[Xmca-l] Re: kinship

[Glassman, Michael]

Hello Martin,

I have recently been reading the recent social evolution work comparing hunter gatherer (which were more distributed) to more agrarian social groups (more focused). "Against the Grain,"  "Affluence without abundance" and "Guns, Germs and Steel." I wonder if the definition of family across cultures is more transactional (both in the business sense and the Deweyan sense). That is it fills dynamic needs. For instance for hunter gatherers it might be whoever is part of your dinner table at the moment (who you hunt with, gather with, eat with). For societies that are more agrarian and object based it might refer to whoever helps you achieve your focused task (sports teams often refer to themselves as family), or helping to define property ownership (including the passing between generations), knowledge ownership, skill ownership. The definition depends on what is needed at the moment.  I think in Europe guilds were much closer to family than blood kinship. The divine right of kinds suggests family is based on blood relations because it is part of their reason for being able to rule. It just seems that family is a word that fulfills needs rather than defines specific types of relationships.

This was deeply affected in our society I think by the idea of ownership of children (they have absolutely no rights outside the jurisdiction of the parent from birth to 18 and are not even allowed to have voice (I believe they are referred to as infants in law books - at least that is what somebody who I think read said law books told me once). Maybe this is very tied to our strong agrarian culture where children were expected to work on the farm and support the family. Family is defined by the needs of the farmers.  In a more general sense family is defined by the needs of culture/civilization not the other way around.

An interesting question anyway.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2018 4:48 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: kinship

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