Kinship Practices Research Articles

Daniel Aribo Conteh, Indigenous Limba Agency, and African Kinship Practices in the Formation of the National Pentecostal Mission, Sierra Leone

Abstract Indigenous Pentecostalism remains a marginal area of research in the Christian history of Sierra Leone. This essay explores the mission journals of the Assemblies of God (AOG) and the oral recollection of key Limba actors to ascertain whether the implicit missionary marginalization of the Reverend Daniel Aribo Conteh and his Limba churches may have accentuated this indigenous underrepresentation. By means of an intercultural history of Christianity approach, I outline the processes that led to the secession of the National Pentecostal Mission, Sierra Leone (NPM-SL) from the AOG and discuss how after conversion Conteh mobilized ethnic solidarity in the form of African kinship practices to support the missionary intuitions of the Limba churches outside AOG missionary control in colonial Freetown. The essay contends that, despite their negligible education, the Limba people’s indigeneity under Conteh’s leadership resulted in the establishment of the NPM-SL as an indigenously governed, self-supporting, and missionally oriented Pentecostal denomination in Sierra Leone.

Kinship practices at the early bronze age site of Leubingen in Central Germany

With the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Central Europe ~ 2200 BC, a regional and supra-regional hierarchical social organization emerged with few individuals in positions of power (chiefs), set apart by rich graves with extensive burial constructions. However, the social organization and stratification within the majority of people, who represent the non-elite, remain unclear. Here, we present genome-wide data of 46 individuals from the Early Bronze Age burial ground of Leubingen in today’s Germany, integrating archaeological, genetic and strontium isotope data to gain new insights into Early Bronze Age societies. We were able to reconstruct five pedigrees which constitute the members of close biological kinship groups (parents and their offspring), and also identify individuals who are not related to individuals buried at the site. Based on combined lines of evidence, we observe that the kinship structure of the burial community was predominantly patrilineal/virilocal involving female exogamy. Further, we detect a difference in the amount of grave goods among the individuals buried at Leubingen based on genetic sex, age at death and locality but see no difference in the types of grave goods.

Simulating the effects of kinship and postmarital residence patterns on mitochondrial DNA diversity in mortuary contexts.

We explore the observable outcome in mtDNA diversity of different kinship systems and associated postmarital residence patterns in the archeological record, using simulations at the intrapopulation level. Four kinship systems were simulated from a set of variable fertility and mortality scenarios. Initial conditions consisted of six clusters of variable size and a random number of assigned haplotypes, with individuals migrating between groups and reproducing for 15 generations. Each 15-generation span was simulated 500 times to obtain representative intrasite mtDNA diversity distributions for each kinship system. Additional simulations were devised to consider the effect of migration and different rates of adherence to kinship norms. Matrilineal kinship generates low male and female haplotype diversities that are statistically indistinguishable from each other, while female diversity in bilateral kinship with matrilocality is significantly lower than that observed in male diversity. Furthermore, mtDNA diversity generated by patrilineal kinship is very high. The effect of noncompliance with kinship rules is low; migration has a considerable impact on diversity, eventually obscuring the effect of kinship practices. The results of the simulations can be applied to ancient mtDNA data from archeological contexts, as exemplified with data from two studies. On a broader scale, the kinship system followed by the sampled population, can lead to either over- or underestimation of mtDNA population diversity. The results of the simulations can be used in the design of inferential frameworks to discern kinship scenarios in the archeological record, based on mtDNA and other types of evidence.

Why kinship still needs anthropologists in the 21st century

With the rise of ancient DNA studies in prehistoric archaeology, terms such as matriliny and patriliny are commonly used in scholarly literature. From a sociocultural anthropological perspective, however, the two terms are not as simple and unproblematic as is widely accepted among archaeogeneticists. Matriliny and patriliny are umbrella terms for societies with a wide range of political and kinship practices, with or without a state. Moreover, archaeogenetic literature has assumed specific associations with matrilineal and patrilineal descent that are not supported by sociocultural anthropology. To properly understand the diversity of human sociopolitical forms in both the deep and recent past, archaeology – in its broadest sense, including archaeogenetics – must avoid essentializing prehistoric communities without exploring the empirical nuances that are well documented ethnographically. Finally, the article calls for more engagement in debates on kinship and sociopolitical organization in prehistory from sociocultural anthropological perspectives.

The aftermath of gendered violence: Kinship and affect in post-genocide Rwanda

Thousands of women and girls experienced sexual violence during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and many became pregnant as a result of rape. Based on two years of ethnographic research in Rwanda, this article discusses how kinship is (re-)established in the aftermath of sexual violence by focusing on the lived experiences of young people conceived in genocidal rape. The article explores what forms of relationships become possible, impossible, enabled or dismissed, in the aftermath of a period of extreme violence. Through detailing the delicate establishment of affective ties, I hope to show the subtle work that goes into containing genocide memories in the everyday. The article suggests that young people engage in careful and ‘attuned’ kinship practices in an environment that changes throughout their life course. In exploring how young people carefully navigate the mending, protecting, and accepting of ‘family’, the article emphasizes the possibilities and limitations of kinship in the aftermath of collective violence.

Family matters: same‐sex relations and kinship practices in Kenya

AbstractGuided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same‐sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same‐sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforded by kinship – in both its inclusive and exclusive capacities – to create accommodation and acceptance. Capturing the complexities and paradoxes of social life, the ethnographic study of kinship practices in everyday life shows how homophobia and accommodation can co‐exist. Furthermore, the embeddedness of same‐sex relationships in kinship structures and the subscription of same‐sex couples to the same norms held by cross‐sex couples clearly indicates the difficulty of construing these forms of relatedness as essentially different from other kinship formations. Thus ‘queering queer Africa’ requires not only taking a broader perspective and looking beyond what is usually classified as ‘queer’ but also un‐queering what at first appears as queer and thus ‘queerying’ the barriers and the range of possibilities that characterize the lives and subjectivities of people with same‐sex desires.

Ritual Relationships with Copal Incense

Copal, an aromatic tree resin, has long been harvested and offered as incense in Indigenous communities of Mesoamerica. In contemporary academic contexts copal and other non-human materials and entities are often conceived of through objectifying ontologies. However, metaphysical frameworks grounded in life forces such as teotl (Nahuatl) and ch’ulel (various Mayan languages) offer alternative insights to human relationships with other-than-human worlds. Copal can be traced temporally and spatially, across thousands of miles and millennia. Specifically, we can follow copal from Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica across the northern border of Mexico into contemporary rituals in Denver, Colorado where copal continues to burn in Danza ceremonies. Beyond these ritual spaces, copal also moves in neoliberal and new age contexts as a market commodity and is stored in museum collections as ‘artifact’. Centering Mesoamerican metaphysics offers a counternarrative to these versions of settler-colonial objectification. Ultimately, precolonial and decolonial kinship practices can inform reinterpretations and reimagining of copal in the processes of museum and market appropriation.

Extensive pedigrees reveal the social organization of a Neolithic community.

Social anthropology and ethnographic studies have described kinship systems and networks of contact and exchange in extant populations1-4. However, for prehistoric societies, these systems can be studied only indirectly from biological and cultural remains. Stable isotope data, sex and age at death can provide insights into the demographic structure of a burial community and identify local versus non-local childhood signatures, archaeogenetic data can reconstruct the biological relationships between individuals, which enables the reconstruction of pedigrees, and combined evidence informs on kinship practices and residence patterns in prehistoric societies. Here we report ancient DNA, strontium isotope and contextual data from more than 100 individuals from the site Gurgy 'les Noisats' (France), dated to the western European Neolithic around 4850-4500 BC. We find that this burial community was genetically connected by two main pedigrees, spanning seven generations, that were patrilocal and patrilineal, with evidence for female exogamy and exchange with genetically close neighbouring groups. The microdemographic structure of individuals linked and unlinked to the pedigrees reveals additional information about the social structure, living conditions and site occupation. The absence of half-siblings and the high number of adult full siblings suggest that there were stable health conditions and a supportive social network, facilitating high fertility and low mortality5. Age-structure differences and strontium isotope results by generation indicate that the site was used for just a few decades, providing new insights into shifting sedentary farming practices during the European Neolithic.

When the clinic becomes home: on the limits of kinship care in an eating disorder treatment centre in Italy

Drawing on fieldwork in a public residential facility for eating disorders in central Italy, the paper examines the relational temporalities of therapeutics by looking at how time affects treatment at the intersection of professional and family care practices. In arguing that ‘chronic cases’ put into question the specific kind of kinship care that is at the basis of treatment, the paper contributes to the anthropological literature on eating disorders by bringing time under the analytical lens, and to the literature on ‘chronicity’ by complicating simplified assumptions about structural care problems. In addition, the paper draws on and goes beyond anthropological works that have highlighted the potentially harmful side of kinship – including those that have explored how kinship can be framed as a source of mental distress and at the same time as a therapeutic tool. Kinship as a therapeutic tool here becomes risky because professionals need to borrow from kinship practices in their own work with patients, balancing those with the necessary clinical detachment. The paper shows that the time chronic patients need in residential treatment generates a particularly complex mix between what is seen as ‘functional’ and what is seen as ‘dysfunctional’ in kinship care, because the ‘efficacy’ of the kinship work that is at the basis of treatment rests on that being partial and temporary. Long term care in the facility complicates what otherwise allows clinical detachment: the treatment team ends up literally substituting the patient’s family, with professional and family care mixing ‘too much’ with one another.

Gathering our medicine: strengthening and healing kinship and community

This article considers the terms culture and healing, critiques perpetuation of colonizing perspectives in conventional trauma-informed mental health approaches, and introduces Gathering Our Medicine, an innovative community framework created by Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish; Coast Salish Peoples Indigenous to the lands of Southern British Columbia, Canada) practitioner Denise Findlay in response to the need for decolonial approaches to mental health for Indigenous communities throughout British Columbia, Canada. The framework encourages re-imagining healing and mental health practices through values such as lateral kindness that draw from distinct traditional Indigenous philosophies, ontologies, and epistemologies. By revitalizing and centring distinctive traditional knowledges about actualization, transformation, and healing, the framework provides a role for allies that disrupts the impulse to deny culpability that Indigenous scholar Susan Dion calls the perfect stranger position. Findlay provides an alternative—the imperfect friend—drawing on kinship practices as effective indirect praxis for collective healing and well-being, transforming the distanced expert into engaged community member.

The commodification of social reproduction: A view of global care chains from a migrant-sending country

What is driving the commodification of social reproduction in Ghana? Perhaps it is a natural consequence of the expansion of a powerful capitalist system into even more areas of the life world, as work on global capitalism suggests. Perhaps it is due to female international migration, creating care deficits in the country of origin, as the theory of global care chains suggests. This article shows that commodification is driven not only by transnational migration, but is also a response to local social conditions and historical traditions of care, such that the expansion of capitalism is not a natural force, but becomes naturalised and normalised through local adaptations. Although urban and international migration play a role, so too do changes in women’s ability to balance their individual advancement with care labour, changes in the meaning and practices of kinship, and long-standing histories of informal recruitment of labour into households that can easily become more commodified. This article examines the commodification of social reproduction and the effects of such commodification, phenomena which are not always seen as requiring explanation because of the linear narratives of ever-expanding capitalism and the changes wrought by modernization.

Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country by Fay A. Yarbrough

Reviewed by: Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country by Fay A. Yarbrough Nakia D. Parker (bio) Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country. By Fay A. Yarbrough. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 280. Cloth, $32.95.) Scholars are increasingly examining the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in Indian Territory, and their studies often center the Cherokee. Historian Fay A. Yarbrough contributes to this expanding scholarship with the first book about the Choctaw Nation's involvement in the Civil War. In Choctaw Confederates, Yarbrough argues that there were two primary reasons for avid Choctaw support for the Confederacy: Choctaw leaders believed that the Confederacy offered the best chance of protecting Native sovereignty, and the nation's deep investment in the institution of chattel slavery, coupled with a desire to maintain the anti-Black racial hierarchy inherent in that institution, made siding with the Confederacy a logical choice. Choctaw planters had strong economic ties to white southerners even after expulsion to Indian Territory, and their nation was surrounded by southern states, such as Texas and Arkansas. "The Choctaw experience, then" Yarbrough asserts, "was a southern experience" (6). Chapter 1 provides an overview of the political and social structure of the Choctaws in their southeastern homelands, emphasizing how the threat and later implementation of expulsion by the federal government reshaped traditional practices of kinship, gender relations, and governance. For example, Choctaw leaders created a constitutional government based on that of the United States and reshaped property rights, such as inheritance and marital laws, to favor patriarchal instead of matriarchal family lines. Chapter 2 examines the growth of slavery in the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory and the importance of the institution to economic recovery after removal and "as a part of the developing racial order" that shaped the decision of Choctaw leaders to side with the Confederacy (47). Yarbrough compares testimonies of the enslaved from [End Page 124] Indian Territory and the southern states to highlight the similarities in labor practices. She also provides an in-depth analysis of the laws created by Choctaw leaders soon after resettlement that circumscribed and surveilled almost every aspect of Black life in the nation. In some instances these laws were more restrictive or passed earlier than slave codes in southern states. At the same time, Yarbrough demonstrates that certain laws reflected the "legacy of traditional kinship affinities" and that "as the Choctaw adopted the practice of racialized slavery, they did so in a manner that preserved Choctaw identity" (65, 48). This is especially apparent in her discussion of a clause requiring people of African descent who had no kinship ties with the Choctaw and Chickasaw to leave or be enslaved for life. Chapter 3 discusses the decision of Choctaw leaders to side with the Confederacy by examining the alliance treaty and the debates between Choctaw leaders over joining the conflict. Unlike the Cherokee Nation, which tried to remain neutral and experienced its own internal civil war, the Choctaw swiftly and unambiguously sided with the seceding states. Chapters 4 and 5 chronicle the experiences and motivations of Choctaw men who enlisted to fight for the Confederate cause. Yarbrough skillfully analyzes the thousands of pages of enlistment records of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles to probe motivations for joining the Confederate army, circumstances of enlistment, and patterns of enrollment. To demonstrate early Choctaw enthusiasm for the war, Yarbrough points to the records of 950 men who signed up in June and July 1861, before the Choctaw Nation formally allied with the Confederacy. Serving as soldiers and light horsemen allowed Choctaw men, particularly youth, "a way to claim, or reclaim, their identities as warriors" (173). Thus, Yarbrough asserts, the Civil War reshaped and created alternative expressions of traditional notions of Indigenous masculinity. The concluding chapter details the tensions between the Choctaw government and freedpeople in the nation during Reconstruction. The federal government stipulated land and civil rights for the formerly enslaved in the surrender treaty, which angered Choctaw leaders, who viewed these requirements as usurping Native sovereignty. In addition, the anti-Black sentiment present before the war became even more rampant, as evidenced by Black codes, the banning...

Kinship practices in Early Iron Age South-east Europe: genetic and isotopic analysis of burials from the Dolge njive barrow cemetery, Dolenjska, Slovenia

The burial of multiple individuals within a single funerary monument invites speculation about the relationships between the deceased: were they chosen on the basis of status, gender or relatedness, for example? Here, the authors present the results of aDNA and isotope analyses conducted on seven individuals from an Early Iron Age barrow at Dolge njive, south-eastern Slovenia. All seven individuals are close biological relatives. While the group composition suggests strict adherence to neither patrilineal nor matrilineal structures, the funerary tradition appears highly gendered, and family links through both the male and female lines seem important in structuring of the community. The results have implications for understanding of kinship and funerary practices in late prehistoric Europe.

Mobility and kinship in the world’s first village societies

Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emergence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousands of more sedentary inhabitants. Accompanying this shift, the material culture and ancient ecological data indicate profound changes in economic and social behavior. A shift from residential to logistical mobility and increasing population size are clear and can be explained by either changes in fertility and/or aggregation of local groups. However, as sedentism increased, small early communities likely risked inbreeding without maintaining or establishing exogamous relationships typical of hunter-gatherers. Megasites, where large populations would have made endogamy sustainable, could have avoided this risk. To examine the role of kinship practices in the rise of megasites, we measured strontium and oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel from 99 individuals buried at Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) over 7,000 y. These sites are geographically proximate and, critically, span both early sedentary behaviors (Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu) and the rise of a local megasite (Çatalhöyük). Our data are consistent with the presence of only local individuals at Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu, whereas at Çatalhöyük, several nonlocals are present. The Çatalhöyük data stand in contrast to other megasites where bioarchaeological evidence has pointed to strict endogamy. These different kinship behaviors suggest that megasites may have arisen by employing unique, community-specific kinship practices.

Kinship Poems

In the appended collection of three poems, canopied under the title, ”Kinship Poems” I explore the possibilities for and practice of kinship between Native and African American women. In my first poem, ”Auntie,” a prose poem, I center non-sanguineous kinship affiliation in the decolonial project. In my final poem, I give equal consideration to biological kinship, by staging a speaker’s direct address to her unborn child.

The practice of kinship: factional politics, repetition and reiteration of alliance among the Katukina (Brazil)

The practice of kinship: factional politics, repetition and reiteration of alliance among the Katukina (Brazil)

Kinship practices in the early state El Argar society from Bronze Age Iberia

The Early Bronze Age in Europe is characterized by social and genetic transformations, starting in the early 3rd millennium BCE. New settlement and funerary structures, artifacts and techniques indicate times of change with increasing economic asymmetries and political hierarchization. Technological advances in metallurgy also played an important role, facilitating trade and exchange networks, which became tangible in higher levels of mobility and connectedness. Archeogenetic studies have revealed a substantial transformation of the genetic ancestry around this time, ultimately linked to the expansion of steppe- and forest steppe pastoralists from Eastern Europe. Evidence for emerging infectious diseases such as Yersinia pestis adds further complexity to these tumultuous and transformative times. The El Argar complex in southern Iberia marks the genetic turnover in southwestern Europe ~ 2200 BCE that accompanies profound changes in the socio-economic structure of the region. To answer the question of who was buried in the emblematic double burials of the El Argar site La Almoloya, we integrated results from biological relatedness analyses and archaeological funerary contexts and refined radiocarbon-based chronologies from 68 individuals. We find that the El Argar society was virilocally and patrilineally organized and practiced reciprocal female exogamy, supported by pedigrees that extend up to five generations along the paternal line. Synchronously dated adult males and females from double tombs were found to be unrelated mating partners, whereby the incoming females reflect socio-political alliances among El Argar groups. In three cases these unions had common offspring, while paternal half-siblings also indicate serial monogamy or polygyny.

Elucidating evolutionary principles with the traditional Mosuo: Adaptive benefits and origins of matriliny and “walking marriages”

AbstractThe Mosuo, arguably the last surviving matrilineal society in China, offers interesting insights into kinship practices that support reproduction. In particular, the modes of courtship and reproduction of the traditional Mosuo revolve around a practice known as walking marriages, which involves no contract or obligations, where the men do not use social status or resources to court women, women do not expect commitment from men, and multiple sexual relationships are permitted for both sexes and seldom incite conflict. Children borne from walking marriages are cared for not so much by fathers but rather their mothers' brothers, and wealth and property are controlled by women and passed on to daughters rather than to sons. By analyzing how familial and mating practices interact with evolved preferences and ecological affordances, we highlight the ways that traditional Mosuo practices facilitate reproductive success despite differing vastly from those familiar to modern, industrialized societies. We suggest that cases that appear like evolutionary exceptions, such as the traditional Mosuo, can bring into question the mating practices and preferences we take for granted as relatively universal and prompt a nuanced understanding of how environments, culture, and evolution mutually constrain and shape one another.

Matriliny, Merchandise and Islam: A Study of the Keyis in the Coastal Belt of Tellicherry, North Malabar

As owners of extensive matrilineal joint households in the Tellicherry Coastal town (North Malabar, South India), Keyis upheld an urban-centred identity in the colonial period. Scattered around the coastal town of Tellicherry in Cannanore, the Keyis today form an economically diverse group. The socio-economic distinction of the Keyis from other Muslim merchants on the Coast, their consolidation of social organisation along the matrilineal line and their economic relations based in landlord –tenant relations are explored here. The nature of the transformation of economic relations and kinship practices among the Keyis in the colonial and post-colonial period puts forth interesting dimensions of their everyday practices as shaped by historic and region-specific socio-economic, legal and political conditions. By undertaking a historical and ethnographic examination of this kinship group, this paper explores Muslim communities and cultures through their pluralities and recommends a methodological shift towards the exploration of kinship practices to inform the current scholarship on the Anthropology of Islam and Kinship Studies.

The Practice of Political Dynasty and Kinship in Local Government of Hulu Sungai Utara District

The practice of political dynasty has been detected in many local elections in Indonesia. This political condition may have a connection with the failure of democratization implemented in Indonesia during the Reformation era. To delve into this issue, the researchers conducted descriptive qualitative research regarding political dynasty and kinship in one of the districts in Indonesia, Hulu Sungai Utara. The researchers used Gramsci’s framework of hegemony to investigate the way political dynasty and kinship is constructed and perpetuated in Hulu Sungai Utara district. The researchers also utilized several media including print and digital media as the secondary data of this study. In the analysis of the data, the researchers discovered two ways of incumbent to perpetuate and monopolize local electoral system. Here, Abdul Wahid HK and Almien Ashar Safari (The regent and the Chief of the Provincial Legislatives Council of Hulu Sungai Utara) appear to have operated two types of power, that is soft and hard power to perpetuate their political dynasty in Hulu Sungai Utara.