Structure and Substance: Combining ‘Classic’ and ‘Modern’ Kinship Studies in the Australian Western Desert

Abstract

This paper attempts to participate in the reconciliation between 'modern' and cultural studies styles of approaches to kinship, and the more formal and structural analyses of the 'classical' type. It is argued that it is the methodological combination of these approaches that produces intelligible descriptions of social structure and process in relation to kinship. The fundamental assumption is that individual strategies play within, and to a certain extent (consciously) exploit, the structural particularities a kinship system provides. A heuristic tool is proposed from which such an analysis can be elaborated. The notion of 'consubstantiality' as a reflector of modes of 'relatedness-conception' is discussed, because such modes do exhibit interactionist processes while being framed within the structural precepts of the formal kinship system with its terminology and prescriptions.

Why Can Hunter-Gatherer Groups Be Organized Simlarly for Resource Procurement, but Their Kinship Terminologies Are Strikingly Dissimilar: A Challenge for Future Cross-Cultural Research

“…Shared conceptualization of a system of kinship relations expressed through the kinship terms making up a kinship terminology makes it possible for group members to express and define the kinship relations they recognize in common in a manner that also makes it possible to compute the kin relation one individual has to another individual by simply knowing the kin term relation each individual has to a third individual (Kronenfeld 1980;Read 1984Read , 2001Read , 2007 . Dousset 2005;Leaf and Read 2012). This computational aspect of kinship relations also provides conditions for social interaction to be initiated even when the individuals involved are strangers in a conceptual sense, with the critical implication that engaging in social relationships is no longer dependent on having prior face-to-face interaction before extensive social interaction can take place.…”