Kinship Studies in Late Twentieth-Century Anthropology

Abstract

This review examines the state of play of kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology, paying close attention to theoretical advances and shifts in methodology and intent that have occurred since the 1970s. It highlights developments in Marxist, feminist, and historical approaches, the repatriation of kinship studies, various aspects of lesbian/gay kinship, and issues bearing on the new reproductive technologies. Contemporary kinship studies tend to be historically grounded; tend to focus on everyday experiences, understandings, and representations of gender, power, and difference; and tend to devote considerable analytic attention to themes of contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence.

Bioarchaeology and Kinship: Integrating Theory, Social Relatedness, and Biology in Ancient Family Research

“…In other words, the cross-cultural study of kinship, which had been one of anthropology's major contributions to the social sciences, was invalid (Schneider 1984). Several in depth explorations of Schneider's lasting contributions to the field and critiques of his approach are available to readers looking for additional details of his work and its impact (e.g., Carsten 1995;Feinberg and Ottenheimer 2001;Holy 1996;Leaf 2001;McKinley 2001;Ottenheimer 1995;Peletz 1995;Yanagisako 1978).…”

Burmese Kinship Revisited: Substance and ‘Biology’ in the World of Rebirth

“…3. The latter half of the twentieth century saw the dethroning of kinship studies, as part of the wider theoretical shift in anthropology (Clifford and Marcus 1986;Marcus and Fischer 1986;Collier and Yanagisako 1987;Ortner 1994;Peletz 1995;Franklin and Susan 2001, 3). This shift in kinship studies was the result of the critical thinking by Leach, Needham, Schneider, and others in the 1960s, which echoes the waning of structural-functionalism as a leading paradigm (Collier and Yanagisako 1987, 1-2;Peletz 1995, 345, 4;Franklin and Susan 2001, 3).…”

“…New themes include the focus on everyday behavioural strategies (Peletz 1995, 351), and the agency of diversely positioned social actors (Peletz 1995, 351, 366;Stone 2000, 2, 17). Following Schneider, the view of later scholars is that kinship cannot be assumed a priori; that the four divisions (kinship, religion, politics, and economics) cannot be pursued separately (Schneider 1984;Collier and Yanagisako 1987;Carsten 1995;Peletz 1995;Yanagisako and Delaney 1995;Franklin and Susan 2001, 9;Stone 2000, 16, 345;Carsten 2004, 19). 4.…”

Horizons of long-distance intimacies

“…This idea was followed by a drastic renewal of the anthropology of kinship. Since the early 1990s, the question of how kinship is constituted as a particular form of social commitment and mutual liability has been examined by various anthropologists who once more pushed the topic with innovative power into the centre of anthropological studies (Faubion, 1996, 2001a,b, Franklin, 1997, Peletz, 1995, Strathern, 1989, Weston, 1991.…”