Managing a Polyethnic Milieu: Kinship and Interaction in a London Suburb

Abstract

Instead of treating kinship as a system subject to ethnic closure, the article explores how the figure of the 'cousin' has come to function as a 'cultural unit' (Schneider 1980a) in a polyethnic and consciously multi-cultural setting. The setting, London's post-migration suburb of Southall, shows young Sikh, Hindu and Muslim South Asians, as well as Afro-Caribbeans and to some extent 'whites', converging upon an emphasis on cousin bonds and cousin claims. This convergence is understood as an internally plural process which, although subject to hegemonic influences, relies upon a variety of 'community'-specific and mutually independent post-migration agenda and thus cannot be reduced to direct dyadic exchanges. Exploring the significance of the cousin as a local multi-'cultural unit', the argument draws both on Schneider's idea of the 'two orders' and on the structural articulation of cousin claims with claims to cross-'community' loyalties. Ethnographic attention to processes of convergence may help studies of kinship to overcome the limitations of regarding ethnic delineations as boundaries of culture.

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

“…Schneider (1968Schneider ( , 1972Schneider ( , 1984 argued that seemingly biological objects such as blood are social constructs that convey biological affinity (see also Carsten 2001Carsten , 2011Marks 2002;Strong and Van Winkle 1996;Tallbear 2013). Kin are ultimately connected by an 'enduring solidarity' produced and maintained through social interactions and expressed as 'blood ties' (Schneider 1968; see also Baumann 1995). Thus, rather than reflecting a naturalistic human universal (i.e., a ''biological fact''), the genealogical basis underlying EuroAmerican conceptions of kinship-and therefore anthropological kinship theory-is a culturally constituted symbolic system unique to Western societies (Schneider 1968).…”

East Indians as Familiars and Partial Others in New York

“…In particular, there is some discouragement (not always effective) of courtship between the groups and marriage alliances. However, the food establishments provide a shared space that bypasses these kinds of relations; while offering ethnic food, at the same time, it momentarily sidesteps problematic group boundaries between groups (see Baumann 1995Baumann , 1998. In a sense, the nonethnic is also present in this "unified" setting.…”

Siblingship beyond siblings? Cousins and the shadows of social mobility in the central Philippines

“…In the Amazonian case mentioned above, peasant villagers claim that ‘cousins join kin together’ (Harris 2000: 91). In England, cousinship has been used to indicate common origins, but also to diminish distance, in both homogeneous and multi‐ethnic settings (Baumann 1995; Edwards & Strathern 2000: 151).…”

“…In some cases, however, it is precisely cousinship's relative ‘lightness’ that allows relations amongst cousins to flourish. People might confide in and seek succour from their cousins, especially when ties with their siblings or parents are fraught with competition or are deemed asphyxiating (see also Baumann 1995; Davidoff 2012).…”