[Xmca-l] Re: kinship

[Martin Packer]

Hi Greg,

Well, that’s my point! A lot of people in several disciplines are studying families in various cultural contexts, without defining what ‘a family’ is. I’ve started to wonder if the word/concept/entity even exists in all cultures.

Obviously there’s a danger of circularity here, because (see David’s most recent message) a word that gets *translated* into English as ‘family’ may relate very differently in the original language.

For instance, Malinowski wrote of “the initial situation of kinship,” and he seemed to mean the family, saying that it “is a compound of biological and cultural elements,” but then shifted to claim “or rather that it consists of the facts of individual procreation culturally reinterpreted.” All of which seems to add up to the suggestion that family = father + mother + child.

But then other investigators say that there is a type of family in the Balkans known as “zadruga,” which may have one hundred or more members.

I’m just confused again! I’m going to adopt as my slogan for this year something else Malinowski wrote: when I talk with a colleague "I become at once aware that my partner does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually with the feeling that this also applies to myself."

Martin

> On Jan 7, 2018, at 4:22 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Martin,
> Well that is a difficult question to answer without knowing what you mean
> by "family"?
> What in the world do you mean by "family"?
> -greg
> 
> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
> 
>> I am struggling with the way ‘family’ and ‘kinship’ have been defined, or
>> not defined, in psychology and anthropology. One question that has occurred
>> to me is whether a word equivalent to ‘family’ exists in every language.
>> When I Google this, Google responds ‘Ask Siri’…  :(
>> 
>> Anyone have an idea?
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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