The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship

A state-of-the-field Handbook surveying the broad range of topics, approaches and theories within kinship studies today.

Sandra Bamford (Edited by)

9781107041189, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 May 2019

750 pages, 6 b/w illus. 3 tables
25.5 x 18.2 x 4.3 cm, 1.44 kg

'This marvelous collection of essays attests the vitality, breadth and depth of contemporary kinship studies and shows how kinship, contrary to earlier predictions of its demise, is alive and kicking. The volume brings together work from some of the most knowledgeable scholars in the field who, in consolidating their research thus far, map the state of the art and reveal not only the workings of kinship in an interconnected world, but also how it cannot be isolated from other pressing social and political questions of our time.' Jeanette Edwards, University of Manchester

Presenting twenty-nine original chapters - each written by an expert in the field – this Handbook examines the history of kinship theory and the directions in which it has moved over the past few years. Using examples from across the globe (Africa, India, South America, Malaysia, Asia, the Pacific, Europe and North America), this Handbook highlights the power of kinship theory to address questions of broad anthropological significance. How have recent advances in reproductive medicine fundamentally altered our understanding of biological properties? How has globalization brought in its wake new ways of imagining human relatedness? What might recent shifts in state welfare policies tell us about those relations of power that define the difference between 'functional' versus 'dysfunctional' families? Addressing these and many other timely concerns, this volume presents the results of cutting edge research and demonstrates that the study of kinship is likely to remain at the core of anthropological inquiry.

Introduction: 1. Conceiving kinship in the twenty-first century Sandra Bamford
Part I. Opening Frameworks: 2. The seeds of kinship theory Carol Delaney
3. Descent in retrospect and prospect Gillian Feeley-Harnik
4. The alliance theory of kinship in South Indian ethnography Isabelle Clark-Decès
5. The anthropology of biology: a lesson from the new kinship. Studies Sarah Franklin
6. The stuff of kinship Janet Carsten
Part II. The (Non)Biological Basis of Relatedness: 7. Embodied relationality beyond 'nature' vs 'nurture': materializing absent kinships in Japanese child welfare Kathryn Goldfarb
8. Kinship in the Andes Mary Weismantel and Mary Elena Wilhoit
9. Kinship and place: the existential and moral process of landscape formation on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea James Leach
10. Adoption Christine Gailey
11. Natural achievements: how lesbian and gay families in North America make claims to kinship Ellen Lewin
Part III. Reproducing Society: Gender, Birth and Power: 12. Kinship, knowledge and the state: the case of Argentina's adult 'living disappeared' Noa Vaisman
13. Kinship, affliction, proximity, and unfinished healing in India Sarah Pinto
14. Reproductive remix: law, kinship and origin stories Valerie Hartouni
15. Selecting for sons: kinship as a product of desire Tine Gammeltoft
Part IV. Transnational Connections: 16. Maids, mistresses and wives: rethinking kinship and the domestic sphere in twenty-first-century global Hong Kong Nicole Constable
17. Transnational adoption J. Leinaweaver
18. Kinship in transnational encounters: Filipino migrants as 'ideal brides' in rural Japan Lieba Faier
19. Un/making family: relatedness, migration, and displacement in a global age Deborah Boehm
20. My folder is not a person: kinship, knowledge, biopolitics and the adoption file Eleana Kim
Part V. Technological Conceptions: 21. Surrogate motherhood and transforming families Janet DolginI
22. Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli, Soraya Tremayne and Zeynep Gurtin – kinship and assisted reproductive technologies: a Middle Eastern comparison Marcia Inhorn
23. A comparison of kinship understandings among Israeli and US surrogates Elly Teman and Zsuzsa Berend
24. Self, personhood and belonging: the role of technology in childhood disability Gail Landsman
25. Paid and unpaid gestational labor: pregnancy and surrogacy in anthropological studies of reproduction Tsipy Ivry and Elly Teman
Part VI. Kinship and the Nation State: 26. Reading the contested forms of nation through the contested forms of kinship and marriage Susan McKinnon
27. The prison as a technology of care in North-East Brazil Hollis Moore
28. The interface between kinship and politics in three different social settings Signe Howell
29. A global family: kinship, nations, and transnational organizations in Botswana's time of AIDS Koreen Reece
30. Kinship, world religions and the nation state Fenella Cannell.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]