The Politics of Making Kinship: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives

Published by Berghahn Books 2022

The Politics of Making Kinship

Historical and Anthropological Perspectives

Edited by: Erdmute Alber , David Warren Sabean , Simon Teuscher and Tatjana Thelen

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800737853

Overview
Contents

About this book

A long tradition of Western political thought included the concepts of a household, the family, and kinship in models of public order, but during the nineteenth century the newly constructed social sciences developed a conceptualization of “the West and the Rest” and excised family and kinship from theories of the state, public sphere, and democratic order. Kinship has, however, neither completely disappeared from the political cultures of the West nor played the determining social and political role elsewhere that has been ascribed to it. Exploring the issues that arise once the sharp divide between kinship and politics is no longer taken for granted, The Politic of Making Kinship, demonstrates how political processes have shaped concepts of kinship over time and, conversely, how political projects have been shaped by specific understandings, idioms and uses of kinship. Taking vantage points from the post-Roman era to early modernity, from colonial imperialism to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond this international set of scholars expertly place kinship centerstage and reintegrating it with political theory.

Author / Editor information

Erdmute Alber is professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. She co-led the research group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. Her books include Transfers of Belonging (Brill 2018) and (with Tatjana Thelen) Re-connecting State and Kinship (2017).

David Warren Sabean is Henry J. Bruman endowed professor of German history Emeritus and distinguished research professor of European history at the university of California, Los Angeles. He co-led the research group on kinship and politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. His books include Kinship in Neckarhausen (1998).

Simon Teuscher is professor of medieval history at the University of Zurich. He co-led the group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. His books include Lords’ Rights and Peasants’ Answers (2012) and (with David Sabean and Jon Mathieu) Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Developments (1300-1900) (2007).

Tatjana Thelen is professor at the department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna. She co-led the group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. She co-edited Reconnecting State and Kinship (2017) and Stategraphy: Toward a Relational Anthropology of the State (2017).

Erdmute Alber is professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. She co-led the research group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. Her books include Transfers of Belonging (Brill 2018) and (with Tatjana Thelen) Re-connecting State and Kinship (2017).

Reviews

“This is a powerful volume that argues for kinship and politics to be studied and analyzed in conjunction and not separately, as is still common within the social and political sciences. […] What makes the volume particularly strong is that it combines discussions of semantic shifts, political contestations, philosophy and theory, of house(hold), kin, and family relations. It shows why the dominant methods of measuring kinship relations that are so highly biased towards European — if not British — terminology eclipse other ways of organizing filiation.”  • Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Introduction Politics of Making Kinship Erdmute Alber, David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher and Tatjana Thelen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Epistemologies
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Chapter 1. Quantifying Generation: Peter Damian Develops a New System of Kinship Calculation Simon Teuscher Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Chapter 2. Kinship Matters: Genealogical and Historiographical Practices between 1750 and 1850 Michaela Hohkamp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
Chapter 3. Race and Kinship: Anthropology and the “Genealogical Method” Staffan Müller-Wille Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Chapter 4. Kinship Meets Corporation: Perspectives on Kinship and Politics in the Formative Moment of Social Anthropology Thomas Zitelmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Chapter 5. German Kinship: Forming a Political Unit and an Epistemic Void Tatjana Thelen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Part II. Projects
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Chapter 6. Making Family and Kinship: Reflections on Hegel and Parsons David Warren Sabean Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Chapter 7. Conceptualizing Kinship in Sixteenth-Century Political Theories: Bodin’s and Hotman’s Ideas of Monarchy Julia Heinemann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
Chapter 8. Commonwealths of Affection: Kinship, Marriage, and Polity in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century America Susan McKinnon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Chapter 9. Toward a Political Economy of the Maternal Body: Claiming Maternal Filiation in Nineteenth-Century French Feminism Caroline Arni Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
Part III Deployments
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Chapter 10. Inventing the Extended Family in Colonial Dahomey/Benin Erdmute Alber Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
Chapter 11. “As If Begotten and Born of Freeborn Parents”: Indicators and Considerations on Parentalization of Emancipated Slaves in the Post-Roman Occident Ludolf Kuchenbuch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
Chapter 12. From Natural Difference to Equal Value: The Case of Egg Donation in Norway Marit Melhuus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	354
Chapter 13 Family and Kinship in Early Modern Contractarian State Theories Jon Mathieu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377
Chapter 14 Translating the Family Claudia Derichs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	398
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	417

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 448
Keywords: History (General); Political and Economic Anthropology; Anthropology (General)

eBook

Published: December 9, 2022
ISBN: 9781800737853