Politics and Kinship

Author(s)

Tatjana Thelen, Erdmute Alber

Abstract

Politics and Kinship: A Reader offers a unique overview of the entanglement of these two categories in both theoretical debates and everyday practices. The two, despite many challenges, are often thought to have become separated during the process of modernisation. Tracing how this notion of separation becomes idealized and translated into various contexts, this book sheds light on its epistemological limitations. Combining otherwise-distinct lines of discussion within political anthropology and kinship studies, the selection of texts covers a broad range of intersecting topics that range from military strategy, DNA testing, and child fostering, to practices of kinning the state.

Beginning with the study of politics, the first part of this volume looks at how its separation from kinship came to be considered a ‘modern’ phenomenon, with significant consequences. The second part starts from kinship, showing how it was made into a separate and apolitical field – an idea that would soon travel and be translated globally into policies. The third part turns to reproductions through various transmissions and future making projects. Overall, the volume offers a fundamental critique of the epistemological separation of politics and kinship, and its shortcomings for teaching and research. Featuring contributions from a broad range of regional, temporal and theoretical backgrounds, it allows for critical engagement with knowledge production about the entanglement of politics and kinship.

The different traditions and contemporary approaches represented make this book an essential resource for researchers, instructors and students of anthropology.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

External organisation(s)

Universität Bayreuth

No. of pages

300

Publication date

2021

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504009 Ethnology, 504017 Cultural anthropology, 504008 Ethnography, 504007 Empirical social research

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4fdfe6d6-9d66-4797-93c1-1e81aeebc56e