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1002:2024:4.1 [2024/07/25 22:04] – created - external edit 127.0.0.1 | 1002:2024:4.1 [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) | ||
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+ | ===== Use your quiz score as a diagnostic ===== | ||
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+ | * 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% | ||
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+ | Overall, about 88% of the people who took the quiz got either 9 or 10. | ||
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+ | If you missed some questions, don’t worry about what the right answers are. | ||
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+ | Instead, think through your weekly routine and make changes so you are taking stock of the main ideas each week. | ||
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+ | ===== Are genetic relatives your “roots”? | ||
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+ | Are you flummoxed about whom to include in your family tree? You can buy at-home DNA testing kits to discover your relatives. | ||
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+ | Would you be interested in a “heritage” vacation in the land of your ancestors? | ||
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+ | Valle, Gaby Del. 2019. “Airbnb Is Partnering with 23andMe to Send People on ‘Heritage’ Vacations.” //Vox//. May 22, 2019. https:// | ||
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+ | Is " | ||
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+ | “Unlock Your Genetic Heritage: Ancestry Breakdown Central and South Asian.” 2024. 23andMe Blog. July 8, 2024. https:// | ||
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+ | ===== Nature and culture ===== | ||
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+ | DNA-based ancestry reports want users to believe that they have a fixed, natural essence. In their philosophy, | ||
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+ | * 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. | ||
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+ | Do we in fact have natural relationships? | ||
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+ | * 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, | ||
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+ | Kinship is universal, but takes variable forms. A classic problem for anthropology. Which matters more? | ||
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+ | ===== Biological kinship and social kinship ===== | ||
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+ | Reproduction and birth are universal, but whether they count as kinship is different everywhere. | ||
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+ | ==== A useful distinction ==== | ||
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+ | * Genitor (is to) Pater (as) Biological (is to) Social | ||
+ | * Genetrix (is to) Mater (as) Biological (is to) Social | ||
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+ | Everyone has a //genitor// and a // | ||
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+ | In societies with temporary marriages, | ||
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+ | * a child is created by a // | ||
+ | * and has a //mater// and maternal relatives, | ||
+ | * **but** does **not** have a //pater// and paternal relatives. | ||
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+ | Some historical and contemporary examples are: | ||
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+ | * Nayar (Nair) people of Kerala state, India (Gough 1961) | ||
+ | * Musuo (Na), Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, China (Hua 2001) | ||
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+ | ===== Many forms of family ===== | ||
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+ | 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. | ||
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+ | Yet do we see this diversity in family form the right way? | ||
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+ | We need to see it from the inside, not from the outside. | ||
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+ | * 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: | ||
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+ | ===== Kinship is a system of categories ===== | ||
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+ | Compare these two different languages and their words for relatives ({{: | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
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+ | Learning terms for relatives in Auhelawa is not just a matter of translating. | ||
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+ | ===== What is a cousin? ===== | ||
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+ | 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 ({{: | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
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+ | [Column headings are parents and row headings are parents’ siblings.] | ||
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+ | The distinctions made in Auhelawa are not unique. Many other languages make the same distinctions. | ||
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+ | * Children of cross-sex siblings (M–F, F–M) are // | ||
+ | * Children of same-sex siblings (F–F, M–M) are //parallel cousins//. | ||
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+ | ===== Categories of kin, groups of people, structures of societies ===== | ||
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+ | 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). | ||
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+ | * 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. | ||
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+ | In societies whose kinship is used to construct groups based on unilineal descent, either matrilineal or patrilineal, | ||
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+ | ===== Kinship’s weak link: The proliferation of technical terms ===== | ||
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+ | 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// | Carsten, Janet. 1995. “The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness Among Malays in Pulau Langkawi.” //American Ethnologist// | ||
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+ | Evans-Pritchard, | ||
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+ | ———. (1940) 2002. “Nuer Politics: Structure and System.” In //The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, | ||
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+ | Fortes, Meyer. 1953. “The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups.” //American Anthropologist// | ||
Gilliland, Mary Kay. 2020. “Family and Marriage.” In // | Gilliland, Mary Kay. 2020. “Family and Marriage.” In // | ||
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+ | Gough, Kathleen. 1961. “Nayar: Central Kerala.” In // | ||
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+ | 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