Kinship Theory Research Articles

“The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law”

ABSTRACT This study investigates the determinants of Druze voting behaviour in Israel, focusing on three theoretical frameworks: ideological, socioeconomic, and kinship theories. Analysing electoral data from 2003 to 2022, the study examines trends in voter turnout and party preferences among the Druze community. Findings reveal a complex interplay of factors influencing Druze political choices. The ideological theory suggests that shifts in political ideology, particularly in response to legislative changes such as the 2018 Nation-State Basic Law, impact Druze voting patterns. Conversely, the socioeconomic theory posits that local economic conditions, education levels, and population demographics shape voting behaviour. Furthermore, the kinship theory highlights the significance of community ties and descriptive representation in guiding political allegiances. Through statistical analysis, the study identifies kinship ties, specifically the inclusion of Druze candidates within political parties, as the most significant predictor of Druze voter support. This suggests that community representation holds considerable sway over Druze political choices, transcending the influence of ideology and socioeconomic factors. In conclusion, while all three theories offer valuable insights, the dominance of the kinship theory underscores the importance of identity and descriptive representation in shaping Druze electoral outcomes in Israel.

Selfish conflict underlies RNA-mediated parent-of-origin effects

Genomic imprinting—the non-equivalence of maternal and paternal genomes—is a critical process that has evolved independently in many plant and mammalian species1,2. According to kinship theory, imprinting is the inevitable consequence of conflictive selective forces acting on differentially expressed parental alleles3,4. Yet, how these epigenetic differences evolve in the first place is poorly understood3,5,6. Here we report the identification and molecular dissection of a parent-of-origin effect on gene expression that might help to clarify this fundamental question. Toxin-antidote elements (TAs) are selfish elements that spread in populations by poisoning non-carrier individuals7–9. In reciprocal crosses between two Caenorhabditis tropicalis wild isolates, we found that the slow-1/grow-1 TA is specifically inactive when paternally inherited. This parent-of-origin effect stems from transcriptional repression of the slow-1 toxin by the PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) host defence pathway. The repression requires PIWI Argonaute and SET-32 histone methyltransferase activities and is transgenerationally inherited via small RNAs. Remarkably, when slow-1/grow-1 is maternally inherited, slow-1 repression is halted by a translation-independent role of its maternal mRNA. That is, slow-1 transcripts loaded into eggs—but not SLOW-1 protein—are necessary and sufficient to counteract piRNA-mediated repression. Our findings show that parent-of-origin effects can evolve by co-option of the piRNA pathway and hinder the spread of selfish genes that require sex for their propagation.

Museum families: Canadian kinship and material culture

AbstractUnderstanding and documenting the ways that objects become entangled in, produce, sustain, and rupture family relations are crucial contributions of museum studies to anthropological kinship theory. This article analyzes a Canadian exhibit entitled “Family: Bonds and Belonging,” developed in response to Canada's 150th anniversary, in 2017, by a British Columbia provincial museum, then brought to Canada's national immigration museum in Nova Scotia in 2019. The article demonstrates how curators invite objects to narrate kinship, and entangle visitors as theoretical accomplices, all while building national projects. Layered concepts of “family” plays a central role in this exhibit, simultaneously introducing “family” as complex, diverse, and varied while also reproducing middle‐class conventions of family. I argue that this contradiction partly undercuts the representational content of the exhibit, and that the simultaneous multivalence and ideological uniformity of family in this setting points to how museum practices and procedures can unintentionally reproduce conventional ideas that implicitly counter curatorial work.

Disciplined parents and autonomous children: information sharing as governing device in Swedish identity-release gamete donation

Abstract This article analyses shifts and continuities in Swedish regulation of information sharing in identity-release donor conception. At a time when families include both solo and same-sex parenting, I draw on a practice-oriented method to compare legal and pre-legislative documents from the early 1980s with those of the late 2010s as developed in a Swedish national context. Following the turn to openness in donor conception, I discuss the practical implications of framing access to information from the hospitals’ so-called ‘special medical record’ as a children’s right, when information is in fact only available after ‘maturity’ is reached. Furthermore, I show how a significant change in the understanding of child–parent relationships in donor-conceived families is articulated in the 2019 legislation. If early policy documents portrayed donor-conceived children as potentially problematic for not ‘knowing their origin’, I argue that now it is parents in donor-conceived families who are constructed as potentially problematic. Drawing on critical kinship theory, I conclude that Swedish policy-making on information sharing in donor conception relies on a symbolic rather than material understanding of genetic relatedness that fails to acknowledge how different family forms might have different needs. Based on these findings, I suggest that policymakers take into account the implications a changing view on family life and genetics have for children and parents following donor conception.

Korean language attitude in the Altai language system

The relevance of the study is determined by the growing interest of the scientific community in constructing typologies of linguistic features of the Korean language in its relation to the Altai language system. A review of research shows that to date, discussions regarding the place of the Korean language in the Altai language system continue, since there are no uniform criteria by which to describe the relationship of these two languages. The purpose of the article is to systematize the features that allow us to determine the place of the Korean language in the Altai language system. Objectives: provide an overview of studies of the Altai language system; consider arguments about the relationship between the Korean and Altai languages; consider criticism of the theory of kinship between the Korean and Altaic languages. Research methods: systematization, generalization, description, comparison, critical analysis. It has been established that even if we completely deny the family connection between the theory of the Altaic language family and the Korean language, it is still possible to establish a friendly connection between them, which can be taken as a research hypothesis. This is made possible by the fact that the common elements that have been clearly outlined so far exist, albeit in meager quantities. If these elements were not borrowed, it would be difficult to conclude that this is a coincidence. However, it does not seem convincing that the scant data is sufficient to prove the kinship of Koreans and Altai. In this situation, just as it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion that the Korean language has a related relationship with the Altai language or the Altai language family, it is also impossible to conclude that there are no such relationships at all. It is true that the origins of the Korean language are still unclear. Since the existing theory of the Altaic language family and the theory of kinship with Korean were accepted almost without criticism, the counter-arguments against them can be equally strong. However, there are significant differences between these views. Some say this completely refutes conventional wisdom, while others say it is a hypothesis that has not yet been proven. The prospects for the study are seen in the systematization of linguistic typological features of the Korean language in its relation to the Altai language system.

Towards a theory of radical kinship

This is an abridged and edited version of the speech given by the author in the panel on ‘The influence of A. Sivanandan’s ideas’ at the conference ‘New circuits of anti-racism’ at King’s College London in October 2022. It follows on from her seminal 2019 article (in Race & Class 61.2, ‘“White privilege”: shortcuts to anti-racism’) which drew on Sivanandan’s ‘RAT and the degradation of black struggle’, his critique of essentialising blackness and treating racism, a structural issue, as an interpersonal one out of which you could be ‘retrained’. She discusses ways of radical, respectful organising at a time when difference and competition of experiences can set back unity.

The Larrakia Kinship Terminology: Asymmetrical Cross‐Cousin Marriage and Omaha Skewing

ABSTRACTThe Larrakia terminology is a member of the very small class of asymmetric terminologies in Australia, but it is the most poorly described. There are a number of documentary sources, and this paper considers principled bases for the comparative evaluation of sources in order to produce a well‐founded description which can contribute to theories of kinship both in Australia and more generally. In terms of general kinship theory, the reconstructed Larrakia terminology raises issues for the analysis of Omaha skewing as a category. The prototype equation for Omaha skewing is MB = MBS, with equations such as MMB = MMBS being extensions. The Larrakia kin terminology is unusual among kin terminologies in having the extension equation MMB = MMBS but not the prototype equation. This raises a question as to the sufficiency conditions for membership of the Omaha category and the implications of the inclusion or exclusion of the Larrakia terminology in debates over the Omaha category.

Examining parent-of-origin effects on transcription and RNA methylation in mediating aggressive behavior in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

Conflict between genes inherited from the mother (matrigenes) and the father (patrigenes) is predicted to arise during social interactions among offspring if these genes are not evenly distributed among offspring genotypes. This intragenomic conflict drives parent-specific transcription patterns in offspring resulting from parent-specific epigenetic modifications. Previous tests of the kinship theory of intragenomic conflict in honey bees (Apis mellifera) provided evidence in support of theoretical predictions for variation in worker reproduction, which is associated with extreme variation in morphology and behavior. However, more subtle behaviors – such as aggression – have not been extensively studied. Additionally, the canonical epigenetic mark (DNA methylation) associated with parent-specific transcription in plant and mammalian model species does not appear to play the same role as in honey bees, and thus the molecular mechanisms underlying intragenomic conflict in this species is an open area of investigation. Here, we examined the role of intragenomic conflict in shaping aggression in honey bee workers through a reciprocal cross design and Oxford Nanopore direct RNA sequencing. We attempted to probe the underlying regulatory basis of this conflict through analyses of parent-specific RNA m6A and alternative splicing patterns. We report evidence that intragenomic conflict occurs in the context of honey bee aggression, with increased paternal and maternal allele-biased transcription in aggressive compared to non-aggressive bees, and higher paternal allele-biased transcription overall. However, we found no evidence to suggest that RNA m6A or alternative splicing mediate intragenomic conflict in this species.

A lineage in land: the transmission of Palestinian Christianity

AbstractThis article examines a Christian tradition defined by descent, but a descent that extends beyond family lineages to include relatedness with saints and sacred land. This tradition emerges from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, one of the oldest churches in the world, composed of a Palestinian laity and a Greek monastic hierarchy. Through an ethnography of the Orthodox feast of St George and the ritual use of olive oil from Palestinian villages, the article frames discussion of indigeneity, land, and rootedness around the concept of descent. Putting Palestinian Orthodoxy in conversation with kinship theory and the critique of social structure, it argues against sequestering divine and human forms of relatedness in separate social domains. It suggests the concept of descent can be a powerful tool for integrating them when expanded to include all ‘forces that bring forth life’.

Mother’s warmth from maternal genes: genomic imprinting of brown adipose tissue

Abstract Background and objectives Brown adipose tissue (BAT) plays key roles in mammalian physiology, most notably with regard to thermoregulation in infants and juveniles. Previous studies have suggested that intragenomic conflict, in the form of genomic imprinting, mediates BAT thermogenesis, because it represents a public good for groups of siblings, or a mother with her offspring, who huddle together to conserve warmth. By this hypothesis, maternally expressed imprinted genes should promote BAT, while paternally expressed genes should repress it. Methodology We systematically searched the literature using two curated lists of genes imprinted in humans and/or mice, in association with evidence regarding effects of perturbation to imprinted gene expression on BAT development or activity. Results Overall, enhanced BAT was associated with relatively higher expression of maternally expressed imprinted genes, and relatively lower expression of paternally expressed imprinted genes; this pattern was found for 16 of the 19 genes with sufficient information for robust ascertainment (Binomial test, P < 0.005, 2-tailed). Conclusions and implications These results support the kinship theory of imprinting and indicate that future studies of BAT, and its roles in human health and disease, may usefully focus on effects of imprinted genes and associated genomic conflicts.

Craig Santos Perez’s Poetics of multispecies kinship: Challenging militarism and extinction in the Pacific

ABSTRACT Craig Santos Perez’s ecopoetry challenges the “rescue and recovery” narratives of species conservation embedded in processes of settler colonialism and militarism. Reading Perez’s poetry on the extinction of Guam’s avian life alongside the establishment of the Guam National Wildlife Refuge, its environmental impact testimonies, and avian conservation plans, this article develops a theory of ecological kinship that accounts for the dispersed effects of militarized occupation and foregrounds the interdependency of human and nonhuman lives in struggles for species survival and Indigenous self-determination. Furthermore, this article argues that dominant environmental discourses enable and obscure US military control over lands and waters in Guåhan. Through poetic strategies of citation and assembly, Perez portrays a Chamorro diasporic condition that incorporates the subjectivity of the Micronesian kingfisher in captivity, depicting nonhuman animals as intimate kin and active participants in Chamorro histories rather than objects in need of rescue and recovery.

Defining the Family of Washington: Meaning, Blood, and Power in the New American Nation

Abstract This article examines the many meanings of family that George Washington deployed throughout his life, with particular attention to his claim to having “no family.” Drawing on kinship theory, historiography, and Washington’s writings, it situates his varied understandings of family in the context of Anglo-American notions of inheritance law, lineage, and blood. Washington’s and his fellow Americans’ definitions of family were also intimately tied to the political ideals of a new republic hoping to sever family from government power. Careful analysis of the family as an ever-changing and situational process in Washington’s life provides a model for an alternative way of approaching family history.

Evolution of seed mass associated with mating systems in multiple plant families.

In flowering plants, the evolution of self‐fertilization (selfing) from obligate outcrossing is regarded as one of the most prevalent evolutionary transitions. The evolution of selfing is often accompanied by various changes in genomic, physiological and morphological properties. In particular, a set of reproductive traits observed typically in selfing species is called the “selfing syndrome”. A mathematical model based on the kinship theory of genetic imprinting predicted that seed mass should become smaller in selfing species compared with outcrossing congeners, as a consequence of the reduced conflict between maternally and paternally derived alleles in selfing plants. Here, we test this prediction by examining the association between mating system and seed mass across a wide range of taxa (642 species), considering potential confounding factors: phylogenetic relationships and growth form. We focused on three plant families—Solanaceae, Brassicaceae and Asteraceae—where information on mating systems is abundant, and the analysis was performed for each family separately. When phylogenetic relationships were controlled, we consistently observed that selfers (represented by self‐compatible species) tended to have a smaller seed mass compared with outcrossers (represented by self‐incompatible species) in these families. In summary, our analysis suggests that small seeds should also be considered a hallmark of the selfing syndrome, although we note that mating systems have relatively small effects on seed mass variation.

AN INTRODUCTION TO VLADIMIR A. POPOV’S “TOWARD A HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP-TERM SYSTEMS: THE CROW AND OMAHA TYPES,” TRANSLATED BY ANASTASIA KALYUTA

This is the first English translation of Vladimir A. Popov’s important 1977 article on Crow-Omaha kinship systems. Popov’s global comparison proposes an historical typology of these systems covariant with socio-evolutionary stages. His six subtypes are configured by the variable operation of bifurcation and linearity among G+1 and G0 kin-terms, with Popov suggesting three possible evolutionary trajectories. While directly addressing contemporary Western kinship theory, Popov simultaneously engages a robust Soviet tradition little known to Western scholars. Of special note, Popov deploys the “Levin code,” a logically elegant formalist notation that commands comparison with other componential systems. Broader attention to Popov’s perspectives on the Crow-Omaha problem is long overdue. 

Refining the Behavioral Phenotype of Angelman Syndrome: Examining Differences in Motivation for Social Contact Between Genetic Subgroups.

Angelman syndrome (AS) is caused by loss of information from the 15q11.2-13 region on the maternal chromosome with striking phenotypic difference from Prader–Willi syndrome in which information is lost from the same region on the paternal chromosome. Motivation for social contact and sensory seeking behaviors are often noted as characteristics of the phenotype of AS and it has been argued that the strong drive for social contact supports a kinship theory interpretation of genomic imprinting. In this study we developed an experimental paradigm for quantifying the motivation for social contact in AS and examined differences across the genetic subtypes that cause AS [deletion, imprinting centre defect (ICD), uniparental disomy and UBE3A mutation]. Using single case experimental designs we examined the rate of acquisition of behavioral responses using operant learning paradigms for 21 children with AS whilst systematically varying the nature of social and sensory reinforcement. Variability in rates of acquisition was influenced by the nature of rewarding stimuli. Across the total sample both sensory stimuli and social contact could increase the rate of rewarded behavior with difference between children in the most effective reward. A striking difference in the rewarding properties of social contact across genetic subtypes was evidenced by non-deletion genetic causes of AS showing significantly higher rates of responding than the deletion cause in the social reinforcement paradigm. The results indicate that reinforcer assessment can beneficially inform behavioral interventions and that within syndrome variability in the behavioral phenotype of AS is likely driven by genetic difference. The non-deletion cause of AS, and particularly the ICD group, may be the optimal group for further study of genomic imprinting.

Parent of origin gene expression in the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, supports Haig's kinship theory for the evolution of genomic imprinting.

Genomic imprinting is the differential expression alleles in diploid individuals, with the expression being dependent on the sex of the parent from which it was inherited. Haig's kinship theory hypothesizes that genomic imprinting is due to an evolutionary conflict of interest between alleles from the mother and father. In social insects, it has been suggested that genomic imprinting should be widespread. One recent study identified parent‐of‐origin expression in honey bees and found evidence supporting the kinship theory. However, little is known about genomic imprinting in insects and multiple theoretical predictions must be tested to avoid single‐study confirmation bias. We, therefore, tested for parent‐of‐origin expression in a primitively eusocial bee. We found equal numbers of maternally and paternally biased expressed genes. The most highly biased genes were maternally expressed, offering support for the kinship theory. We also found low conservation of potentially imprinted genes with the honey bee, suggesting rapid evolution of genomic imprinting in Hymenoptera.

A novel method for using RNA‐seq data to identify imprinted genes in social Hymenoptera with multiply mated queens

Genomic imprinting results in parent-of-origin-dependent gene expression biased towards either the maternally or paternally derived allele at the imprinted locus. The kinship theory of genomic imprinting argues that this unusual expression pattern can be a manifestation of intra-genomic conflict between the maternally and paternally derived halves of the genome that arises because they are not equally related to the genomes of social partners. The theory thus predicts that imprinting may evolve wherever there are close interactions among asymmetrically related kin. The social Hymenoptera with permanent caste differentiation are suitable candidates for testing the kinship theory because haplodiploid sex determination creates strong relatedness asymmetries and nursing workers interact closely with kin. However, progress in the search for imprinted genes in the social Hymenoptera has been slow, in part because tests for imprinting rely on reciprocal crosses that are impossible in most species. Here, we develop a method to systematically search for imprinting in haplodiploid social insects without crosses, using instead samples of pooled individuals collected from natural colonies. We tested this protocol using data available for the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior, providing the first genome-wide search for imprinting in any ant. Although we identified several genes as potentially imprinted, none of the four genes tested could be verified as imprinted using digital droplet PCR, highlighting the need for higher quality genomic assemblies that accurately map duplicated genes.

Tattoo Narratives: Insights Into Multispecies Kinship and Griefwork

ABSTRACT This paper explores multispecies families and nonhuman kinship through the lens of tattoo narratives, namely those that accompany designs dedicated to a companion animal. Although some tattoos are purely aesthetic, many embody deep personal meanings. Humans use narrative as a tool to endow meaning to experience, and the visual nature of a tattoo invites the telling of a story. Participants in this study were compelled to commemorate a special bond shared with their companion animal in the form of a tattoo. A discourse analysis approach was applied to examine narratives under the framework of “nurture kinship” and the theory of kinship as “mutuality of being,” as well as the role of memorial tattoos in griefwork and the theory of “continuing bonds.” Through embodied story-telling, tattoos can help the be- reaved maintain an absent presence with the deceased. This study supports the conclusion that humans can and do form kinship bonds with other animals and that memorial tattoos serve similar functions, regardless of the species of the deceased loved one.

“The African family is large, very large” mobility and the flexibility of kinship – examples from Cameroon

When I started fieldwork among the Maka in SE Cameroon in 1971 I was suprised that for them kinship was hardly about ascribing people a fixed position. In retrospect this makes me realize how deeply Talcott Parsons’ famous pattern variables – notably ‘ascription’ versus ‘achievement’ influenced our perspective. But Maka people turned out to be true masters in ‘working’-with kinship, constantly ‘discovering’ kin in unexpected contexts, making creative equations and switch-es. My subsequent research in the area (up till now) highlighted how over time this plasticity of their kinship arrangements increased with growing urbanization and even more with transcontinental migration. Cameroon’s famous ‘bush-fallers’ have developed their own ways for ‘working’ with kinship. However, this plasticity should not only be studied as stemming from new and shifting conditions. I hope to show as well that such a more dynamic view on kinship is valuable for re-evaluating classical kinship theory.

Paternally‐biased gene expression follows kin‐selected predictions in female honey bee embryos

The Kinship Theory of Genomic Imprinting (KTGI) posits that, in species where females mate with multiple males, there is selection for a male to enhance the reproductive success of his offspring at the expense of other males and his mating partner. Reciprocal crosses between honey bee subspecies show parent-of-origin effects for reproductive traits, suggesting that males modify the expression of genes related to female function in their female offspring. This effect is likely to be greater in the Cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis), because a male's daughters have the unique ability to produce female offspring that can develop into reproductive workers or the next queen without mating. We generated reciprocal crosses between Capensis and another subspecies and used RNA-seq to identify transcripts that are over- or underexpressed in the embryos, depending on the parental origin of the gene. As predicted, 21 genes showed expression bias towards the Capensis father's allele in colonies with a Capensis father, with no such bias in the reciprocal cross. A further six genes showed a consistent bias towards expression of the father's allele across all eight colonies examined, regardless of the direction of the cross. Consistent with predictions of the KTGI, six of the 21 genes are associated with female reproduction. No gene consistently showed overexpression of the maternal allele.