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This collection reaffirms the importance of kinship, and of studying kinship, within the framework of social anthropology.
The contributors examine both the benefits and burdens of kinship across cultures and explore how 'relatedness' is inextricably linked with other concepts which define people's identities - such as gender, power and history. With examples from a wide range of areas including Austria, Greenland, Portugal, Turkey and the Amazon, it covers themes such as:
* how people choose and activate kin
* leadership, spiritual power and kinship
* inheritance, marriage and social inequality
* familial sentiment and economic interest
* the role of kinship in Utopian communes
Dividends of Kinship
provides a timely and critical reappraisal of the place of familial relations in the contemporary world. It will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in anthropology, and across the social sciences.
List of contents
Notes on contributors, Preface, 1 Introduction, 2 Choosing kin: sharing and subsistence in a Greenlandic hunting community, 3 Power and kinship in Shuar and Achuar society, 4 On the importance of being the last one: inheritance and marriage in an Austrian peasant community, 5 Kinship, reciprocity and the world market, 6 Is blood thicker than economic interest in familial enterprises?, 7 'Philoprogenitiveness' through the cracks: on the resilience and benefits of kinship in Utopian communes, 8 Concluding remarks, Index
About the author
Peter P. Schweitzer is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Lecturer at the University of Vienna
Summary
This collection reaffirms the importance of kinship, and of studying kinship, within the framework of social anthropology with examples from areas such as Austria, Greenland, Portugal, Turkey and the Amazon.
