The anthropology of kinship connects the social-cultural relationships that form a vital aspect of societal lives. Anthropologists would study kinship as a way of determining the relationship between individuals based on marriage, family, and similar cultural establishments. It shows the actions and behaviors that shape life across all forms of culture including parenthood, gender roles, sexuality, siblings’ relationship, and socialization. In general, societies are unique in their ways of interpreting the biological forms of life as related to kinship. This essay proves the idea that kinship anthropology can help map social-cultural differences onto biological facts using the following pointers.
First, parenthood presents a complex relationship between society, culture, and biological facts. Carsten notes that “procreation may not be central in some cultures (1995b: 234).” Similar sentiments exist regarding the social-cultural and biological explanations to parenthood as presented in the anthropology of kinship. As such, anthropologists have used terms such as "pater" and "genitor" as well as "mater" and "genitrix" to differentiate between individuals who socially and physiologically recognize as parents, respectively. Ideally, a widow would choose to take in a new husband who will assume the social role of being her children’s father and so forth.
There also exists an interconnection between the two concepts regarding sexual relations, parenthood, and the society. The first idea explores the fact that anthropology of kinship may mean both biological and social associations between individuals in a familial setup. Malinowski’s ethnographical study explored the intriguing sexual behavior in married individuals among the Trobriand band of the Trobriand Islands. These individuals did not believe in pregnancy as a result of sexual relations between man and his wife. Malinowski states that the primary “cause of pregnancy is a baloma who enters the body of a woman, and without whose existence a woman could not become pregnant (1948: 190).”
The above ethnographic finding implies that Trobriand did not believe in pregnancy as a result of sexual relations between man and his wife. Instead, women would conceive courtesy of a mythical figure known as the baloma. It further denies the existence of a biological relationship between the child and their father. However, the band did not approve of women having children without a husband. Malinowski, therefore, determines that men would assume a social-cultural function in the life of both the children and his wife. That is, it was his duty to help his female companion to look after the children. Thus, though the Trobriand overlook the biological importance of a man in the family, they look at him as an important part of the family’s social structure.
Contrarily, the analysis of kinship can also prove that the socio-cultural elements of a sexual relationship can coexist with its biological counterparts. According to Carsten, “sexual reproduction creates biological links between persons and these have important qualities apart from any social or cultural attributes (1995b: 224).” This ethnographical finding notes that such attributes can later receive an important attachment to a relation. In essence, both attributes are the product of yet less significant than biological relations.
Ideally, biological bonds comprise of special qualities that create and constitute the ties necessary to strengthen the importance of kinship. For instance, Pante notes that the relative contributions of both parents during biological reproduction exist through the exchange and interaction of body fluids. These fluids include milk, blood, ovum, and semen. This author asserts that in traditional India, the “patrilineal focus can be seen in the ubiquitous notions of seed and Earth where the seed symbolizes the father’s contribution and the field represent the role of the mother (Pande 2009: 383). The connection elaborates the existence of a strong focus on the biological role of both parents in procreation.
Similarly, anthropology of kinship could help map social-cultural differences onto biological facts through a cultural look at surrogate parenthood. Pande conducted a series of ethnographical studies of India’s traditional tribes in Anand. Now, Anand, is an Indian city locate in the state of Gujarat. This city is host to numerous fertility clinics that allow clients to arrange for their personal surrogacy. At an Anand-based facility, Pande found that surrogates there used an interesting interpretation of mother-child blood ties. They claimed that blood and substance played an extremely important role in linking the two into a strong socio-cultural bond amidst their biological connectedness.
That is, women in the surrogacy process are more than just sperm receptacles. Instead, the community advocates the blood and sweat connection as stronger than its genetic composition. Sharda, one of Pande’s surrogates, had the chance to breastfeed her newborn to help intensify their connection. According to Sharda, the blood and milk tie made her more attached to the newborn than the biological mother. This reinterpretation acts as one of the many forms of kinships that societies cannot dismiss as impossible. The event recognizes that shared substances are just as important as genetic connections in creating kinship (Pande 2009: 384-385).
Other arguments can also exist through gender and role differences as discussed below. Numerous anthropologists push the idea that gender in a family set up would as well explain the social-cultural differences in biological facts. That is, the gendered differences one witnesses as male or female are part of the larger social-cultural differentiation of gender. These differentiations exists in physic and gender-oriented roles as discussed further below. Individuals socially and biologically related to one another are siblings. Such individuals do not partake in some societal activities such as marry each other and procreate. In the ethnographical study of the Malay culture, Carsten notes that, “ kin who have drunk milk from the breast of the same woman may not marry (1995b: 227).” On siblings, gender and marriage, Carsten also showed an outlaw of sibling marriage as incestuous. The author states that both biological and foster children drink from the same breast. The share of substances in such cases makes them typical carriers of the connotations of incest (1995b: 228).
Anthropologists use gender and gender-related roles as socio-cultural terms that considered the expectations that societies and cultures load onto individuals that share biological characteristics. Carsten suggests that gender and gender-based roles within a community are more of a socio-cultural construction that uses physiological differences to determine role appropriateness. The association of siblings at house level show the importance of biological origin among analysis. Carsten’s study shows that various children belong to sets of biological origins that connect them to a common placenta (1995b:226). Carsten finds that circumcision and childbirth have a symbolic function of uniting males and females. They are both regulated episodes of bleeding that link men and women to fertility and reproduction (Carsten 1995b: 232).
A close look at this ethnography shows that cultures find ways of constructing beliefs and expectations to suit both genders. However, the construction does not imply that there are no psychological variations. It means that such incidences have a way of exhibiting dramatic biological impacts on individuals and their cultures. The, for instance, the Langkawi feed its males differently from their female counterparts. They also have spaces and activities divided and assigned based on gender differences as discussed further below. Nonetheless, there seems no specific allocation of third-sex roles given the traditional explanations of kinship.
Carsten strongly associated houses in Langkawi with women as opposed to males. The author believed that women, more than men, spend most of the time at home while men were away fishing, touring, in coffee shops and places of worship (1995: 330-333). The connection between females and housekeeping did not explain their absence from the public spaces. Instead, it positively associated them with the important role kinship through roles that bonded the family. Such roles connect to the kitchen, fireplace, and living areas of the household.
Finally, numerous anthropologists push further the topic of gendered differences from a social perspective as embodied into societal activities. Biological differences would determine social roles across all notable societies. For instance, the Langkawi society actively encourages its male population to participate in activities that enhance their gender. Notably, they believe in male circumcision as important in transitioning individuals into maturity. Boys that partake in this ceremony receive the masculinity recognition and become the tribe’s paternal developers of future generations (Carsten 1995: 330-335).
In conclusion, the above discussion exhaustively discusses the hypothesis that the academia understands anthropology of kinship through the mapping of various socio-cultural differences onto biological facts. The paper involves various biological facts such as gender, parenthood, surrogacy, and sibling relationships and tries to connect them to their socio-cultural manifestations. Outstanding of this discussion is the complex idea of natural and surrogate-fronted parenthood and their connection to socio-cultural differences. The evidence is enough to prove that anthropology of kinship as an active role in linking societies, their cultures, and biological facts.
Reference List
Carsten, J., (1995). "The Politics of Forgetting: Migration, Kinship and Memory on the Periphery of the Southeast Asian State" The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1 (2), 317-335.
Carsten, J., (1995b). "The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, personhood, and relatedness among Malays in Pulau Langkawi" American Ethnologist, 22 (2), 223-241.
Malinowski, B. (1948). In the Trobriand Islands. In B. Malinowski, Magic Science and Religion (pp. 189-210). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Pande, A., (2009). “It May Be Her Eggs But It’s My Blood”: Surrogates and Everyday Forms of Kinship in India. Journal of Qualitative Sociology , 32, 379–397.
