from the inside, not from the outside.
 +
 +  * Terms like “extended” or “multigenerational” imply that the normal family is compact (?) and has less generations. Who says that’s normal?
 +  * Nayar and Musuo families only “lack fathers” in eyes of others.
 +    * Imagine what your own family looks like from another culture’s perspective: What’s it like to live in a multiple-parent household, //hmm//?
 +
 +===== Kinship is a system of categories =====
 +
 +Compare these two different languages and their words for relatives ({{:auhelawa-english-kin-terms.pdf|PDF version}}):
 +
 +{{:auhelawa-english-kin-terms.jpg|A table comparing several English terms for relatives with several incommensurable terms in Auhelawa}}
 +
 +
 +Learning terms for relatives in Auhelawa is not just a matter of translating.
 +
 +===== What is a cousin? =====
 +
 +In English, several different people in different genealogical positions are called cousin. In Auhelawa, terms exist to make a very specific distinction among these people ({{:cousin-cross-cousin.pdf|PDF version}}):
 +
 +{{:cousin-cross-cousin.jpg|An analysis of the range of the English word cousin compared to the several precise terms used in Auhelawa for the same people.}}
 +
 +[Column headings are parents and row headings are parents’ siblings.]
 +
 +The distinctions made in Auhelawa are not unique. Many other languages make the same distinctions.
 +
 +  * Children of cross-sex siblings (M–F, F–M) are //cross-cousins//.
 +  * Children of same-sex siblings (F–F, M–M) are //parallel cousins//.
 +
 +===== Categories of kin, groups of people, structures of societies =====
 +
 +For many societies, tracing one’s kinship through either a mother or a father locates one in space, and in a comprehensive system of exclusive groups. One’s descent is one’s primary social identity (Fortes 1953).
 +
 +  * People of Nuer communities in South Sudan trace kinship relationships through mothers and fathers, but assign each child—and every person—to a group in which all members are related through their fathers, and descend through men from a single ancestor (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 6–7, 135–37, 142–47; see also Evans-Pritchard [1940] 2002).
 +  * Auhelawa people do likewise, but through women. I am a member of Lucy’s lineage which connects me to her sisters, their children and to other people related to Lucy’s maternal line of descent through their mothers.
 +
 +In societies whose kinship is used to construct groups based on unilineal descent, either matrilineal or patrilineal, everyone in the society belongs to exactly one group. Everyone has a place in a distinct group.
 +
 +===== Kinship’s weak link: The proliferation of technical terms =====
 +
 +Naming something does not mean we understand it.
  
 ===== References and further reading ===== ===== References and further reading =====
  
 Carsten, Janet. 1995. “The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness Among Malays in Pulau Langkawi.” //American Ethnologist// 22 (2): 223–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/646700. Carsten, Janet. 1995. “The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness Among Malays in Pulau Langkawi.” //American Ethnologist// 22 (2): 223–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/646700.
 +
 +
 +Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. //The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People//. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 +
 +
 +———. (1940) 2002. “Nuer Politics: Structure and System.” In //The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and Critique//, edited by Joan Vincent, 34–38. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
 +
 +
 +Fortes, Meyer. 1953. “The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups.” //American Anthropologist// 55 (1): 17–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/664462.
  
  
 Gilliland, Mary Kay. 2020. “Family and Marriage.” In //Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology//, edited by Thomas McIlwraith, Nina Brown, and Laura T. de González, 182–203. Arlington, Va.: The American Anthropological Association. https://pressbooks.pub/perspectives/chapter/family-and-marriage/. Gilliland, Mary Kay. 2020. “Family and Marriage.” In //Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology//, edited by Thomas McIlwraith, Nina Brown, and Laura T. de González, 182–203. Arlington, Va.: The American Anthropological Association. https://pressbooks.pub/perspectives/chapter/family-and-marriage/.
 +
 +
 +Gough, Kathleen. 1961. “Nayar: Central Kerala.” In //Matrilineal Kinship//, edited by David Murray Schneider and Kathleen Gough, 298–384. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 +
 +
 +Hua, Cai. 2001. //A Society Without Fathers Or Husbands: The Na of China//. New York: Zone Books.
  
  
1002/2024/4.1.1721970297.txt.gz · Last modified: 2024/07/25 22:04 by 127.0.0.1