Dr Henrike Donner, A506 and Dr Amit Desai

For MSc Social Anthropology, MSc Anthropology and Development, MSc Anthropology of Learning and Cognition, MSc Law, Anthropology and Society, MSc China in Comparative Perspective, MSc Biomedicine, Bioscience and Society and MSc Gender.

An examination of the cultural frameworks and social aspects of kinship systems, gender roles, personhood and human sexuality, analysed through ethnographic examples from diverse cultures; an analysis of theoretical debates concerning core concepts such as 'kinship', 'marriage', 'gender', ‘ sex’ and 'person' and a critical discussion of 'nature' and ‘culture’.

The course charts the history of anthropological debates on kinship and the critique of the notion of 'kinship' in the light of symbolic approaches, gender theory and culturally variant theories of sexuality and procreation. It also looks at the development and influence of feminism within anthropology, ideas of ‘mixture’, transgendered persons, friendship, and kinship and time/historicity.

Lectures: AN405 weekly MT, LT, Seminars AN405.A weekly MT, LT.

Introductory readings are:

M Fortes & E Evans-Pritchard African Political Systems (1940) GN490 F73
C Lévi-Strauss The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1969) GN487 L66
D Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship (1984) GN487 S35
C MacCormack & M Strathern Nature, Culture and Gender (1980) GN479.65 N28
J. Goody (ed) The Character of Kinship (1973) GN487 G65
R. Fox Kinship and Marriage (1967) GN480 F79
J. Carsten (ed) Cultures of Relatedness (2000) GN487 C96
J. Carsten After Kinship (2003) GN487 C32
M. G. Peletz 1995 Kinship Studies in Late Twentieth Century Anthropology. Review of Anthropology, 24, pp 343-372. (available through JSTOR)
S. Ortner. 1996. Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture
H. L. Moore. 1988. Feminism and Anthropology

There is a three-hour examination in the ST.