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Interest in the study of kinship, a key area of anthropological enquiry, has recently reemerged. Dubbed 'the new kinship', this interest was stimulated by the 'new genetics' and revived interest in kinship and family patterns. This volume investigates the impact of biotechnology on contemporary understandings of kinship, of family and 'belonging' in a variety of European settings and reveals similarities and differences in how kinship is conceived. What constitutes kinship for different publics? How significant are biogenetic links? What does family resemblance tell us? Why is genetically modified food an issue? Are 'genes' and 'blood' interchangeable? It has been argued that the recent prominence of genetic science and genetic technologies has resulted in a 'geneticization' of social life; the ethnographic examples presented here do show shifts occurring in notions of 'nature' and of what is 'natural'. But, they also illustrate the complexity of contemporary kinship thinking in Europe and the continued interconnectedness of biological and sociological understandings of relatedness and the relationship between nature and nurture.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Matter in Kinship
Jeanette Edwards Chapter 1. Knowing and Relating: Kinship, Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the New Genetics
Joan Bestard Chapter 2. Imagining Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Family, Kinship and 'Local Thinking' in Lithuania
Auksuole Cepaitiene Chapter 3. Eating Genes and Raising People: Kinship Thinking and Genetically Modified Food in the North of England
Cathrine Degnen Chapter 4. The Family Body: Persons, Bodies and Resemblance
Diana Marre and
Joan Bestard Chapter 5. The Contribution of Homoparental Families to the Current Debate on Kinship
Anne Cadoret Chapter 6. Corpo-real Identities: Perspectives from a Gypsy Community
Nathalie Manrique Chapter 7. Incest, Embodiment, Genes and Kinship
Enric Porqueres i Gené and
Jérôme Wilgaux (France)
Chapter 8. 'Loving Mothers' at Work: Raising Others' Children and Building Families with the Intention to Love and Take Care
Eniko Demény Chapter 9. Adoption and Assisted Conception: One Universe of Unnatural Procreation. An Examination of Norwegian Legislation
Marit Melhuus and
Signe Howell Chapter 10. Fields of Post-human Kinship
Ben Campbell Chapter 11. Are Genes Good to Think With?
Carles Salazar Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
About the author
Carles Salazar is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Ireland and Catalonia (Spain). His publications include
A Sentimental Economy (1996, Berghahn) and
Anthropology and Sexual Morality (2006, Berghahn) and a number of articles on kinship, sexuality, reproduction and Irish ethnography.
Summary
Interest in the study of kinship, a key area of anthropological enquiry, has recently reemerged. Dubbed ‘the new kinship’, this interest was stimulated by the ‘new genetics’ and revived interest in kinship and family patterns. This volume investigates the impact of biotechnology on contemporary understandings of kinship, of family and ‘belonging’ in a variety of European settings and reveals similarities and differences in how kinship is conceived. What constitutes kinship for different publics? How significant are biogenetic links? What does family resemblance tell us? Why is genetically modified food an issue? Are ‘genes’ and ‘blood’ interchangeable? It has been argued that the recent prominence of genetic science and genetic technologies has resulted in a ‘geneticization’ of social life; the ethnographic examples presented here do show shifts occurring in notions of ‘nature’ and of what is ‘natural’. But, they also illustrate the complexity of contemporary kinship thinking in Europe and the continued interconnectedness of biological and sociological understandings of relatedness and the relationship between nature and nurture.
Additional text
"This superb anthology extends the emphasis on technology that has become such a prominent feature of much recent anthropological work on kinship...In this richly ethnographic text, the most familiar problems produce the most unusual answers...Each chapter brilliantly combines kinship as a matrix with kinship as a tool, using ethnographic examples that leap off the page."� �� Journal of Anthropological Research
