Because friendship is tied to relationship building learned in the home, the relationship of family members is inevitably tied to the degrees of intimacy, compatibility, and power hierarchy at play at home. While most studies of kinship are an examination of the family in the great social sense, Carsten understands that the modern-day ideas of kinship put previously held principals on their heads. The tenants of blood and bonds in kinship are undeniable, but not mandatory. In El Barrio, kinship was created through unrelated individuals because of the fulfillment of shared needs, responsibilities, and contextualization on the margin of society. Additional problems of families spread across the globe, evidenced in the Puerto Rican - Manhattan splits that many of the families in East Harlem had, kinship can be created on a local scale and without the necessary bonds of blood and surname.
Technological innovations have furthered the chasm between traditional assumptions and understandings of kinship and modern-day applicability. Carsten asserts that while biological connects are important in the construction of kinship, they are not all-encompassing. She demonstrates this most clearly with the case of foster children, but the family relationships created in El Barrio further emphasis this new truth. Family is no longer something that has be to constructed along biological lines, but can be interpreted instead across social lines.
Tied intrinsically to the social relations between two similar and autonomous individuals that define friendship, kinship is put into new light. The story of El Barrio emphasizes the actualized concepts of friendship and kinship as they are created, navigated, broken down, restructured, and lived.
Bell, S. & Coleman, S. 1999. "The Anthropology of Friendship: Enduring Themes and Future Possibilites." In The Anthropology of Friendship. London: Berg Press.
Bourgois, Phillippe. 1995. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carsnet, Janet. 2004. After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bell, S. & Coleman, S. 1999. "The Anthropology of Friendship: Enduring Themes and Future Possibilites." In The Anthropology of Friendship. London: Berg Press. P. 8.
Bell & Coleman, Introduction.
Bell & Coleman, p. 3.
Bourgois, Phillippe. 1995. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bourois, p. 9.
Bourgois, p. 12.
