Thomas suggests that if procreation and reproduction are to be presumed as ‘real’ kinship relations then these terms should be examined rather than presumed (Thomas, 1999;21). For example, substance can refer to not only sperm, but blood, saliva and breast milk (Thomas, 1999; 22). For example, when a wet nurse shares her breast milk with the infant, she is biologically transferring a substance, therefore if one would to understand kinship in terms of substance, she would also be seen as the child’s ‘real’ or ‘natural’ mother. This illustrates that Thomas is right in suggesting substance can be misleading in itself, therefore does not give a fixed definition of kinship. Furthermore, Turner advocates that it is not actually the solid substance that determines the relationship between of kin in terms of biology, but it is rather the action of ‘transferring’ the substance which establishes the relationship thus, the biological nature of kin has to be initiated by an action, thus making it cultural. Although it can be argued that ancestry includes blood relations, this could also be misleading in and exemplify ethnocentric bias.
However, affinal links seems to widen kinship patterns and the eternal bond can be maintained through marriage laws. However, by having children substance is passed genealogically and so bond is made ‘forever’ and beyond, because new blood kin is created, culture has become genetic. Nevertheless, it is difficult to undermine what is more important in term of kinship and marriage. Is it important that a genealogical substance has been passed into the child or is it because a cultural importance of marriage has been symbolized? .
In Western Society, being a genetic father entitles to rights to the child, in this case no social ritual is necessary in order to have rights towards law. However, it has been found that those who exercise such rights and express such obligations are those who are usually physiologically connected (Barnard 1994;792 cited in Heady & Loizos, 2000;5). Neverthelees, maintenance payments are the minimum a biological father has to do, therefore even in western societies kinship in biological terms alone is not enough, as nurturing is required in order to establish a kinship relationship. Thus kinship, although legally defined by blood ties, entails culture too. This is further exemplified by Edwards and Strathern’s (2000) ethnography on Alltown in England and how kinship ties were defined by being biologically part of a family, but in order to sustain that status, one must be socially there for others. It was also perceived that the biological ties could be cut by moving away from the native family. This would suggest, that in Western society doing is based on a form of being, creating a relationship of cause and effect (Weston, 1995, pp. 87f).
Furthermore, if Kinship relations are based on the notion of procreation than why is it that a flexible kinship group, ‘chosen family’, consisting of lovers, ex-lovers and friends, are based on voluntary relations, which can easily be dropped out of (Weston, 1995, p.94). Homosexual relationships are based on the belief that this is culturally and not natural therefore kinship in this perspective is not biologically determined but is performed under choice through cultural bonds (Weston, 1995, p. 93). Cultural takes the precedence here, for the kinship group rest upon those sharing a social relationship and not that of substance. While nurture takes on the role of performing kinship, in legal terms what has happened is the affirmation of being as prime denominator of kinship. For an adoption is taking up a child into one’s own family and making it a part of it, giving it the same surname and pretending it to be one’s own child.
In China, Stafford (2000) observed a similar notion of caring for others, which forms kinship. Marriage is exogamous, where the female moves out and become a servant to the husband’s family (Stafford, 2000;41). Her children become the property of the patrilineal family she has moved into. Upon leaving her native family’s residence she performs a ritual to break her ties with her family and moves to her husband. There she practices the concept of “yang”, to care for and work for her husband’s and now her new family. The performative act of caring supersedes the “natural” kinship ties, because the foster parents, also called yang mother/father, create descent through ‘yang’ (Stafford,2000;42). Therefore anyone who provides yang can become a relative. Conversely a failure of providing ‘yang’ can cause termination of relations of descent. Thus Stafford concludes that “in China, as elsewhere, people make kinship” (Stafford, 2000;52). Therefore the cultural act is what determines the relationship in kinship. This performing of kinship is epitomised by a traditional Chinese custom, a spiritual marriage. If, for instance the only son in a family dies young, his spirit may be married to a woman, who then moves in with his family and adopts a child which will continue the lineage.1 Although a very uncommon practice, it depicts the incorporation of substance becoming related to cultural kinship. The performance is based on the relationship between a dead spouse, who spiritually procreates with his wife in order to sustain a lineage. This is similar to Nuer ‘ghost marriage’, in which the widow remains married to her dead husband and, after his death, can continue to perform her reproductive obligations to her lineage by bearing him children through having sexual intercourse with a stranger or by one of his brothers. Nevertheless, both Stafford’s study and Evans-Pritchard studies illustrate the centrality and the importance of procreation in kinship, even though it is on a pretense term.
However, Thomas (1999;27) advocates that for Temanambrando’s, procreation is not considered as important in determining what is ultimately a kinship relationship, therefore the subject should not be given as much emphasis. Instead the per formative father is regarded as more pretigiuos. Fatherhood is established through the marriage ritual. The rite of ‘fafy’, a sacrifice of a zebu, gives the man the rite as performing as the child’s legitimate father of the woman’s children, regardless whether he is the biological genitor (Thomas, 1999;34). What might be interpreted as an adoption, might not carry all the notions of adoption in Western societies, the child attains the father’s ancestry, or name. Therefore it is not coitus that makes the father but the ritual itself (Thomas, 1999;34) The reality of the kinship ties is based on their cultural norms and values. However, just because the temanbondro’s do not have a clear perception of conception and paternity does not mena that they do not regard it as irrelevant.
Additionally, natural is not always seen as a right “even birth mothers, then, can lose their children by becoming “unnatural” which is thus transgressing against natural categories of sex o race”(Weismantel p686) However, Cardoso stresses that adoption tends to take place when biological kinship fails but weismantel advocates that this is not the case with Zumbagua families.
However, the theory of procreation and biological genetics can also be seen as culturally biased. Fro example, Scheffler advocates that kinship comes under feminist criticism as presented as the presumed “facts of nature” are based on the fact that since women become impregnated, which is observable, it is presumed that it is natural for a woman to be nurturing or to look after her child. However, since paternity is not observable, it’s role is not seen as natural, but as modern understanding of biology has established the sperm is a linkage. Scheffler argues that cultural theory does not claim erroneous beliefs, such as those based on science and that the theory itself helps us to understand the native’s concepts of maternity and illustrates that they are no less cultural concepts such as paternity (Scheffler, 372) Additionally, the scientific presumptions of ethnocentricity and it’s notion of biological kinship is further illustrated as Feeley-Harnick advocated that men and women in Temanambondro’s were both referred to as giving birth (1991;61, cited in Thomas, 1999;25), and so birth was not inheritantly gendered.
Whilst studying American kinship, Schneider emphasized that in American culture, although the father and mother do not share the same biogenetics, they are both linked by the child (Schneider, 1964;392). Wallace further demonstrates this by noticing that Schneider does not consider genealogical preferences in regards to cousin marriages (Kuper, 1999;139) However Kuper also suggest that there is a case in America where long lost relatives are sought after, whereby there is not nurturing connection at all just an awareness that they are genealogically connected gives them the importance to look to them and establish a relationship with them (Kuper, 1999;138).
However, Schneider’s inclination towards the cultural strata of kinship maybe due to his disruptive childhood and therefore may have caused bias in his analytical approach to kinship (Kuper, 1999;132) Additionally, culture itself is a western construct (Kuper, 145) thus to think of kinship in reference to cultural relatedness also implies western-euro presumptions on other societies. Furthermore, with Schneider’s and other symbolic interactionists’ focus on kinship definitions could neglect the working the actual kinship systems (Kuper, 149)
Kuper points out that all of Schneider’s interviewees were middle class white Chicagoans and therefore criticizes Schneider for presuming that all Americans think in terms of the biological basis of kinship, when this is a presumption in itself (Kuper,1999;138), for there is a difference between the black American kinship structure and the Anglican kinship structure, therefore Schneider is undermining the American kinship system by suggesting there is ‘one’ cultural system (Kuper, 1999;143).
Schneider asserts that sexual intercourse is a symbol of American kinship and that it is only made legitimate through conjugal relationships and love. This is expressed through the common substance shared in the child therefore a bew type of love between blood relatives emerges. Lover erotic and love congatic. Consequently love becomes a symbolic expression.
However to dichotomies two forms of love and to suggest that erotic love can only occur amongst non-blood ties is not true. For example, whilst studying endogamous marriage in Oxford, Alison Shaw (2000) stressed that the passing of blood remains important in order to keep kinship ties, thus illustrating the importance of genealogy in kinship.
Additionally, Kirpatrick and Broler 972, discovered that although adoption in Yap was considered as important, the child would eventually discover his biological parents, and if adoption did take place, it was usually adopted by close relatives (Kuper, 154). Therefore if culture was important, than why wasn’t the child adopted by a non-relative?
This notion of ritualistic, and cultural kinship was studied by Bourdieu in depth. He sought to find a logic of this practice of kinship. Bourdieu (1990) attacks the structuralist anthropologists' fixation on rules and models which are taken for empirical reality (Bourdieu, 1990;39). He argued that this denies human agency and implies that history develops mechanically according to “dead laws of nature”. Bourdieu advocates that social norms perpetuated itself due to a predominant ideology and a dominant elite. He reinterpreted the concept of the habitus, which for him
“is the end product of structures which practices tend to reproduce in such a way that the individuals involved are bound to reproduce them, either by consciously reinventing or by subconsciously imitating already proven strategies as the accepted, most respectable, or even simplest course to follow” (Bourdieu,1972;118).
Therefore it is a self-reinforcing system (Bourdieu, 990;64). Society has a mode of cultural practice of kinship, which is characterised by the anthropologist as a rule system, but in fact it does not exist as such. The rules, of biology, can be traversed by culture, therefore a child can become a man’s son if he sees him as such and this can be achieved by performing the role of a father. Biology is therefore is constituted by culture and symbolicism, there is in fact no natural being, it is all a result of culture. Practice manifests itself through the combination of structures and habitus, and has the potential of generating new habitus. Through this practice, the social order and with it kinship structures are naturalised, internalised and reproduced. This bears the criticism of the ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma, what came first?, a “Ursein”, pristine form of being-kinship, or the socio-cultural form. Bourdieu finds no answer, rather a way around the question. He argues that it is not a matter of biology versus culture, but rather culture because of biological and biological because of practice. The attempt is in associating kinship in terms of a joint biological and cultural terminology, rather than a separation (Carsten, 2000;27) becomes “inherent in the nature of things” (Bourdieu,1972;118). Carsten sees the divide between biological and social/cultural as meaningless, and likes to see it rather as a continuum (Carsten, 1995). The divide to her is an Amero-European idea and is irrelevant for the study of other cultures and their ideas of kinship. She question whether biology and culture really different or is it all down to how one defines them in a given situation?
Anthropology seems to believe in an objective form of kinship, for example, based on evolutionary terms, of a natural bonding between mother and child. On the other side stands subjective kinship as perceived by the “natives”, a concept within their cosmology and beliefs. This opposition derives from the question what an anthropologist wants to do, go out, study and compare different cultures or study a culture according to and within its own rules and cosmology. In this discussion on kinship based on being or doing the clearest observation is the shift from structure to practice to discourse on the matter (Carsten, 2000, p.2).
Schneider’s theory of how ethnocentric views of kinship and the centralization of procreation are imposed is demonstrated through Mary Weismantel’s study of “Making Kin” in Zambagua. For they feel that the biological relationship imposed on them is a set of beliefs imposed on them (Weismental ;670) Additionally, whilst watching a Zumbaguan feeding an orphanage, A Nurse implied that it is best to disillusion the boy in thinking the Zumbaguan is the real father, by this she meant real in terms of biological. However, the Zumbaguan replied, “I am going to be his real father, “aren’t I feeding hi, right now? Therefore from the Zumbaguans perception, he saw the act of feeding as a characteristic of fatherhood, therefore the genetic relationship between the two did not matter, therefore kinship relations for zumbaguans, ‘real’ fatherhood is established through nurturing terms. However, this should not be understood in terms of symbolic interactionnist as Iza said I am going to be his father did not say that through one act of feeding he is the boy’s father, therefore to assume that a ritualistic act can determine whether kinship relations are seen as establishing a concrete kinship relation is misleading.
“ The physical act opf intercourse, pregnancy and brith can estbalsih as strong bond between two adults and a child. But other adults, by taking a child into their family and nurturing it’s physical needs through the same substances as those eaten bny the rest of the social group, can make of that child a son or a daughter is physically as well as jurally their own” (Wiesmental; 695)
This shows that kinship cannot be sole interpretd in terms of biology or neither in terms of cultural as the two are interrelated and rather compliment each other. Hence Weistmental concludes that kinship in essence is multi-dimensional
As the ethnographic examples above have demonstrated, the cultural and biological references of Kinship shows the two entities rely on each other in some way to fill the concepts of kinship that exist in various societies. Therefore to determine ‘kinship’ in terms of either bio-genetics or symbolic interaction is misleading and adopting either views of the phenomena would inevitable overlook the other concepts validity.
]
Bibliography:
Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice Cambridge: Polity Press
Bourdieu, P. (1972) “Marriage strategies as strategies of social reproduction” In Forster, R.
and Ranum, O. (eds.) (1976) Family and Society London: John Hopkins Press
Bodenhorn, B. (2000). He used to be my relative: exploring the bases of relatedness among
the Iñupiat of northern Alaska. In Carsten (ed) Cultures of Relatedness
Carsten, J. (1995) “The substance of kinship and the heat of the hearth: feeding, personhood
and relatedness among Malays in Pulau Langkawi” American Ethnologist 22: pp. 223-241
Carsten, J. (ed) (2000) Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Edwards, J. and M. Strathern (2000) “Including our own” In Carsten (ed) Cultures of
Relatedness
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1951), Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer Oxford: Clarendon
Press
Kuper, Adam. 1999. Ch4. Culture: the anthropologists’ account. Havard University Press.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1982 [1975]) The Way of the Masks Translated by Sylvia Modelski, Seattle:
University of Washington
LiPuma, E. (1983) “On the preference for marriage rules: a Melanesian example” In Man 18:
766- 785
Scheffler, H. 1991. Sexism and naturalisn in the study of kinship. In M. DI Leonardo (ed) Genfer at the crossroads of knowledge: feminist anthropology in the postmodern era. Berkeley: University of California Press
Schneider, D. (1968) American Kinship: a cultural account Chicago: Chicago University
Press
Schneider, D. (1972) “What is kinship all about?” in Reining (ed) Kinship Studies in the
Morgan Centennial Year Washington, D.C.: Anthropological Society of Washington
Schneider, D. (1984) A Critique of the Study of Kinship Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press
Stafford, C. (2000) “Chinese patriliny and the cycles of yang and laiwang” In Carsten (ed)
Cultures of Relatedness
Thomas, P. (1999) “No substance, no kinship? Procreation, performativity and temanambondro parent-child relations” In P. Loizos and P. Heady (eds) Conceiving Persons,
London: Athlone Press, pp. 19-45
Weston, K. (1994) Families we choose: lesbians, gays, kinship Oxford: Columbia University
Press
Weston, K. (1995) “Forever is a long time: romancing the real in gay kinship ideologies” In
Delaney, C. and Yanagisako, S. (eds) Naturalising Power London: Routledge
Websites
http://www.chinatown-online.co.uk/pages/culture/customs/wedding.html
