[Xmca-l] Re: kinship

Mon Jan 8 06:12:04 PST 2018

Rod,
Yes, I can see the link to "development" in interesting ways here -
"family" as a context of development, etc. That's a neat idea, and yes, as
Martin has suggested, it matters how "family" is formed - e.g., if as with
the Inupiat, family is the group into which you are named rather than one's
biological kin, then that will be a critical context of development for
that child (and there is a very interesting question here regarding what
kinds of feelings one has for one's biological kin in such an arrangement -
that's still debated in anthro circles, maybe someone on the list can do
some circumpolar ethnography?).
So, yes, now that I think about it, this seems that this could have rather
profound implications for a Vygotskyian theory that can travel.
Perhaps that is what Martin had in mind?
-greg

On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 4:28 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> I'm no expert here, but recently read Wendy James's The Ceremonial Animal:
> A New Portrait of Anthropology  (https://www.booktopia.com.au/
> the-ceremonial-animal-wendy-james/prod9780199263349.html) . The
> ceremonial animal is the human, and this book focuses on ritual in human
> life, which I would say has a profoundly emotional dimension.
>
> I've avoided perezhivanie discussions because it's become all things to
> all people, so I've retreated to an alt-phrasing, meta-experience (the
> experiencing of experience as a way to frame new experiences).
> Rituals/ceremonies re-enact prior rituals in ways that many people find
> deeply emotional, often comforting. I am not religious, but know that the
> singing of familiar hymns can be emotionally settling for people
> experiencing grief, trauma, etc. (I know this from testimonies of such
> people).
>
> Maybe this is perezhivanie, but I've stopped caring whether that's the
> term for my conception, since I've found one that people don't hold up to
> their orthodoxies when I use it in writing.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Rod Parker-Rees
> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2018 4:19 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: kinship
>
> Greg,
>
> I can't pretend to be au fait with the developments in anthropology around
> kinship and family (but I am interested) - the connection I see between
> understandings of family/familiarity and the work of Vygotsky is associated
> with what Sahlins appears to be saying about 'people who are intrinsic to
> one another’s existence'. If the 'shape' of the refractive lens which forms
> our perezhivanie is dependent on our interactions with other people (and
> particularly in our first years) then those people with whom we have most
> interactions (or perhaps most formative kinds of interactions) will be
> familiar in the strongest sense - 'mutual persons' who share and even
> inhabit our ways of interacting with our environment - and particularly our
> social environment. Our family are 'in our heads' in ways which other
> people are not. Kinship links clearly matter because there must be some
> chaining of this mutual influence (My mother's mother is in my head because
> she is in my mother's head and my mother is in mine). 'Blood-links'  or
> households may provide a convenient shorthand for patterns of proximity and
> may therefore be built into languages but the way the terms will then be
> used may get closer to reflecting how speakers feel about the different
> kinds of relationships they experience.
>
> All the best,
>
> Rod
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Thompson
> Sent: 08 January 2018 02:16
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: kinship
>
> apologies if this is a re-posting, but here is the text of the message
> that accompanied the Sahlins text, just in case it didn't go through:
>
> Apologies if this is another trip round the mulberry bush (or the
> maypole?), but this is a conversation that has, as one might imagine, been
> quite a big deal in anthropology. Here's a quick and brief summary.
>
> Initially, "kinship" in anthropology was defined as the way that it has
> traditionally been defined in European cultures - as based on blood. (other
> forms are kinship, e.g., adoption, were seen as derivative of the central
> trope of blood relation).
>
> Then along came a fellow by the name of David Schneider (I attached a
> picture, cf. David and Martin's pictures of Malinowski). Although Schneider
> couldn't write his way out of a paper bag, he conducted field work on the
> Micronesian island of Yap and published a few books on the subject that
> forever changed the way that anthropologists' think about kinship.
> Essentially, he challenged this blood-based notion of kinship by showing
> how Yapese kinship formation is not blood-based (although blood based
> relationships are still recognized, they do not hold the same sense that a
> blood-based notion of "family" does).
>
> Following Schneider, the field of kinship studies spent a bit of time in a
> relativistic malaise, shifting between those who stuck to the old view of
> kinship and those who refused to use the concept at all.
>
> Then along came work that would eventually become what has come to be
> known as "new kinship studies". This approach sought to recover the concept
> of "kinship" without the concept of "kinship-as-blood". In the view of new
> kinship studies, "kinship" is understood, as Rupert Stasch has put it, as
> "intersubjective belonging" or "mutuality of being" (mentioned in the
> Sahlins essay that is attached).
>
> New kinship studies have also turned their gaze back onto kinship in
> European/Western/American culture (and indeed, Schneider's other big book
> was titled American Kinship). These folks have noted that even in these
> cultures, previously thought to be entirely blood-based, one can find lots
> of slippage from a simple model of blood-based kinship. Janet Carsten is a
> key figure in this regard and she looks at, among other things, how
> technologies have changed kinship formation (think test-tube babies and
> sperm extraction from deceased persons - fun stuff!).
>
> One of the best summaries of the new kinship studies is Marshall Sahlin's
> essay What Kinship is? I have attached it here as it has a wonderful
> collection of examples of how kinship is formed in various places around
> the globe.
>
> I guess the more interesting question for this group is: what does this
> have to do with Vygotsky/XMCA?
>
> -greg
>
> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Martin,
> >
> > Not sure if things got garbled on the way into virtual XMCA-land, but
> > in the end of my message about kinship studies in anthropology that
> > accompanied the Sahlins (and which doesn't seem to appear in your
> > reply - did the message come through with the attachment - usually it
> > is the reverse!), I noted that Sahlins provides a nice summary of the
> > new kinship studies that followed David Schneider.
> >
> > Does that help or were you looking for something else? (and, was the
> > text of the message really missing entirely?) -greg 
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 6:44 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Greg, could you say a bit about why you sent this?
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > On Jan 7, 2018, at 7:07 PM, Greg Thompson
> >> > <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> >> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > <image.png><Sahlins, Marshall - What is Kinship.pdf>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Anthropology
> > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > Brigham Young University
> > Provo, UT 84602
> > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson