Kinship

Abstract

Kinship frequently denotes the network of social and political relationships that are formed out of familial ties through rules governing marriage, reproduction, and descent. Historically, kinship has referred to the social organization of sexual relationships through sanction and taboo. However, new scholarship on kinship has attempted to think explicitly about political and social belonging and the reproduction of material life outside the circuits of sexuality and biological reproduction, or, at least, outside the networks of heterosexual sexuality and the nuclear family. Kinship now often refers to the social, communal, or intimate bonds that are formed out of the metaphors of family and friendship. The entry covers feminist critiques of kinship studies, gay and lesbian and queer kinship studies, and the ways in which biological kinship categories remain important to modern nation states.