Kinship Networks Research Articles

Summary of Living on the Edge: An American Generation’s Journey Through the Twentieth Century

AbstractLiving on the Edge: An American Generation’s Journey through the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2021) tells the story of the rarely studied 1900 generation, from their social origins to their old age, as they coped with and adapted to the revolutionary changes of the last century. Using longitudinal data from the Berkeley Guidance Study, the authors followed 420 parents (210 couples) born between 1885 and 1908, all of whom had children born in Berkeley between 1928–29. The analyses, which often challenge conventional wisdom, reveal their status as a “hinge generation,” or bridge, between past and present in their educational, work, and family experiences. Following highlights from the authors, four scholars offer critical commentary on the book. Matt Nelson addresses challenges related to analyzing kinship networks and patterns of economic assistance across the Great Depression era, pointing to measurement limitations that obscure important forms of aid. Kelly Condit-Shrestha raises concerns related to race and ethnicity, especially the absence of Black, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hispanic persons in the original study, as well as to westward migration, American Empire, and white-settler colonialism. Silvia Pedraza addresses crucial social class differences (middle class versus working class) in the expectations and experiences of women, calling for greater clarity in the relationship between women’s roles and notions of “respectability.” Finally, Evan Roberts takes up some of the complex methodological issues involved in leveraging historical data to understand the life course and identifying the uniquely disruptive nature of social change across generations and countries.

Kinship network during lockdown: ties intensified in times of uncertainty?

Cet article examine les relations avec les membres de la parentèle non confinés ensemble lors de la première vague de la pandémie de Covid-19. Il s’appuie sur un questionnaire en ligne qui a recueilli 4 300 réponses pendant le printemps 2020. Nous interrogeons comment la séparation des espaces-temps due au confinement, caractérisé comme un temps d’incertitudes, de bouleversement des rythmes quotidiens et d’entrave aux relations en face à face, a influencé la fréquence des contacts. La pandémie a-t-elle resserré les liens ou au contraire les a-t-elle distendus avec les parents proches et éloignés ? La perturbation des rythmes quotidiens a-t-elle infléchi les contacts ? Le maintien de l’attention aux autres, notamment aux plus fragiles dans une parentèle élargie souvent peu étudiée, forme l’enjeu de cette analyse, autant que les inégalités de genre et de catégories sociales exacerbées par cette période. Globalement, la fréquence des contacts a augmenté, surtout avec la famille proche, mais aussi – et c’est l’originalité de cet article – avec des apparentés de 2e et 3e degrés. Paradoxalement, l’activité pendant le confinement n’a pas d’effet sur les liens. En revanche, les femmes et la « génération pivot » ont renforcé leur investissement du fait de leur rôle central dans le réseau de parenté. Les relations à distance, via les outils numériques, ont été intensifiées par les catégories favorisées et les personnes éloignées géographiquement de leur famille qui ont investi ces moments comme une temporalité en soi.

The impact of social network dynamics on engagement in drug use reduction programs among men and women who use drugs

BackgroundCross-sectional studies have shown strong relationships between social network characteristics and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment engagement. The current study examined associations between longitudinal changes in egocentric social networks of male and female people who use drugs (PWUD) and engagement in drug use reduction programs, broadly defined as either formal SUD treatment or self-help groups. MethodUsing data from an HIV prevention and care study in Baltimore, MD, this study categorized PWUD into those who engaged and did not engage in any drug use reduction programs over two follow-ups during a one-year observation window. The study used multivariate logistic generalized estimating equations (GEE) to examine associations between network composition and stability measures and drug use reduction program engagement, stratified by gender. ResultsOf the 176 subjects participating in drug use reduction programs at baseline, 56.3% remained engaged at one year. Among both male and female respondents, higher turnover into non-kin networks was associated with increased odds of engagement in drug use reduction programs (AOR 1.4; 95% CI: 1.1–1.9, AOR 1.3; 95% CI: 1.0–1.8, respectively). For males, retention of intimate partner networks was associated with increased odds of program engagement (AOR 2.9; 95% CI: 1.1–7.6); for females, higher turnover into kin networks was associated with decreased odds of engagement (AOR 0.8; 95% CI: 0.5–1.0). ConclusionEvaluation of associations between social network characteristics and drug use reduction program engagement appears to benefit from longitudinal analyses that are stratified by gender. Efforts to improve retention in formal SUD treatment or self-help groups might consider intervening through social networks, perhaps by increasing overall levels of social support.

Wars of our fathers: Hauteville kin networks and the making of Norman Antioch

ABSTRACT The article examines the relationship between the Normans in southern Italy and in Outremer, offering a new analysis of the early history of the principality of Antioch through the perspective of Hauteville kin relations and models of conquest and rule across the Mediterranean. By analysing the composition of the Hauteville expedition during the First Crusade, and comparing its patterns of behaviour with those of the family in southern Italy, this essay highlights the similarities between the crusader contingent and other Hauteville enterprises. It then investigates enduring similarities and links between Hauteville frontier zones either side of the sea, and the contextual solutions for succession in Antioch found by the Hautevilles, concluding the discussion with the breakdown of ties between southern Italy and Outremer following Roger II’s final claim to Antioch. This offers a new perspective on the long-standing issue of southern Norman participation in the crusader movement.

Maternal Stress, Familial Ties, and Children’s Well-Being Across 23 Years

In this study, LGBTQ+ adult couples facing advanced cancer were recruited online. Eligible couples were sent a direct link to electronic consent and surveys in REDCap®. Participants were then invited to complete a 45-minute dyadic semi-structured interview regarding their experience of coping with cancer as a couple. This study faced difficulties in recruiting LGBTQ+ couples, and also faced the challenge of identifying and managing online responses from individuals misrepresenting themselves, and from automated accounts or “bots”. LGBTQ+ aging scholars must acknowledge how conducting research remotely with LGBTQ+ adults may necessitate changes in study design, such as changes to recruitment and more comprehensive eligibility screening designed to prevent and detect the collection of untrustworthy data. Ultimately, protecting the integrity of participant data in online research supports research accessibility and inclusion for LGBTQ+ older adults, and is the first step in conducting research that promotes health equity.

Maternal Stress, Familial Ties, and Children’s Well-Being Across 23 Years

According to the family stress model, parental stress impacts child well-being through several mechanisms, which may be amplified in ethnic/racial minority families given increased experiences of stress. We extend this model to examine associations between maternal stress and child well-being at three points spanning 23 years, beginning when children were aged 8-12 years and mothers were aged 24-59 (n=193 dyads). Preliminary results indicate that maternal stressors are associated with increased depressive symptoms in childhood (B=3.56, p<0.001), and this association was stronger among Black children compared to White (B=4.12, p<0.001). Effects of maternal stress on children’s depressive symptoms strengthened among White children with proportionally larger kin networks (B=0.05, p<0.001). However, this association weakens as children enter adulthood. Future work will focus on identifying social resources that account for changes in the intergenerational effects of stress.

‘Wright By Her Own Hand’: Recipe Exchange and Women’s Kinship Networks in Ascendancy Ireland, 1690–1800

‘Wright By Her Own Hand’: Recipe Exchange and Women’s Kinship Networks in Ascendancy Ireland, 1690–1800

Female Connectors in Social Networks: Catharine Minnich (Died 1843, Pennsylvania)

The thesis of the article is that taking a social network approach to genealogical problems of origin and parentage can, where applicable, result in two noteworthy benefits. The first benefit is that it may more quickly and effectively lead to matrilateral kin by helping to reconstruct a kinship network. The second benefit is that it will lead to a deeper understanding of social circles in which a husband and/or wife participate. This approach turns the usual genealogical practice of unravelling a female’s position in a cluster in relation to her husband on its head—the male’s position in a social network is reconstructed by backtracking one of his significant females (wife, mother, or sister). As background, the article briefly discusses networks, the importance of women as connectors in kinship networks, and cultural practices of kinship, in this case, eighteenth-century Germany/United States. It then presents a case study of Catharine Minnich, a Pennsylvania woman of German descent. In addition to analyzing relations by blood and marriage, it recognizes the important role of baptismal sponsors in aligning a multi-family network.

Marriage as a Connector: A Conversation about Spatial and Temporal Scales of Partnership and Self-accomplishment in Kenya and Uganda

East African families are heterogeneous institutions, fluid and in transformation. The region is home to a range of competing and sometimes contradictory value systems, with a variety of ethics, codes and practices regarding such matters as marriage, divorce and bridewealth. The intertwining of multiple value systems, together with demographic shifts, intermarriages, dynamics of internal and international migration and new professional avenues have a fundamental bearing on expanding the array of family configurations.The spread of informal unions can in part be understood as a response to economic changes initiated by the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, and a limited ability to meet the social prerequisites of legitimate family-making, like wedding and marriage costs and the payment of bridewealth, i.e. the transfer of wealth from the groom’s to the bride’s kin. However, individuals and couples of all generations actively re-imagine the future of marriage beyond bridewealth, increasingly questioning the meaning, role and validity of marriage payments, wedding requirements and separations.Changing family constellations and new interpretations of non conventional family-making, where marriage is not officially sanctioned, cohabitation is not an option, or patrilinear ties are less important than matrilateral, may pave alternative pathways for achieving upward social mobility, especially in the context of mobility and migration through kinship networks. In this chapter we wish to address the diversity of marriage in East Africa from a local and gendered perspective. After a quantitative overview on marriage in Kenya and Uganda, we will be focusing on marriage ceremonies, the meaning of divorce for social status and self-accomplishment and finally, the role of mobility in making and unmaking marriage.

Transnational, translocal, and transient: Economic communities of Arab entrepreneurs in Yiwu, China

AbstractDespite an accumulation of literature on ethnic, immigrant, and transnational entrepreneurship, we still know very little about transnational entrepreneurship among less‐developed countries especially when culture and religion are concerned. Based on long‐term ethnographic work in immigrant Arab communities, this study examines the economic communities of transnational Arab entrepreneurs in Yiwu, a global wholesale hub city in China. We find that the motivation of profit‐seeking and transitional chain migration set the premise and foundation for Arab immigrant communities. The transnational networks of kinship and geo‐relationship are further integrated with Arab entrepreneurs' translocal networks based on religion, culture, profession, and educational experiences in shaping the economic activities of Arab entrepreneurs. At the same time, taking profit‐seeking as the primary goal instead of evident political and religious pursuits, their experiences also feature with transiency under the current institutional constraints. This study provides different evidence of transnational mixed embeddedness of immigrant ethnic entrepreneurship from a less‐developed economy where the state has a dominant role in economic, cultural, and political control.

Gestión: Ambivalence and Temporalities of Kinship and Politics in the Colombian Amazon

ABSTRACT In the city of Mocoa in the Colombian Amazon, indigenous leaders capture desired resources for their communities using skilful navigation and engagement in the diverse institutional landscape of this bureaucratic centre of the Putumayo region. Interactions between these leaders and multiple political actors are locally known as gestión. In this article, we explore this ethnographic category by analysing the ways in which gestión interweaves kinship, politics and temporality. Describing gestión in the lives of two cousins, two Inga women who are both experienced leaders, we argue that it entails generating and fostering friendships and alliances by means of kinship networks and practices, which are central to capturing resources and maintaining relationships among ethnic leaders and communities, where mistrust is part of political dynamics and family life. We also show how leaders incorporate the temporalities of gestión into their lives through kinship notions to become powerful political agents in Mocoa.

Systematic review of lay consultation in symptoms and illness experiences in informal urban settlements of low-income and middle-income countries

ObjectivesLay consultation is the process of discussing a symptom or an illness with lay social network members. This can have positive or negative consequences on health-seeking behaviours. Understanding how consultation...

The Influence of Kin Proximity on the Reproductive Success of American Couples, 1900-1910.

Children require a large amount of time, effort, and resources to raise. Physical help, financial contributions, medical care, and other types of assistance from kin and social network members allow couples to space births closer together while maintaining or increasing child survival. We examine the impact of kin availability on couples' reproductive success in the early twentieth-century United States with a panel data set of over 3.1 million couples linked between the 1900 and 1910 U.S. censuses. Our results indicate that kin proximity outside the household was positively associated with fertility, child survival, and net reproduction, and suggest that declining kin availability was an important contributing factor to the fertility transition in the United States. We also find important differences between maternal and paternal kin inside the household-including higher fertility among women residing with their mother-in-law than among those residing with their mother-that support hypotheses related to the contrasting motivations and concerns of parents and parents-in-law.

Seeking One’s Fortune Elsewhere: The Social Breakdown of a Smallholder Settlement in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon and the Consequences for Its Rainforest Reserve

Using two cases, Anapu and São Manoel, located in the Brazilian Amazonian, this paper discusses the relationships between smallholders’ capacity for collective action, smallholders’ potential to unite and defend their territories, and the role of the state. In November 2017 a forest reserve of the settlement in Anapu was invaded by near 200 armed illegal squatters. We show how this event resulted from a gradual increase in internal tensions and loss of trust, thereby undermining attempts for collective action. A large reason for the lack of a functioning social network, reciprocal interactions and social trust is the migratory background of the settlers, which hinder the creation of extended kin networks, intermarriages between kin groups, as well as other forms of long-term networks of cooperation. This becomes clear when comparing Anapu to the social organization of the settlement of São Manoel in central Maranhão, which has been strong and functional for several decades. The reasons for the latter’s social coherence and trust is that it formed around interlinked extended kin groups. Collective resistance against a predatory large landowner in the 1980s contributed to forging trust and cohesion that could effectively be used to acquire and maintain collectively owned fields and cattle, to formalize an association and a cooperative and to negotiate social tensions within the community. The reciprocal network of São Manoel has made it possible for its settlers to use its more restricted natural resources to a sustainable extent, without negatively affecting the eco-system of their habitat.

Friendship, kinship and social risk management strategies among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda

This paper describes risk-pooling friendships and other social networks among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda. Social networks are of critical importance for risk management in an environment marked by volatility and uncertainty. Risk management or risk pooling mainly takes the form of “stock friendships”: an informal insurance system in which men established mutually beneficial partnerships with unrelated or related individuals through livestock transfers in the form of gifts or loans. Friends accepted the obligation to assist each other during need, ranging from the time of marriage to times of distress. Anthropologists and economists claim that social networks are critical for recouping short-term losses such as food shortage, as well as for ensuring long-term sustainability through the building of social capital and rebuilding of herds. To this end, I present ethnographic data on friendship, kinship, and other networks among male and female pastoralists in Karamoja. Using qualitative and quantitative data on these relationships and norms of livestock transfers and other mutual aid, I show the enduring importance of social networks in the life of Karamoja’s pastoralists today. I also demonstrate how exchange networks were utilized by participants during a drought. On this basis, I argue that appreciating historical and traditional mechanisms of resilience among pastoralists is vital for designing community-based risk management projects. I discuss how traditional safety net systems have been used successfully by NGOs to assist pastoralists in the wake of disaster, and how the same can be done by harnessing risk-pooling friendships in Karamoja.

Suicide bomber mobilization and kin and peer ties

Previous research has attributed the motivations of suicide bombers to religious fervor, political engagement, and organizational strategic goals, among others. However, the processes underlying suicide bomber mobilization may also be related to primary and secondary socialization through family and peer network ties. To better understand the association between kin and peer ties and suicide bomber mobilization, I use a data set of 2923 individual fighter-level observations of combatants for the Islamic State. These data include individual demographic data and if a combatant volunteered to be a suicide bomber. Through these data, I assess ideational, material, and the social origins of suicide bomber mobilization. I find that a one unit increase in kin or peer network ties is positively associated with a combatant’s odds of volunteering to be a suicide bomber.

Kinship networks in shrinking and growing populations

We study the structural properties of a class of model social networks representing blood sibling and sibling-in-law relationships, in the case where the size of the married population varies between successive generations. These kinship networks are characterized by Poissonian degree distributions and the presence of a connected component encompassing a large part of the population, along with high values of clustering and assortativity. By means of numerical simulations and comparison with Erdős–Rényi networks of the same size and connectivity, we show that global clustering and assortativity remain high unless the size of the married population drops drastically. In contrast, the largest connected component collapses when the married population shrinks to just about two thirds of its size in the previous generation.

Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Polygamy: An Early American History

Reviewed by: Polygamy: An Early American History by Sarah M. S. Pearsall Cristina Rosetti Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Polygamy: An Early American History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019) American polygamy is usually associated with Mormonism, whether the nineteenth-century practice among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the various fundamentalist sects of the religion that continue the practice into the present. However, as Pearsall notes in her ground-breaking history on the practice in early America, polygamy was a “matter of public concern” long before Joseph Smith instituted the practice among his closest associates (7). By offering an overview of plural marriage systems, both by its proponents and detractors, within indigenous communities, colonial New Spain, eighteenth-century colonies, and Mormons, Pearsall demonstrates how polygamy was never simply about the familial choices of practitioners. Rather, polygamy was about “the organization and governance not just of households but of societies, nations, and empires” (1). Pearsall’s analysis spans an ambitious timeline to demonstrate how polygamy manifested at various points in American history and successfully shows that “Monogamous heterosexual marriage as the only form of allowable marriage was one of the legacies of colonial conquest” (291). Monogamy was never a given. It was constructed as correct, to the detriment of other kinship networks. This began with indigenous communities struggling to retain their societal structures in light [End Page 136] of colonial and religious conquest in both New Spain and New France. Within this context, polygamy was not about forged alliances and avenues for resources, as understood by many indigenous communities, but as deviant and counter to a Christian civilization that “depended on getting marriage right” (155). This struggle over “correct” marriage extended to the marriage systems that were both broken and reclaimed among enslaved Africans. In both instances, marriage became a simplified way of marking the “other” in colonial America. Throughout her work, Pearsall artfully demonstrates how religion, gender, sexuality, and race are entangled. Polygamy, as a structure deemed deviant and outside of European norms, marked people as not white. In addition to interaction with indigenous communities, the interplay between polygamy and race continued into the eighteenth century, with fictional accounts of polygamy circulating to delineate between those deemed civilized or not. This included portrayals of “barbarism” and women in need of liberation. In these instances, monogamy was a powerful identity marker tied to the state. The civilization narrative within the polygamy debate is only further complicated in Pearsall’s history of Mormonism, a majority white religious tradition. Pearsall ends where many histories of polygamy begin: Mormons in the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike some accounts of polygamy that focus on the challenges that practitioners faced, Pearsall pursues her early observation that “Defiant defenses of plural marriage are worth taking seriously,” and this includes polygamy’s defense by women (3). The woman at the center of this story is Belinda Hilton Pratt, a plural wife of Parley Pratt who fled an abusive husband and ended up sealed to the LDS Apostle in Nauvoo, Illinois. Belinda, author of A Defence of Polygamy by a Lady, offered a necessary view of the practice that countered others who sought to deride the marriage system as oppressive. According to Pratt, there were many reasons to choose polygamy. To make the matter more complex, Pearsall concludes with a juxtaposition of polygamy that brings together many of the questions raised by the book. Homing in on Provo, Utah, Pearsall contextualizes the polygamous Mormons entering the Utah territory with the residents already occupying the land, the polygamous Utes and Paiutes. Multiple polygamous groups were cast as Other and racialized as non-white, with one group becoming a colonizer. This single moment reflects the generation-long battle over marriage and power that shaped the nation and the “great deal of vital political work” that ideas of kinship had on the construction of both the “American” family and “American” religion, complicating what scholars mean when they discuss both. Polygamy’s broad overview makes the text a significant contribution for historians working across multiple fields. Most notably, this book will serve as a vital text for scholars of colonial America and the history of kinship...

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Contributors

A Typology of Food Environments in the Pacific Region and Their Relationship to Diet Quality in Solomon Islands.

Extensive literature describes the importance of food environments (FEs) as a driver of food choices and nutrition outcomes; yet existing FE frameworks do not adequately capture the diversity of FEs relevant to the Pacific Region. This limits identification of opportunities in food systems to reduce the multiple burden of malnutrition. We present a conceptual typology of FEs including six primary FEs relevant in the Pacific; wild; cultivated; kin and community; informal retail; formal retail; and food aid and services. We then apply this typology to food acquisition data from Solomon Islands 2012/13 Household Income and Expenditure Survey and analyse the relationship between FEs and diet quality. The cultivated FE accounts for 60% of the quantity of food acquired nationally, followed by wild (15%), kin and community (9%), and formal and informal retail FEs (8% each), with wide variation between urban and rural households, provinces and wealth groups. Reliance on different FEs is a significant predictor of diet quality and affirms the importance of subsistence fisheries and agriculture, and community and kinship networks. Integration of a FE typology such as the one presented here in commonly conducted household expenditure surveys offers significant opportunity to advance our understanding of food system leverage points to improve nutrition and health.