24/7 Customer support here

   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 the 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 characterized 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 symbolism, 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 him, 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 of intercourse, pregnancy and birth can establish 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 by 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 solely interpreted 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 inevitably 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 Iсupiat 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.

Lйvi-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

   1  2

BACK TO ANTHROPOLOGY