Kinship Practice Research Articles

Marriage Defraud: A Systematic Review of the Tongqi Group in China

This systematic review endeavors to investigate the contentious kinship practice of Tongqi in mainland China. The term refers to the situation where women enter into marital relationships with gay men. The review assesses the prevalence of the Tongqi group in Chinese society, and further explores the socio-legal determinants that contribute to their predicament, including their psychological and social implications. It also delves into the legal and cultural milieu in which marriage defraud occurs in China and can be implicated in future research and policy interventions.

Letter-Poems to Shauki Masi

AbstractAn extension of an ongoing haunted queer diasporic kinship practice, this piece consists of letter-poems written to the author’s ancestor, Shauki Masi, who passed away several years ago. In this way, the author offers queer Muslim meditations on the five pillars of Islam: salat (ritual of daily prayer), zakat (alms), sawm (ramzaan), hajj (pilgrimage), and shahadah (declaration of faith). The five pillars of Islam offer a praxis through which Muslims can (re)balance their relationships, communities, and therefore the world.

Practice of adoption in Aotearoa before the 1881 Adoption of Children Act

INTRODUCTION: With the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa New Zealand came a familial kinship structure and ideas of caring and nurturing children different from that of indigenous Māori society. Europeans brought with them a practice of adoption, a concept that differed from the indigenous kinship practice of whāngai. This led to misunderstandings between the two cultures about care arrangements, particularly when a Māori child was left with a European couple. Even the reasons why Māori engaged in this type of arrangement was often not fully understood by Europeans. For Māori, these arrangements were usually temporary, while Europeans considered them to be permanent. Hence, we have the beginning of the challenges that contributed to the creation of the 1881 Adoption of Infants Act, a first within the British Empire.APPROACH: This article begins with a description of the Māori practice of whāngai and the European practice of adoption preceding the 1881 act, highlighting the key differences between each—the most significant difference being the European idea of permanent and the Māori idea of temporary care arrangements.

Kinship and gendered economic conduct in matrilineal Offinso, Ghana

AbstractFor many decades, anthropologists have debated the question of matriliny, with some expressing concerns about its prospects of survival in a modern economy of private property and greater economic differentiation. In continuing this debate, this article provides new and contemporary evidence of the continued relevance of matriliny as a kinship practice that shapes the daily conduct of women. Using ethnographic evidence from the Asante town of Offinso in Ghana, the article demonstrates the crucial role of matrilineal kinship through the economic experiences of two market women living with their respective husbands. The evidence shows that the persistence of economic values that encourage female enterprise, norms of kinship that privilege maternal relations over paternal ones and marriage conventions that allow spouses to maintain separate economic resources create a social and economic environment in which women actively assert their independence from husbands. Women's strong allegiance to their matrilineage is mirrored in their economic conduct, further accentuating the antithesis between conjugal and lineage bonds. Put together, these factors point to greater social and economic autonomy for Asante women.

“She Was What They Call a ‘Pepe’”: Kinship Practice and Incest Codes in Late Colonial Guatemala

Incest taboos have long been intriguing to anthropologists because they are apparently common to all human societies. The definition of incest in the Spanish American colonies was codified in law, but not all residents abided by such regulations. This article focuses on incestuous crime in late colonial Guatemala, a region that is underrepresented in incest literature. It shows how preoccupations with incest problematized aspects of kinship practice and discusses the ways colonial actors took advantage of kinship and incest during various crises in their lives. Overall, it demonstrates the power of incest codes to shape human interactions in colonial Guatemala.

The Descendant Bargain: Latina Youth Remaking Kinship and Generation through Educational Sibcare in Nashville, Tennessee.

Older sisters in Latino, immigrant-origin families in the United States bear significant caretaking responsibilities for their siblings, especially regarding their siblings' educations. Young women in Nashville, Tennessee, frame their same-generation caretaking commitments and educational expectations for their siblings in intergenerational terms-what I term the descendant bargain. This intergenerational framing reveals how elder sisters position their siblingship-and their educational carework-as vital to forging socioeconomic mobility and kinship obligations, labor often understood as the domain of parents. Youthful siblings' educational carework is a critical kinship practice that demonstrates the central role of youth in making kinship and remaking genealogical generation in immigrant families.

Regulation and un-regulation of LGBT reproductive and parenting rights: the case of Italy and Belgium

The development of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) has led to new forms of child production, family reproduction and kinship practice, confronting societies with the question of whether and how to legally recognise these new family structures and kinship ties. This is the case of same-sex couples who are parents, whose reproductive strategies and family configurations are not equally regulated and recognized in different countries. This article will examine the consequences of the lack of adjustment between legislation and public policies on family organization. This question is explored by comparing two European countries, which differ radically in their approach to regulating ART and recognising same-sex family configurations: namely, Italy and Belgium. The ethnographic gaze will show that the way in which both countries regulate reproductive practices and recognise kinship ties contains ambiguities and contradictions, although to a different extent. We can then talk of reproductive tactics and kinning processes.

Kinship structures create persistent channels for language transmission

Languages are transmitted through channels created by kinship systems. Given sufficient time, these kinship channels can change the genetic and linguistic structure of populations. In traditional societies of eastern Indonesia, finely resolved cophylogenies of languages and genes reveal persistent movements between stable speech communities facilitated by kinship rules. When multiple languages are present in a region and postmarital residence rules encourage sustained directional movement between speech communities, then languages should be channeled along uniparental lines. We find strong evidence for this pattern in 982 individuals from 25 villages on two adjacent islands, where different kinship rules have been followed. Core groups of close relatives have stayed together for generations, while remaining in contact with, and marrying into, surrounding groups. Over time, these kinship systems shaped their gene and language phylogenies: Consistently following a postmarital residence rule turned social communities into speech communities.

‘Unqueer’ kinship? Critical reflections on ‘marriage fraud’ in mainland China

This article explores the controversial kinship practice in mainland China of ‘gay’ men marrying unwitting women. It questions the ‘marriage fraud’ discourse that condemns the men involved while pitying their wives, or tongqis. Taking an ethnographic approach, this article considers the major flaws of this popular discourse: the idealized-package of marriage–love–sex, the oft-neglected difficulties of living outside marriage, and most importantly, the essentialization of homosexuality. It also examines the im/possibility for married ‘gay’ men to be honest in their marriages. Finally, it cautions that honesty, if used as a decontextualized ethical yardstick for queer kinship, may obscure the racist and homophobic prejudices that exist both outside and inside queer communities. Accordingly, this article proposes that we shift to ‘opacity’ as an epistemological, methodological and ethical parameter that radically queers kinship (studies).

Radical Connections: Genealogy, Small Lives, Big Data

ABSTRACTGenealogy research is a type of excavation, as practitioners piece together stories of origin of millions of unknown, small lives. As the work of genealogy becomes monetized as big data, it is vital to consider genealogy's radical potential as a kinship practice, and its relationship to ideas about DNA.

A “Cognition and Practice” Approach to an Aspect of European Kinship

Despite the long history of kinship studies, we still lack agreed theories capable of explaining the connection between terminological systems and kinship practice. This article argues for a cognitive approach centering on two distinct but complementary aspects of identity. It is argued that patterns of shared identity are implied by terminology and combine with other factors to motivate practice—in a feedback loop which transmits influences between terminological systems and political and economic institutions. The argument is illustrated by statistical and historical analyses of an aspect of European kinship.

Repaying the Debts of the Dead: Kinship, Microfinance, and Mortuary Practice on the Paraguayan Frontier

Repaying the Debts of the Dead: Kinship, Microfinance, and Mortuary Practice on the Paraguayan Frontier

Family Engagement in Child Protection Social Work

Family engagement is key to the success of child protection interventions. Families can only benefit from the social work interventions they are committed to being involved with, and a multitude of factors act as barriers to effective family engagement with child protection interventions. Despite the importance of family engagement as a practice value there is a lack of specificity in the field regarding how we build engagement, how we identify when it is present, and how we concretely identify its positive results. This article first reviews successful family engagement strategies and examines facilitators of and barriers to effective engagement. A model is then presented that can guide social workers, supervisors, and evaluators by operationalizing the process of family engagement. The model first details actions child protection social workers can take to build engagement and proposes indications that effective engagement has been established. The model then details the increases in information, resources, and empowerment that result from family engagement. This model supports efforts of social workers and their supervisors to enhance engagement with families and assists evaluators in identifying whether engagement is present and has been applied in child protection, kinship, and wraparound practice settings.

Using complexity theory in kinship practice

AbstractThis reflective discussion draws on data from a collaborative enquiry into kinship or family and friends practice. It introduces perspectives from complexity and chaos theory as a way of re‐examining the challenges of kinship practice. The discussion highlights the enduring challenges for practitioners, not least, managing anxiety and uncertainty, sustaining continuity and containment, becoming experienced and taking account of the complex developmental needs of the children and their families. The discussion particularly raises questions about appropriate settings for practitioners to undertake such a demanding area of child and family social work.

Kinship, Affinity and Connectedness: Exploring the Role of Genealogy in Personal Lives

Drawing on the 2008 Mass Observation Directive ‘Doing Family Research’, this article explores the role of genealogy in personal lives from the perspective of genealogists and non-genealogists in the UK. Analysing the ends to which genealogy is put, it finds that genealogy is a key kinship practice, mapping connectedness, offering a resource for identity-work, and allowing belonging in time. Engaging with anthropological work on kinship, relatedness and remembrance and with recent sociological work on identity and affinity, this article explores how family history as a creative and imaginative memory and kinship practice is simultaneously used to map affinities and connectedness, enact relatedness, and produce self-identity. It argues that examining the role of genealogy and the genealogical imaginary reveals that conventional as well as non-conventional kinship produces partial and insecure identities. This compels everyday personal engagement with the meaning and legacy of inheritance for collective and individual identification and identity.

Traditional Knowledge Systems and the Conservation of Cross River Gorillas: a Case Study of Bechati, Fossimondi, Besali, Cameroon

Etiendem, D. N., L. Hens, and Z. Pereboom. 2011. Traditional knowledge systems and the conservation of Cross River gorillas: a case study of Bechati, Fossimondi, Besali, Cameroon. Ecology and Society 16(3): 22. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04182-160322

Exploring Kinship Care through Practitioner Collaborative Enquiry

Chris Warren-Adamson reports on the proceedings of a collaborative enquiry group of eight social workers from one English local authority considering kinship or family and friends care practice. Facilitated by an academic, the group met once a month for the best part of a year to enquire into the implications for practitioners of the authority's strong policy of encouraging kinship placement for looked after children. The article briefly acknowledges the context of ‘kinship care’ and the collaborative enquiry process, before concentrating on a consideration of the challenges to kinship practice. The article concludes with a discussion about two inter-related sets of findings: first, technical or structural proposals about kinship practice; and second, enduring issues for social work practice, namely the overwhelming nature of complexity, the ill-management of anxiety and the questionable appropriateness of the agency office as a site for kinship care practice.

Queer Kinship and Ambivalence

This article explores the relationship between queer thought and kinship through a study of video autoethnographies by Jean Carlomusto and Richard Fung. I propose the concept of ambivalence as a useful point of departure for grappling with the conflicted political, affective, and conceptual terrain of LGBT kinship. Through close textual analysis of four video autoethnographies, I extend existing sociological, anthropological, and philosophical scholarship on LGBT family and kinship to consider audiovisual production as a specific and productive kinship practice. Queer film and video autoethnography offers unexpected and insightful accounts of queer relationality. In contrast with dominant North American family narratives and imagery concerned with continuity, heredity, and the closed white, heteronormative North American intimate sphere, Carlomusto's and Fung's works probe the moments where kinship breaks down: illness and death, migrant experience, and family secrets. Through a doubled formal and thematic emphasis on fragmentation, discontinuity, and affective ambivalence, these extraordinary works help us understand kinship otherwise, or queerly.

Red cocks and black hens : Gendered symbolism, kinship and social practice in the Ngada highlands

Ngada is not only the name of a regency (kabupaten) in Central Flores, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands in eastern Indonesia (Nusa Tenggara Timur), but also refers to a people numbering about 60,000 who live in the southern and central part of the regency, extending from a small coastal section along the Savu Sea up to a highland plateau more than 1,000 metres in altitude. With the exception of the plateau, the region is extremely rugged, cross-cut by rough gorges. Many villages are still isolated and can only be reached by footpaths. Other villages are now connected by unpaved roads and a few even by paved ones.

For ethnography in political geography: Experiencing and re-imagining Ferghana Valley boundary closures

Abstract Political geographers have produced extensive and valuable bodies of knowledge on both international boundaries and geopolitics. However, an emphasis on discourse study means that these literatures are in danger of becoming both repetitious and lopsided, relegating or even erasing people's experiences and everyday understandings of the phenomena under question. This article suggests that ethnographic participant observation, a method largely neglected by political geographers, could be used to address these imbalances and open new research directions. This argument is demonstrated by a study of the impact of the partial closure in 1999–2000 of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary. Post-Soviet time was hyper-accelerated by the belated imposition of the logic of nation–states onto the existing social geographies of kinship practice. The legal–constitutional division of the Valley in 1991 only ‘caught up’ with the lived experiences of borderland dwellers in 1999. The sudden collapse of this ‘political geographical time-lag’ forced upon them the traumatic realisation that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan really were two separate countries. In this context, using ethnography to highlight discrepancies between elite and everyday political geographical imaginations informs a critique of state violence that is parallel to, but not a replacement of, textual analyses informed by critical social theory.