Kinship Systems
It is important to note that a kinship system can be taken to be a rather complex feature that determines the role of individuals, their relations to each other as well as their obligations and responsibilities. In this text, I concern myself with the Australian Aborigines' kinship system. I further discuss the impact of the Australian Aborigines' kinship system on the behavior of the culture and lastly give my opinion on whether the kinship system in regard to my own society impacts the way I behave.
A Brief Description of the Culture
It can be noted that when it comes to the Australian Aboriginal culture, quite a number of variations exist as far as cultural practices are concerned. The variations in this case are as a result of the significant number of language groups as well as tribal divisions that are contained in Aboriginal Australia. However, it is important to note…...
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References
Crawford, J., & Tantiprasut, L. (2003). Australian Aboriginal Culture. R.I.C. Publications
Nowak, B.S., & Laird, P.F. (2010). Cultural Anthropology. Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Kinship categories are fundamental to the study of anthropology, as they are the basis by which societies and cultures are formed. Family kinship categories are broad and generally universal, as human beings must pass on their genes in the same ways regardless of culture. For example, family kin categories include kin types such as mother, father, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, grandmother, and so forth. Even in modern industrialized cultures in which many kinship ties are irrelevant for the social fabric of the society, kinship categories still exist. However, each culture will ascribe a different meaning, role, and function to various kin types. Regardless of how the kin types function and what their roles are within the society, the kinship categories remain the same. A mother will be a mother in any society, and a brother. Nevertheless, some cultures use far different kinship terminologies: for example, the mother's brother will be…...
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Works Cited
Murphy, Michael Dean. "A Kinship Glossary: Symbols, Terms, and Concepts." The University of Alabama. Online at .
Schwimmer, Brian. "Kinship and Social Organization." University of Manitoba. Online at .
This, then, essentially generates the same types of behaviors towards the social group, despite thousands of miles of distance and a completely different attitude and perspective on life. Australian Aboriginals do share a complex practice with American societies. They include skin types and names for members of the social group that are not of direct blood relation. Even strangers and foreigners who have spent enough time with a particular group can be assigned a specific skin name from within that group that they are familiar with. People and families in American society do the same thing. For example, I am not related to my sister-in-law or a father-in-law, yet we enter them into our family structure under a certain position and title because of their close proximity to the family one would actually share blood relations with. This generates a common behavior, where we adopt people not of blood…...
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Works Cited
Nowak, Barbara & Laird, Peter. Cultural Anthropology. Ashford University Discovery Series.
Referring to prominent women in positions of power in derogatory terms, Farmer revealed his prejudicial beliefs that an ideal role for woman is wife or mother, not leader or activist. I concluded that Farmer's generation represented a key transition between patriarchal values and more egalitarian ones. After all, Farmer was born soon after suffrage and women were gradually becoming more visible in the public sphere.
Farmer's responses answered the second research question in the negative. The informant did not oppose women's presence in the public sphere or in positions of power. However, Farmer has trouble reconciling the belief that women are inferior social subjects with the realization that women are equal as human beings. Farmer's beliefs were informed partly by his parents. His mother and father both worked on their family farm n Pennsylvania. Although both parents visibly worked, Farmer notes that his father retained most of the political authority…...
Kinship in Australian Aborigines
The individuality promoted by American and other esternized societies makes one often forget the kinship, extended-family-based networks present in most other societies, and especially those in which the main way of life revolves around foraging and horticulture systems. Yet kinship exists, and it is present in many communities, one of which is the Australian Aboriginal community located throughout the continent, but focused mostly in the Northern Territory in Australia. The community has been indigenous to the continent since before its settlement by the Dutch and British, and continues to thrive to this day, mainly due to its distinct way of life. This way includes the concept of kinship, a strategy for keeping families together so that they may better fare during harsh times, be they social, political, or economic. This paper will explore the aboriginal kinship system in detail, and will describe its impact on the…...
Iroquois kinship system was initially identified by Morgan, 1871, as the system to define family. Iroquois is among the six main kinship systems namely Eskimos, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Crow, Omaha and Iroquois. The horticulture societies are subsistence-based so as the foraging societies. In the foraging society, the foremost component is the composition and existence of the nuclear family. The nuclear family is together irrespective of their shift to any geographical location or band of cultures. However, in the horticulture society they live in extended family structures which are comprised of three generations including grandparents, parents, children, married siblings with their spouses and children, all adapted to the external environment. In the Iroquois, women are the key food producers and they are joint owners of the land. Because of this, women's central role in food production matrilineal groups is more common in horticulture societies.
There exists many similarities and differences…...
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References
Haviland, W., Prins, H., McBride, B. And Walrath, D. (2008). Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Wadsworth Publishing
Wallace, A.F. And Atkins, J. (1960). The Meaning of Kinship Terms. American Anthropologist, 62 (1), 58 -- 80.
Kinship
There are many different models that currently exist of kinship and gender. Traditionally approaches to gender and kinship focused on biological and folk models. Kinship and gender models have gone through profound changes in the last few decades. While biological studies in kinship are important, anthropological and socio-cultural models help provide a more comprehensive model of kinship. These models provide interpretations of universals provided by biology (Parkins, 1997). There is much variety in humanity much as there is in kinship systems, which is why it is important to look at kinship and gender from more than simply a biological or folk approach (Parkins, 1997). This paper will review kinship and gender from a socio-cultural and anthropological approach, compared with a biological and folk perspective of kinship and gender. This demonstrates the relevance of comparing these models to derive a better interpretation of the broad spectrum of meaning that kinship and…...
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References:
FAO. 2002. Incorporating male involvement in reproductive health: incorporating gender throughout the life cycle. Economic and Social Development Department, FAO. Retrieved: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0257e/x0257e02.htm
Parkin, R. 1997. Kinship: An introduction to basic concepts. Wiley-Blackwell.
Peletz, M.G. 1995. Kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology. Annual Review
Kinship and Politics
One interesting thing a scholar can investigate is the similarities and differences between ancient texts, especially those that operate on the basis of different moral and religious assumptions and beliefs. One such comparison can occur between the Euminides by Aeschylus and the New Testament book omans by the Apostle Paul in the Bible. The main difference is that the Euminides is based upon the ancient Greek morality, involving a polytheistic system, while omans is based upon the monotheistic system. This main difference also manifests in specific differences and similarities, involving kinship, politics, the law, and the acceptability of violence.
In the Euminides, for example, the concepts of kinship and politics are separate and contested. In the first scene of the play, where the Pythian Priestess enters, she indicates that the throne is not necessarily the birthright of those who are born into royal homes. Thrones can be given over…...
The San society in general and the kinship system in particular are very different from contemporary American society. In the U.S., it is highly unusual for adult children to continue living with their families, although this phenomenon has increased recently strictly as a function of the current economic recession and the comparative difficulty of finding employment after graduation. Americans do sometimes name children after relatives, but this is much less common and does not have the same connotations and rules that are associated with shared names in kinship societies. On the other hand, certain Western subcultures do have restrictions about naming children after living relatives.
In American families, it is normally expected that children will leave the family and start their own separate family, often far away from their birth places. Extended families may sometimes include multiple generations within a household, but it is usually as a function of necessity, such…...
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Bibliography
Jolly, C.J., Plog, F, and Acocella, J. (2004). Physical Anthropology and Archeology.
Knopf: New York.
Reader, J. (2002). Man on Earth: Portraits of Human Culture in a Multitude of Environments. Harpers & Row: New York.
The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a matrilineal horticultural society based on longhouse clans where the women traditionally farm, own the output of their labor, and have decision power in a decentralized, consensus-based and Association of clans called the Iroquois League. What has often been called the Iroquois Confederation in the past but has always been and is currently called the League is a balanced-reciprocity group of 50 male chiefs who are selected, monitored, overseen and if necessary demoted by the Clan Mothers. Local decision making takes place in small clan groups based around the longhouse, by male and female councils who then agree on policy but which the women ultimately arbitrate (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). The Clan Mothers also have religious authority and redistribute private property upon a member's death (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). This entails institutions of private property, which women acquire through grain surplus, with…...
Family & Kinship (Anthropology)
Kinship in Chinese Culture and Matriarchy (Dominance of Women) among Chinese Families: Case Studies in Southwestern China and Taiwan
Anthropology, as the study of human life and culture, has developed through various studies and researches that have been conducted initially by Western social scientists. These researches have mainly centered on the "exotic" and native cultures of societies and nations located in the East, such as islands in the Pacific and countries in Asia and the Middle East. Although these studies have provided a Western-centric view of various cultures in the world, they have contributed to the development of theory and methodology in anthropology.
Anthropological studies often provide a description of features unique within the culture and analyze these features in the context of human life (in general) as perceived by the anthropologists (in this case, a Western-centric view of human life).
This paper discusses particular incidences of matriarchy being the…...
Kinship structures, then, are not normative, but is actually consisted of the mother and child alone, illustrating how the role of males have been gradually decreasing to being 'suppliers' of sperm cells for the women's use in assisted reproduction.
Studies from Carsten and Stone demonstrate the aspects demonstrated in Kahn's research. Carsten's research centers primarily on the kinship system extant in Malaysia, while Stone looks at how females have managed to gradually increase and assert their role in human society, eventually having their own choice to actively participate in the process of reproduction or not.
Carsten's analysis of the Malaysian kinship system shows that the concept of family goes beyond the traditional distinction of blood relations -- that is, people consider an individual as part of the family even though they are not related in blood. Being considered as part of family, then, happens through a process of constant interaction of…...
The Navajo Indians also referred to as Dine are semi-nomadic people. It is interesting to note that Navajo people are at times known as 'Holy Earth People (Iverson, 2002). This comes from their beliefs in supernatural beings as well as traditional practices of ritual songs and dance. Navajo people are found in north-eastern areas of Arizona and north-western region of New Mexico (Iverson, 2002) .the regions where the Navajo people live in arid and desert areas that have minimal rainfall. The Navajo people are highly family oriented people, and have a rich culture that is full of ceremonies and other traditions. This paper looks at the history of pastoralists of the Navajo people, their beliefs and religious practices and kinship, sickness and healing, which are important elements with the culture of Navajo people.
Pastoral ways
The traditions and practices of a society, which are to some level the outcome of…...
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References
Haile, B (1993). Origin Legend of the Navaho Enemy Way: Text and Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Iverson, P. (2002). Dine: A History of the Navajo. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Kluckhohn, C and Leighton, D (1960). The Navaho. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sander, D (1979). Navaho Symbols of Healing. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
460). This research focuses more on the latter as displaying more indigenous cultural subsistence evidence, which is nonetheless indicated and measured against more modern developments in the less traditional periphery. The result is a one-stable culture experiencing major structural transition or demic change, resulting primarily from population density changes driven by resource scarcity and subsistence mode of different cultures, specifically "everyone else," i.e. The global demand for forest and mineral resources (oil) located under the Huaorani home range (Belaunde, 2008, p. 460). The traditional Huaoranis resisted invasion by neighbors while those neighbors were peer tribal cultures, but are having more difficulty resisting invasion by industrialized nations themselves driven by subsistence mode constraints. One major cultural change has become the necessity for a more articulated central 'government' to represent Waos against encroachment by the states that have arisen around them, where their previous subsistence mode allowed less formal norms and…...
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References
Beckerman, S., Erickson, P., Yost, J., Regaladod, J., Jaramilloe, L., Sparks, C. et al. (2009, May 19). Life histories, blood revenge, and reproductive success among the Waorani of Ecuador. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106 (20), 8134 -- 8139.
Belaunde, L. (2008). Review, Rival, L., Trekking through history: the Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, 431-472.
Lu, F. (2006). The commons' in an Amazonian context. Social Analysis 50 (3), 187-194.
Lu, F., Fariss, B. And Bilsborrow, R.. (2009). Gendered time allocation of indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Ethnology 48 (3), 239 -- 268.
Sex and Marriage:
When a person gets married to another, one of the first rules is that there should be 'exogamy' in the selection of the partner, which also means that the partner has to belong to a well defined outside group, or there should be 'endogamy', which means that the partner must be within some large defined group of people, and both of these two rules work within any given society at any given time, so that there are limits maintained as to the preferability and the acceptability of the marriage partner. The number of spouses that an individual is allowed to marry, however, is generally dictated by the culture and the religion to which the individual belongs. In most of Europe as well as in America, the general rule followed by almost everyone is that of 'monogamy', and this means that one person is only allowed one spouse at…...
Topic Idea 1: Primate Social Structure and Hierarchies
- Discuss the diverse social structures observed in primate species, ranging from egalitarian to strictly hierarchical systems. - Analyze the factors contributing to the formation and maintenance of social hierarchies in primates, such as dominance, kinship, and alliances. - Explore the mechanisms used by primates to communicate social status, such as vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions. - Investigate the implications of social hierarchies on the behavior, mating strategies, and reproductive success of individual primates.
Topic Idea 2: Primate Communication and Language
- Discuss the various modes of communication employed by primates, including vocalizations, gestures, facial expressions, and....
I. Introduction A. Thesis statement: Define family structure and development and provide a brief overview of its importance. B. Background information: Discuss the historical evolution of family structures and the factors influencing their development.
II. Types of Family Structures A. Nuclear family: Characteristics, advantages, and challenges. B. Extended family: In-depth analysis of kinship networks, living arrangements, and the role of grandparents. C. Blended family: Formation, dynamics, and the unique challenges faced by stepfamilies. D. Single-parent family: Prevalence, causes, parenting strategies, and the well-being of children.
III. Stages of Family Development A. Honeymoon stage: Romantic attachment, adjustment to marriage, and starting a family. ....
Inspiring Luminaries: Essays on Personal Influence
Section 1: The Mentor's Mark
The Guiding Light: The Profound Impact of a Wise Mentor Igniting the Flame: A Tribute to the Teacher Who Shaped My Path The Architect of My Dreams: Recognizing the Influence of a Lifetime Mentor
Section 2: Role Model Excellence
Exemplar of Integrity: The Person Who Inspired Me to Live a Virtuous Life Trailblazer of Courage: A Personal Account of a Role Model's Unwavering Spirit Beacon of Perseverance: The Inspiring Journey of an Individual Who Overcame Adversity
Section 3: Kinship and Transformation
The Unbreakable Bond: The Person Who Changed My Perspective on Family....
The Evolution of Marriage Law and the Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships The Impact of Obergefell v. Hodges and Subsequent Legal Precedents on Same-Sex Marriage The Role of Judicial Activism in Same-Sex Marriage Jurisprudence Comparative Analysis of Same-Sex Marriage Laws in Different Countries
Social and Cultural Impacts
The Transformation of Family Structures and Kinship Relations The Impact of Same-Sex Marriage on Children and Their Well-being The Role of Religion in Shaping Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage The LGBTQ+ Rights Movement and Its Advocacy for Marriage Equality
Political and Economic Considerations
The Influence of....
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