[Xmca-l] Re: kinship

Sun Jan 7 18:06:16 PST 2018

Michael G,

Yeah, I understand the impulse for explanations by evolutionary advantage
(or sheer, raw personal interest/gain), but I would add that there are
reasons to be skeptical of the totalizing nature of such explanations
(hint: capitalism).

-greg

On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 6:11 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Greg,
>
> In response to kinship and Vygotsky, here is a somewhat radical but
> perhaps not radical at all notion.  Kinship is a form of double stimulation
> (I hope I'm getting this right).  That is it is a cultural symbol that help
> us remember other things about the way the complex, interweaving roles of
> relationships work in our social groups. I'm supposed to make sure that
> person gets food because she is my child. I am supposed to maintain ties
> with that person because I can legitimately call on them for cultural
> capital because they are my cousin and that's the way we distribute
> cultural capital in this situation.  I need to make sure my mother
> maintains a relationship with her brother by bringing the brother gifts so
> he can take care of my mother if she is in trouble.
>
> If you are in say a hunter gatherer society I need to maintain contact
> with that person because they are a good bush beater.  I must maintain my
> relationship with that woman because she knows where the good nuts are.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Thompson
> Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2018 7:08 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: kinship
>
> 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
> [image: Inline image 1]
>
> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 4:28 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
>
> > By your definition or theirs, Michael?
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jan 7, 2018, at 6:23 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > but plants form families, too
> > >
> > > the familiar is linked to family apparently in languages that have
> > adopted
> > > the term from Latin, but not languages as Polish or Russian
> > >
> > > Michael
> > >
> > >
> > > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------------------
> > > Applied Cognitive Science
> > > MacLaurin Building A567
> > > University of Victoria
> > > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> > > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
> > >
> > > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> > > <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> > directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-
> > mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 2:49 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> So James,
> > >>
> > >> Could a childless couple in China be called a family?
> > >>
> > >> Or would they need to have a pig?  :)
> > >>
> > >> To all: In English we don’t call a childless couple a family, do we?
> > >>
> > >> Martin
> > >>
> > >> "I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr. Lowie or
> > >> discuss matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, 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” (Malinowski, 1930)
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> On Jan 7, 2018, at 5:45 PM, James Ma <jamesma320@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> Just to add an etymological aspect that you might be interested to
> > >>> know (this is because Chines is logographical).
> > >>>
> > >>> According to the Chinese Oracle, family 家 has two parts: the upper
> > >>> part 宀 refers to "room"; the lower part 豕 refers to "pig". In the
> > >>> ancient times,
> > people
> > >>> raised pigs in their houses, so having pigs in a house was a
> > >>> hallmark
> > of
> > >>> living. In modern Chinese, family also indicates "relationship", e.g.
> > >> 亲如一家
> > >>> as close as a family.
> > >>>
> > >>> James
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> *_____________________________________*
> > >>>
> > >>> *James Ma*  *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
> > >>> <https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa>   *
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> On 7 January 2018 at 21:30, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> In Chinese and in Korean, the word "family" is related to housing
> > rather
> > >>>> than to kinship. In European languages it is the other way around.
> > This
> > >>>> does suggest something semantic, no?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> David Kellogg
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4)
> > >>>> 'Metaphoric, Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on
> > >>>> “Neoformation: A Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
> > >>>>
> > >>>> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 6:22 AM, 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
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> > >> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
> > >>> Virus-free.
> > >>> www.avast.com
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> > >>> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> 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