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"This book is a gem. Just as Malinowski produced ethnography of a single group that nevertheless spoke to universal problems of human existence, so too Leite’s book speaks to profound contemporary problems of group identity, of how peoples with different interests conceive of others and themselves, and how they interact. Unorthodox Kin is written for scholars, but so beautifully and clearly that it will be accessible to a wide and divergent audience."—Edward Bruner, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Illinois
"At a time of resurgent anti-Semitism in much of Europe, the passionate self-ascription and swelling numbers of Portuguese Jews both call for explanation. Naomi Leite’s compelling analysis explores their conviction that, far from being new converts, they are recovering a mysterious past shared in varying degrees with the majority of Portuguese today, a past that until recently was tangible only through the most oblique traces. This book is a richly persuasive and precisely observed exploration of how collective belonging is excavated, realized, negotiated, and contested in life and thought."—Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University
"Unorthodox Kin is the best ethnography I have read about how an identity category is lived subjectively while also circulating as a charged figure of judgment and desire in the eyes of other people. A beautifully written book, full of empathy and humor."— Rupert Stasch, Fellow and Director of Studies, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University
"This engaging and lucid account of Portugal’s crypto-Jews a century after their uncovering brings together anthropological perspectives on class identity in Portugal, heritage tourism, and Jewish religious practice. By focusing on histories of becoming, the author presents a truly innovative analysis not only of Judaism in Portugal but, more broadly, of how global communication and local history interact creatively in our contemporary world."—João de Pina-Cabral, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Kent
"An imaginative, engaging and absorbing account of Jewish kinship in the modern world; this will be a wonderful book for teaching as well as for reading."—Fenella Cannell, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, London School of Economics
List of contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
A Note on Translation and Terminology
Introduction: An Ethnography of Affinities
1 • Hidden Within, Imported from Without: A Social Category through Time
2 • Essentially Jewish: Body, Soul, Self
3 • Outsider, In-Between: Becoming Marranos
4 • “My Lost Brothers and Sisters!”: Tourism and Cultural Logics of Kinship
5 • From Ancestors to Affection: Making Connections, Making Kin
Conclusion: Strangers, Kin, and the Global Search for Belonging
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Naomi Leite is Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Director of Studies in Anthropology of Travel and Tourism at SOAS, University of London.
Summary
An exploration of identity, relatedness, and belonging in the context of profound global interconnection. It paints a poignant and graceful portrait of Portugal's urban Marranos, who trace their ancestry to fifteenth-century Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism and now seek connection with the Jewish people at large.
Additional text
“Unorthodox kin is at once the story of specific people and a community, of the history of a people and a country, and of the intricacies of recovering, acknowledging, and re-creating individual and group identity. Simultaneously, it is a story of spiritual life and daily practicalities, of intimacy and acknowledged tourism, a personal narrative and a finely tuned anthropological study.”
