Recent kinship items

RETHINKING XINGUANO KINSHIP: ELEMENTS FOR COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF A MULTIETHNIC NETWORK

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The existence of kinship relationships across the entire Upper Xingu has been recognized as a key element of interethnic relations in this region since the time of the expedi-tions by Karl von den Steinen, in this region. The pattern of long-term repetition of marriages has seemingly contributed to the development of structurally very similar terminological systems among the Upper Xingu indigenous peoples (distinguishing them from their other neighbors) and to the generalization among them of a “relatives” condition. Although almost all monographs on the region have devoted some space to kinship, in general, and forms of marriage, in particular, there are few detailed studies on the subject, and available genealogical data are even more scarce. The objective of this article is to resume the discussion on the role of marriages in the production of Upper Xingu sociality based on the analysis of a genealogical network document-ed among the Kalapalo, one of the Carib-speaking...

CRITIQUE OF PROFESSOR ISABELLE CLARK-DECÈS’S DENIAL THAT DRAVIDIAN KINSHIP SYSTEMS IN INDIA FORM WELL-DEFINED CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE SYSTEMS

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Dr. Clark-Decès’s research on Tamil kinship and marriage challenges Dumont’s alliance theory and Lévi-Strauss’s idea of marriage as reciprocal exchange between distinct social groups. Clark-Decès argues that there is nothing systematic or stable about the kin and affine distinction or the principle of opposition in the Tamil kinship and that the general vocabulary for kinship in the Tamil language shows the Tamil kinship to be about ownership rights rather than reciprocity, and that the Tamil marriage pragmatics portray inherent entitlement and violence rather than a spirit of equality and mutuality. Further, that the so-called cross-cousin marriage rule is not really indiscriminate but is marred by elitism based on side, seniority, rank and hierarchy, that the uncle-niece marriage is the most common and most favored marriage is said to provide the ultimate evidence that Tamil kinship is woman-centered, woman-powered and where females prevail and men willingly surrender....

A FURTHER NOTE ON GEG MARRIAGES

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Marriages between groups of siblings-in-law, which, using kinship conventions, I call ‘GEG marriages’, resemble cross-cousin marriage or prescriptive alliance but lack the repeatability of such alliances in the immediately following generation(s). Although mentioned in passing quite frequently in ethnographic accounts, theory explaining them is largely lacking. Building on previous work, in this note I address the possible reasons for such marriages, both indigenously (and therefore locally) and as a possible waystation on the path to a society abandoning cross-cousin marriage.

REVIEW OF: “THE ANIMAL NAMES OF THE ARAB ANCESTORS,” AUTHORED BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
REVIEW OF: “THE ANIMAL NAMES OF THE ARAB ANCESTORS,” AUTHORED BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

REPLY TO VARISCO’S REVIEW 24 JULY 2024 OF BOOK BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
REPLY TO VARISCO’S REVIEW 24 JULY 2024 OF BOOK BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

COMPADRAZGO IN PITUMARCA, PERÚ: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE TINKERBELL WATCH

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Godparenthood, an institution where a family seeks sponsorship for their child established through a religious ritual, can be analyzed on several levels. On one level, it is a form of allo-parenting, an adaptive strategy that ensures better survival of one’s child by creating an alliance with a biologically non-related person. On the sociological level, it is a strategy for forging in-terfamily alliances. Godparenthood can be instrumentalized to promote political goals through reciprocal exchanges. In this paper I argue that this is achieved on the cognitive level by metaphorical extensions of kinship terminology to unrelated individuals through the use of the universal linguistic feature of markedness. I analyze compadrazgo in the town of Pitumarca, Perú, as a test case of all three aspects of godparenthood.

Introduction

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction

Caste and Jāti

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract: Traditional Indian social organization developed under very specific historical circumstances. The Brahmanic ideology of Dharma dominated the social and even economic life of the Hindus and cre-ated a system capable of maintaining stability through the unique structure of "caste order". However, caste as described in many Western scholarly publications bears only a faint resemblance to this institution of Hindu society.
Indian social structure is composed of a great diversity of elements with kinship categories being its essence. Specific characteristics of caste - such as endogamy, profession, a particular kind of religious worship and marriage rules - manifest themselves at the level of kin groups and birādarīs, of which the broadest and dominant of these being jāti. The institution of jāti is rooted in prehistoric tribal concepts and usages. In Hindu society, jāti acts as a real agent that...

Revisiting Compadrazgo: Issues Concerning ‘What Kinship Is’

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000
Revisiting Compadrazgo: Issues Concerning ‘What Kinship Is’

SEX, LOVE, INCEST, DEATH, AND SUCCESSION: BEYOND BASIC BIOLOGY

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
SEX, LOVE, INCEST, DEATH, AND SUCCESSION: BEYOND BASIC BIOLOGY

Circumspector Reads Hominidae, Generatio and Sexus Nexus and It Is About Incest Prohibition and Inbreeding Avoidance

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Circumspector Reads Hominidae, Generatio and Sexus Nexus and It Is About Incest Prohibition and Inbreeding Avoidance

Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 2

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 2

Triadic Kinship Terms in Mẽbêngôkre: A Linguistic and Anthropological Analysis

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article compounds the effort of a social anthropologist and a linguist to understand and to analyze what is known about the triadic terms of the Mẽbêngôkre, a Northern Jê people from Central Brazil. Triadic terms are kinship terms that refer to a single individual but encode at least two kin relations simultaneously: that between the addressee and the referent, and that between the speaker and the referent; their meaning can be represented schematically as “your X = [who is also] my Y.” The only other region where this phenomenon has been identified so far is among the First Peoples of Northern Australia. Our aim is to describe the logic of this system of terminology, and to examine the social variables governing its use.

Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 1

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 1

The Anthropology of Kinship – the Avatar Debate

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000
The Anthropology of Kinship – the Avatar Debate

Analytical Review of Types of Kinship Terminological Systems and How to Analyze Them: New Insights from the Application of Sydney H. Gould’s Analytic System by David B. Kronenfeld (2022: Brill Publishers)

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Analytical Review of Types of Kinship Terminological Systems and How to Analyze Them: New Insights from the Application of Sydney H. Gould’s Analytic System by David B. Kronenfeld (2022: Brill Publishers)

The Uses of Kinship for Political Ends by Local Descent Groups in Jordan

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Kinship is an important dimension of politics throughout the Middle East and, specifically, in Jordan. At the level of face-to-face negotiations, three kinds of kinship (common descent, affinity, ritual kinship) are invoked in Jordan to garner support from an actor’s kin and create political ties. At the level of large-scale organizations – such as tribes – appeals are made to kinship norms to mobilize members of each organization and enhance group solidarity. At the macroscopic level of national politics, rhetoric about the “national family” is used to try to pacify groups who have lost political battles or who are politically marginal to the decision-making process. Analysis of politics at all three levels can be improved by paying careful attention to kinship.

Can a Local Descent Group Become an International Network? Research on the Rashāyidah in Five Countries

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Local descent groups that all have the name – Rashāyidah – are found in many places in the eastern Arab world. There is evidence that at least some of these groups originated in northwest-ern Arabia, where some of their ancestors lived centuries ago. More significantly, many of them have recently become aware of each other’s existence. Some are constructing a historical and genealogical narrative about common out-migration from Arabia. This narrative does more than explain why they share the same name; it also (re)constructs the kinship bonds that link them. Research has begun in Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan to explore this process of “awakening” to a common past. Nine researchers are collecting ethnographic and linguistic data about six different Rashāyidah groups and the various localities where they live. The researchers will describe the relationships of each group with its neighbors and will explore the motivations for adopting a new, diasporic, identity...

Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 2

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 2

Comments on Critique of The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comments on Critique of The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship

WHAT IS KINSHIP ALL ABOUT? AGAIN. CRITIQUE OF THE CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK OF KINSHIP, EDITED BY SANDRA BAMFORD

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The world of anthropology has witnessed a recurring rhetorical title:“What Is Kinship All About?” and now this article titles itself “What is Kinship All About? Again.” Why? Whereas we have over a century’s worth of ethnography and theory focusing on the centrality of kinship in human society and in anthropological theory, in 2019 a Handbook is published that names itself “Kinship” but, despite its claim and to the contrary, it is not about kinship at all. The Handbook editor explicitly states that it is about “conceiving kinship,” with kinship reduced to gendered social relatedness. In response, we re-affirm the centrality of kinship as a domain universal in human societies by way of a critique of the Handbook and a comprehensive review of its contributing chapters. Countering the Handbook’s denialist — or in Harold Scheffler’s famous term, dismantling — position, we bring to the fore the already determined universal properties that define the boundaries of the kinship...

Comments on Comments

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comments on Comments

Introduction to Special Issue

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Special Issue

Intrafamilial kafala: An alternative to produce family ties among Algerian couples looking for a child

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Based on a qualitative study carried out among Algerian couples who, after having tried natu-rally, then through reproductive medicine (AMP), to have a child, have made the decision to adopt a child within their relatives, this article questions how infertile couples have coped with the absence of a child from a point of view of kinship logics. In other words, it is a question of understanding how the intrafa-milial kafala is mobilized to produce family ties. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews showed that the child's own parents agree to show solidarity to couples affected by infertility, being family mem-bers, through a kafala application signed before a notary. In this logic of kinship, the kafil parent devel-ops a sense of attachment to the Makfoul child. This practice is a restorative solution to the absence of a child allowing them to perform all parental functions.

Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 1

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to the current issue of Kinship.

What is Kinship About? Again. Critique of the Cambridge Handbook of Kinship, Edited by Sandra Bamford

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The world of anthropology has witnessed a recurring rhetorical title:“What Is Kinship All About?” and now this article titles itself “What is Kinship All About? Again.” Why? Whereas we have over a century’s worth of ethnography and theory focusing on the centrality of kinship in human society and in anthropological theory, in 2019 a Handbook is published that names itself “Kinship” but, despite its claim and to the contrary, it is not about kinship at all. The Handbook editor explicitly states that it is about “conceiving kinship,” with kinship reduced to gendered social relatedness. In response, we re-affirm the centrality of kinship as a domain universal in human societies by way of a critique of the Handbook and a comprehensive review of its contributing chapters. Countering the Handbook’s denialist — or in Harold Scheffler’s famous term, dismantling — position, we bring to the fore the already determined universal properties that define the boundaries of the kinship domain...

Comment by Fadwa El Guindi on the review by E. N. Anderson of the book: Suckling: Kinship More Fluid, Fadwa El Guindi, Routledge Press

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comment by Fadwa El Guindi on the review by E. N. Anderson of the book: Suckling: Kinship More Fluid, Fadwa El Guindi, Routledge Press

Revisiting Kohler, Gifford and Rivers: Secondary marriages and Crow-Omaha terminologies

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It is now well over a century since Gifford (1916) and Rivers (1914) invoked certain second marriages as an explanation for Crow-Omaha (C-O) terminologies, and even further from Josef Kohler’s initial attempt (1897; translated 1975) to marshal such an explanation for the Omaha themselves. In this paper, I wish to revisit these ideas with reference to a wider body of literature. This literature has only appeared since these three scholars wrote, though none of it is very recent. I shall end by arguing that these practices can be seen as modified forms of the sororate and levirate as conventionally understood.

Review of the Ends of Kinship by Sienna Craig

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Review of the Ends of Kinship by Sienna Craig

La kafala intrafamiliale : Une alternative pour produire des liens de parenté chez les couples algériens en quête d’enfant

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Dans cette présente étude, nous souhaitons appréhender sur le terrain algérien la kafala intrafamiliale mobilisée par les couples stériles face à l’absence d’enfant. Les couples algériens en quête d’enfant qui, après avoir tenté naturellement, puis par le biais de la médecine reproductive (la PMA), d’avoir un enfant, ont finalement pris la décision d’adopter un enfant au sein de leur parenté, par voie de la Kafala. Il s’agit principalement de montrer la façon dont cette démarche est mobilisée pour réaliser leur projet parental et créer le lien de parenté.

Review of SUCKLING by Fadwa El Guindi

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
A book review of Fadwa El Guindi's recent book SUCKLING.

Kinship, Genealogy, Objectivity, and Ethnocentrism

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This describes the factual and epistemological mistakes leading to the collapse of anthropological interest in the scientific analysis of kinship and social organization in the 1980s, their persistence to the present, and the alternative that avoids them.
The basic argument is that while kinship was and is a challenging topic, the reason for the collapse of kinship studies in response to David Schneider's criticism in 1987 had did not reflect those inherent problems. They reflected self-contradictions and counter-factual assumptions in the conceptions of science, meaning, and objectivity in the approaches that were taken to it, both by those Schneider criticised and by Schneider himself.
The paper details the steps by which those errors accumuluted in this particular line of argument. It does so in part by contrasting this line with my own approach that avoided them, and that Schneider knew about but evidently did not understand.

Yet another view of Trobriand kinship categories, from optimality to conceptual structure

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In “Another view of Trobriand kin categories,” Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providing a core genealogical definition for each term, and then showing how a set of reduction rules make it possible to supply terms for more distant relatives. This article revisits Lounsbury’s analysis in the light of recent advances in linguistics and cognitive science. We show that Trobriand kin terms express a conventionalized tradeoff between expressing relevant information and avoiding marked forms. Formally, we follow Optimality Theory in developing a constraint-based approach, an alternative to Lounsbury’s derivational approach, in which reduction rules are not just stipulated but derived. Kin terms are polysemous, with core and extended senses: a collection of markedness scales and a ranked set of distinctive features (1) marshal core referents of kin terms, and (2) select optimal, best-fit terms for kin types outside the core. Apart from its formal merits, this approach...

ISSUE INTRODUCTION

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000
This, the second issue of the journal Kinship, features a major article, “Crow-Omaha Kinship: Revitalizing a Problem or Generating a Solution?,” in which the author, German Dziebel (USA), argues that the Crow-Omaha terminologies should not be viewed on a case-by-case basis but from a systems perspective. The article is followed by five comments that discuss the issues raised in the article, followed by the author's Reply to the comments. The issue also includes the English translation of an important Russian article on Crow-Omaha terminoiogies referenced in the Dziebel article. Finally, there is a review of the film, In My Mother's Hous e, that connects the present life of the film maker in the United States with her Italian and Eritrean past through her kin ties.

REPLY

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My reply continues the discussion of Crow-Omaha skewing, Alternate-Generation equations, Bifurcate-Collateral and Bifurcate Merging kinship terminological types in the contexts of the contributions by Trautmann & Whiteley, Read, Parkin, Lea and Ensor. Special attention is given to the logical pitfalls in the definition and usage of the notion of “crossness” and to the need to re-focus on a more accurate notion of “merging.” Empirical evidence for the transition from Alternate Generation equivalences to Crow-Omaha and from Bifurcate Collateral to Bifurcate Merging is revisited. Further information is provided regarding correlations between Alternate Generation equivalences and Crow-Omaha skewing, on the one hand, and patterns of sibling and cousin terminologies, on the other hand. Among the topics of general methodological and theoretical interest, my reply specifically addresses the scope of kinship studies and the methodology of integrating anthropology and linguistics...

TOWARD A HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP-TERM SYSTEMS: THE CROW AND OMAHA TYPES

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An attempt is made to determine the place held by the Crow and Omaha types in the historical typology of systems of kinship terms. Attention is centred upon structural differences between individual systems within each of these types. The author groups all these differences into six variants and advances the view that they should be considered as stages in the development of the Crow and Omaha systems. All the variants are mapped. Two suppositions are made to explain the preservation of the peculiarities of the Crow and Omaha systems in the earliest phase of the secondary stage in the evolution of kinship systems. The author regards it as the more probable explanation that certain features of these systems survive from the preceding stage of development in the course of evolution. However, another possibility should not be dismissed, namely that in the course of evolution the terminology of the Crow and Omaha types acquires a novel content and, in fact, represents a combination...

К исторической типологии систем терминов родства: типы кроу и омаха

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An attempt is made to determine the place held by the Crow and Omaha types in the historical typology of systems of kinship terms. Attention is centred upon structural differences between individual systems within each of these types. The author groups all these differences into six variants and advances the view that they should be considered as stages in the development of the Crow and Omaha systems. All the variants are mapped. Two suppositions are made to explain the preservation of the peculiarities of the Crow and Omaha systems in the earliest phase of the secondary stage in the evolution of kinship systems. The author regards it as the more probable explanation that certain features of these systems survive from the preceding stage of development in the course of evolution. However, another possibility should not be dismissed, namely that in the course of evolution the terminology of the Crow and Omaha types acquires a novel content and, in fact, represents a combination...

FILM REVIEW OF “FRUZZETTI, L. AND Á. ÖSTÖR, 2016, IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE”

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In 2005 Brown University anthropologist Lina Fruzzetti unexpectedly hears from two unknown Italian women, her cousins. Shortly thereafter she interviews her visiting mother. Lina’s father, an Italian official in colonial Eritrea, died when Lina was three. Previously he had a wife and daughter in Carrara, Italy, since deceased. Although Lina goes to Italy to meet her relatives, the film is not an exercise in “finding your roots” but rather is a “life history document”---Lina seeks to understand Italian-Eritrean colonialism. Footage goes back and forth. In Providence, Lina’s mother explains that, widowed, she went to Sudan to work and prosper, placing Lina to board in a Catholic school. Lina finds more relatives, including a nephew and his wife in faraway Barcelona. Experts explain how her father’s Carrara, once an epicenter of Anarchism, supported fascist military adventures. “Repatriated” mixed-race Eritreans discuss Italy and racism. In Eritrea she interviews her mother at...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This comment is directed critically at certain arguments made by German Dziebel concerning the derivation of Crow-Omaha terminologies. Dziebel asks why such features cannot be derived from alternate generation equations. It is shown that this would have to happen indirectly, if at all. Dziebel's difficulties with the mixing of cross and parallel and the place of bifurcate merging and collateral terminological features in this context are also commented on, it being argued that they are all perfectly compatible with Crow-Omaha and indeed regularly found with such terminologies.

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

German Dziebel considers it more likely that the Crow-Omaha terminologies derive from terminologies that already have the vertical skewing associated with the Crow-Omaha terminologies than from terminologies without such a property. Thus, he argues, the horizontal skewing of genealogical relations that is characteristic of the Iroquois terminologies makes them unlikely candidates for being the kind of terminology from which Crow-Omaha terminologies originated. Vertical skewing does occur with self-reciprocal kin terms, and for this reason Dziebel posits that the Crow-Omaha terminologies had their origin in terminologies with self-reciprocal kin terms. While Dziebel is correct that the Iroquois terminologies lack vertical skewing, vertical skewing is introduced by simply adding the equation, ’son’ of ‘maternal uncle’ = ‘maternal uncle’ to an Iroquois terminology, along with its logical implications for kin terms relations, to derive an Omaha terminology, or add the equation...

AN INTRODUCTION TO VLADIMIR A. POPOV’S “TOWARD A HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP-TERM SYSTEMS: THE CROW AND OMAHA TYPES,” TRANSLATED BY ANASTASIA KALYUTA

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first English translation of Vladimir A. Popov’s important 1977 article on Crow-Omaha kinship systems. Popov’s global comparison proposes an historical typology of these systems covariant with socio-evolutionary stages. His six subtypes are configured by the variable operation of bifurcation and linearity among G+1 and G0 kin-terms, with Popov suggesting three possible evolutionary trajectories. While directly addressing contemporary Western kinship theory, Popov simultaneously engages a robust Soviet tradition little known to Western scholars. Of special note, Popov deploys the “Levin code,” a logically elegant formalist notation that commands comparison with other componential systems. Broader attention to Popov’s perspectives on the Crow-Omaha problem is long overdue.

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

German Dziebel’s critique of our Crow-Omaha volume of nine years ago rests on his book of fourteen years ago. He acknowledges that crossness and skewing may in some instances covary but denies the covariance has any causal significance. Instead, he argues, Crow-Omaha systems derive from kin-terminologies marked by intergenerational self-reciprocals, which are purely linguistic in nature and uninfluenced by social organization; that sibling terminologies emphasizing relative age evolve into Omaha systems, and those emphasizing relative sex into Crow systems; and that in kinship-system evolution it is sibling terminologies—rather than crossness that predicates marriage alliances—which are the driving force.
We show in reply that systems with skewing are intimately and dynamically associated with crossness, even more robustly than previously thought, both empirically and, through reinterpretation of Lounsbury’s work, analytically. The interaction of crossness and skewing...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL: CROW-OMAHA AND THE FUTURE OF KIN TERM RESEARCH

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Kin terminology research—as reflected in Crow-Omaha and Dziebel (2021)—has long been interested in “deep time” evolution. In this commentary, I point out serious issues in neoevolutionist models and phylogenetic models assumed in Crow-Omaha and Dziebel’s arguments. I summarize the widely-shared objections (in case kin term scholars have not previously paid attention) and how those apply to kin terminology. Trautmann (2012:48) expresses a hope that kinship analysis will join with archaeology (and primatology). Dziebel misinterprets archaeology as linguistics and population genetics. Although neither Crow-Omaha nor Dziebel (2021) make use of archaeology, biological anthropology, or paleogenetics, I include a brief overview of recent approaches to prehistoric kinship in those fields—some of which consider Crow-Omaha—to point out how these fields’ interpretations are independent of ethnological evolutionary models, how their data should not be used, and what those...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Lea focuses on Dziebel’s analysis of the section on South America, composed of two chapters that deal with the Northern Jê (Gê) societies, some displaying Omaha features, others Crow, or a mixture of the two. In his review article, Dziebel argues enthusiastically about the merits of large kinship data bases. However, there is not even consensus among social anthropologists concerning the characterization of the Northern Jê peoples. Dziebel is very critical of the book edited by Trautman and Whiteley, but he naively takes T. Turner’s model of societal reproduction at face value, despite it not even dealing directly with the kinship terminology. The other contributor, Marcela Coelho de Souza, sums up her position affirming that kinship is made, not given. Both of these authors dismiss Lea’s alternative analysis of the Mẽbêngôkre as a house-based matrilineal society, but Dziebel sidesteps this issue.

Genealogy of a Ghost Town: Kinship, Matrifocality and Adoption in Ayquina-Turi

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is a first approach to the kinship and social organization of the Ayquina-Turi Atacama Indigenous Community (El Loa Province, Antofagasta II Region) from the perspective of a genealogical inquest made in situ and in the city of Calama. The discussion unfolds in four stages: first, an introduction to the setting where the ethnographic inquiry was conducted; second, the presentation of the problem which inspired the research; third, the exposition of the baseline information; and fourth, the analysis thereof. In contrast to the current situation in other peasant indigenous communities in the Central and Southern Andes, it is possible to identify a strong tendency towards the conformation of matrifocal family units related to a generalized practice of intrafamily adoption, which finds ethnographic echoes reverberating in other places of South America, namely British Guiana.

Genealogía de un pueblo fantasma: parentesco, matrifocalidad y adopción en Ayquina-Turi

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Este trabajo propone una primera aproximación al parentesco y la organización social de la Comunidad Indígena Atacameña de Ayquina-Turi (provincia del Loa, segunda región de Antofagasta) a partir de los resultados de una encuesta genealógica realizada in situ y en la ciudad de Calama. La discusión se desarrolla en cuatro pasos: primero, la introducción del escenario en el que se realizó la investigación etnográfica; segundo, la presentación del problema que inspiró su realización; tercero, la exposición de la información de base y cuarto, el análisis de la misma. A diferencia de lo que ocurre con otras comunidades campesino-indígenas de los Andes centrales y meridionales, se observa una sostenida tendencia hacia la conformación de unidades familiares matrifocales relacionadas con una práctica generalizada de adopción intrafamiliar que encuentra ecos etnográficos significativos en otros sitios de América del Sur, en particular la Guyana Británica.

CROW-OMAHA KINSHIP: REVITALIZING A PROBLEM OR GENERATING A SOLUTION?

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The article discusses the long-standing Crow-Omaha problem in kinship studies with a focus on the volume Crow-Omaha: New Light on a Classic Problem of Kinship Analysis (2012), edited by Thomas Trautmann and Peter Whiteley. While successful in restoring the importance of the Crow-Omaha problem to kinship studies and contributing to the revival of “traditional” kinship studies in anthropology, the book misses an opportunity to advance a solution to this problem. Drawing on a global database of kinship terminologies and the author’s own treatment of the Crow-Omaha problem in The Genius of Kinship: The Phenomenon of Human Kinship and the Global Diversity of Kinship Terminologies (2007), the article uses empirical material from multiple language families represented in the Trautmann & Whiteley volume to demonstrate the im-portance of alternate-generation equivalences, Bifurcate Collateral grouping and sibling termi-nologies in the evolution of “Crow-Omaha skewing.”...

General Introduction

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The journal, Kinship, is dedicated to the study of kinship in all of its facets, is international in scope and will publish original work in English, though publications in other languages, as is the case in this issue, will be considered on a case-by-case basis. In this issue of Kinship, there are two articles which reflect the nature of kinship research in both its more traditional format with focus on the social context of kinship relations and in a cross-disciplinary attempt to find a common ground between kinship as it is understood from a social and cultural perspective with kinship as it is understood from a biological perspective.

Human Kinship and the Reproduction of Sameness

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody doubts that human kinship has something to do with biology and reproduction and, at the same time, biology and reproduction are clearly insufficient to explain it. The unexplained part of human kinship by the biology of human reproduction is what anthropologists call ‘social’ kinship. Whereas the biology of human kinship does not seem to differ in any significant way from that of any sexually reproducing species, it is unclear how that social kinship should be accounted for, specifically, how it should be related with its biological counterpart. The purpose of this text is to suggest a possible solution to this time-honored theoretical controversy in anthropology. My approach is based on Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness and its development and formalization by means of the Price equation. My proposal shall be that it is the concept of sameness that which makes both biological and social kinship amenable to the same type of analysis.

Research Activity Report: South America

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This report focuses in particular on a specific project hosted by two distinguished academic centers in Brazil, namely University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Santa Catarina, to explore Amerindian kinship networks and ‘gift’ circulation, by a team of anthropologists and computer scientists from Brazil, Argentina and Peru.