Role Of Kinship Research Articles

Quality and quantity of genetic relatedness data affect the analysis of social structure.

Kinship plays a fundamental role in the evolution of social systems and is considered a key driver of group living. To understand the role of kinship in the formation and maintenance of social bonds, accurate measures of genetic relatedness are critical. Genotype-by-sequencing technologies are rapidly advancing the accuracy and precision of genetic relatedness estimates for wild populations. The ability to assign kinship from genetic data varies depending on a species' or population's mating system and pattern of dispersal, and empirical data from longitudinal studies are crucial to validate these methods. We use data from a long-term behavioural study of a polygynandrous, bisexually philopatric marine mammal to measure accuracy and precision of parentage and genetic relatedness estimation against a known partial pedigree. We show that with moderate but obtainable sample sizes of approximately 4,235 SNPs and 272 individuals, highly accurate parentage assignments and genetic relatedness coefficients can be obtained. Additionally, we subsample our data to quantify how data availability affects relatedness estimation and kinship assignment. Lastly, we conduct a social network analysis to investigate the extent to which accuracy and precision of relatedness estimation improve statistical power to detect an effect of relatedness on social structure. Our results provide practical guidance for minimum sample sizes and sequencing depth for future studies, as well as thresholds for post hoc interpretation of previous analyses.

The role of kinship in knowledge about medicinal plants: evidence for context-dependent model-based biases in cultural transmission?

The role of kinship in knowledge about medicinal plants: evidence for context-dependent model-based biases in cultural transmission?

New biomedical practices and discourses: Focus on surrogacy

Abstract This study, set in a discourse-analytical and constructionist framework, explores the impact of biomedical advances on language and discourse. The main focus is on surrogacy and on the websites of ten organizations promoting it, with headquarters in various countries where this practice is legal. The discursive representation of the different forms of surrogacy and related Assisted Reproductive Technologies is discussed, focusing in particular on the communicative strategies enacted to deal with the most sensitive and controversial aspects. The analysis provides evidence of an approach that represents surrogacy, the actors and the moral issues involved in absolutely positive terms, and at the same time disregards the most problematic and controversial aspects, making recourse to some recurrent discursive frames. A further aspect investigated is the representation and denomination of the various actors involved, in a context where the spread of new reproductive technologies has introduced the possibility of significantly altering the natural mechanisms presiding over the inception of human life, and has thus triggered a process of lexical innovation and adaptation of the basic vocabulary associated with reproduction and kinship roles.

Family quarrels in seeds and rapid adaptive evolution in Arabidopsis

Evolutionary conflict can drive rapid adaptive evolution, sometimes called an arms race, because each party needs to respond continually to the adaptations of the other. Evidence for such arms races can sometimes be seen in morphology, in behavior, or in the genes underlying sexual interactions of host-pathogen interactions, but is rarely predicted a priori. Kin selection theory predicts that conflicts of interest should usually be reduced but not eliminated among genetic relatives, but there is little evidence as to whether conflict within families can drive rapid adaptation. Here we test multiple predictions about how conflict over the amount of resources an offspring receives from its parent would drive rapid molecular evolution in seed tissues of the flowering plant Arabidopsis As predicted, there is more adaptive evolution in genes expressed in Arabidopsis seeds than in other specialized organs, more in endosperms and maternal tissues than in embryos, and more in the specific subtissues involved in nutrient transfer. In the absence of credible alternative hypotheses, these results suggest that kin selection and conflict are important in plants, that the conflict includes not just the mother and offspring but also the triploid endosperm, and that, despite the conflict-reducing role of kinship, family members can engage in slow but steady tortoise-like arms races.

The limits of freedom: migration as a space of freedom and loneliness among Afghan unaccompanied migrant youth

ABSTRACTThis article examines how unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan experience migration as a space of both freedom and loneliness situated between competing moral frameworks: family projects, neoliberal discourses of independence, and a quest for new ways of being. While migration is devised as a family strategy to financially sustain the household, it also creates new desires for young people: to study, to have fun, and to fulfil individual goals. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the UK, I analyse how youth find themselves caught in moments of moral crisis as both an ethical dilemma and an experience of self-transformation – caused by the tensions between family expectations, social policies, and a search for independence. I argue that young people often struggle to find the moral ground to exercise freedom and to make the good choice, without the guidance of their parents and within neoliberal politics of self-governance. This article considers youth’s aspirations and imaginaries of ‘good life’ within different communities of belonging, and it highlights the importance of the role of kinship for understanding how youth conceptualise their future, and ultimately exercise choice.

Challenges in assessing the roles of nepotism and reciprocity in cooperation networks

Nepotism and reciprocity are not mutually exclusive explanations for cooperation, because helping decisions can depend on both kinship cues and past reciprocal help. The importance of these two factors can therefore be difficult to disentangle using observational data. We developed a resampling procedure for inferring the statistical power to detect observational evidence of nepotism and reciprocity. We first applied this procedure to simulated data sets resulting from perfect reciprocity, where the probability and duration of helping events from individual A to B equalled that from B to A. We then assessed how the probability of detecting correlational evidence of reciprocity was influenced by (1) an increasing number of helping observations and (2) an increasing degree of simultaneous nepotism. Last, we applied the same analyses to empirical data on food sharing in common vampire bats, Desmodus rotundus, and allogrooming in mandrills, Mandrillus sphinx, and Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata. We show that at smaller sample sizes, the effect of kinship was easier to detect and overestimated relative to the effect of reciprocal help. This bias in power was true in both empirical and simulated data, including when simulating perfect reciprocity and imperfect nepotism. We explain the causes and consequences of this difference in power for detecting the roles of kinship versus reciprocal help. When comparing the relative evidence for kin-biased help and reciprocal help, we suggest that researchers measure the relative reliability of both kinship bias and symmetry in the model by plotting the coefficients and their detection probability as a function of sampling effort. We provide R scripts to allow others to do this power analysis with their own data sets.

The Formation of Israelite Identity in the Central Canaanite Highlands in the Iron Age I–IIA

The author examines the formation of Israelite identity in relation to the formation of the Israelite monarchy in the Iron I–IIA central Canaanite hill country. Drawing on recent studies regarding the significant role of kinship in ancient Near Eastern societies, this article reflects on Israelite identity as a kinship identity. It begins with a brief discussion of settlement patterns and oscillations in the central Canaanite hill country during the Iron I–IIA in the context of the formation of the Israelite monarchy. As kinship is a social ideology, the relevant textual sources are also examined, leading to the conclusion that it is the process of “state formation,” with its constant need to form politically and socially unified structures under centralized rule, that generated the construction of an encompassing Israelite identity.

Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture by Eve Krakowski

Reviewed by: Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture by Eve Krakowski Renée Levine Melammed Eve Krakowski. Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 350 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000205 Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt is a wonderful example of the scholarship undertaken by a new generation of scholars of the Cairo Geniza. The accessibility of so many documents, some of which are epistolary, rabbinic responsa, and court records, enables the serious investigator to explore avenues that have not been previously or sufficiently examined. In this case, Eve Krakowski opted to delve into the world of the female adolescent in medieval Egypt from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. Her goal was to analyze the roles of kinship and the law as reflected in documents concerning these girls as they faced the most significant transition of their lives. The book begins with a solid introduction to these young women and their kin in what is often termed "Geniza society"; these explanations are essential for those less familiar with this milieu. Explanations as to the nature of the documents are also helpful, as the author clearly lays out the aim and structure of the book. One immediately perceives that by using these sources, Krakowski will attempt to qualify the significance of Halakhah versus kinship in these young women's lives. The centrality of networks of kinship and patronage among the merchant class in particular is well established; it is worthwhile and useful to determine how influential these ties were in women's lives. Krakowski clearly wants to stake her own ground in the field and to differentiate her findings from those of the most eminent social historian of Geniza [End Page 219] studies, S. D. Goitein. For example, she successfully counters his assumption that newlyweds most often resided with the groom's family once she discovered that, rather than opting for living with the bride's family, many couples moved in with single relatives rather than couples. These singles include divorced and widowed women whose married children sometimes joined them. In her introduction, however, Krakowski is critical of Goitein, claiming that his "treatment of any given topic was also messy, preliminary, and incomplete" (5). Such a comment seems a bit harsh considering that this pioneer in the field was attempting to analyze and order an overwhelming quantity of material. One would assume that many of his insights would be preliminary, just as his assessments could not possibly be complete. After all, this is the task that Krakowski and others now take upon themselves. Be that as it may, the array of impressive sources and attempts to compare her findings to those of the Islamicate world are praiseworthy. This book should be especially interesting to students and scholars less familiar with the Geniza documents, since it provides a fine entrée into the field. One can learn about family structures, dependencies, and loyalties, and realize how dependent the women were on their kin. At the same time, the role of the Jewish beit din is examined; here one learns that although the means of enforcing decisions by the court was always restricted, mediation tended to be a relatively effective path for achieving results. Not surprisingly, the documents studied reveal the importance of social capital along with the status of relatives representing a woman's needs. It seems that in this society, child marriage occurred less frequently than previously imagined. One wonders if a comparison with the lives of adolescent males might have further enlightened the reader. Were the boys too busy learning a trade or did they experience a similar intermediate phase prior to marriage? It is unfortunate that the documents available rarely allow the reader to hear the voices of these adolescents, unlike many of the letters available concerning women in later phases of their lives. A sizable dowry can enable a woman to become independent economically and, as in many other societies, the negotations prior to marriage, including the assessment of the dowry, are of utmost importance. Sephardic Jews in Spain and in the Spanish-Portuguese diaspora created dowry, or...

Aging in Place: Changing Socio-ecology and the Power of Kinship on Smith Island, Maryland

This article examines how the people known as Smith Islanders interact with their environment over the life-course. The purpose of the study is to contribute to a better understanding of aging in a small, rural, coastal community which changes are environmentally driven. To address the aging process in changing environments in this essay, I explore the relationship between the place, sense of self, and knowledge. Because the majority of people on the island today are in late life, the main threads in the fabric of this ethnographic narrative weave themselves into stories about aging experiences. I focus on males’ experiences, their traditional knowledge, and the role of kinship over their life-courses. The life history narratives of a Smith Island waterman known as Eddie Boy, discusses two elements present in both his childhood narratives and his late adulthood: work and kinship. I show how changing socio-ecology has altered the potential for intergenerational relations, which older islanders cherish, and how such changes in late life pose a new aging dilemma for current Smith Islanders.

בית ישראל in Ezekiel: Identity Construction and the Exilic Period

Previous studies of the book of Ezekiel have overlooked its peculiar association with the expression בית ישראל (“house of Israel”). While most commentaries content themselves with briefly mentioning that Ezekiel is the main promoter of the idiom (83x; 56.5% in the Hebrew Bible), an investigation of its function and meaning within the overall rhetoric of the prophet is lacking. This article addresses this shortcoming and analyzes the term בית ישראל by means of three arguments: its distribution and connotations within the Hebrew Bible and the book of Ezekiel, the effects of the exilic period on Judean deportees, and the use of the theoretical concept of “collective memory” to read Ezek 20. I conclude that בית ישראל directly answered to the crisis of the exile and offered a new identity to the Babylonian exilic community. This idiom emphasized the role of past cultural traditions (e.g., the exodus), religion, and kinship for the maintenance and perpetuation of its identity.

בית ישראל in Ezekiel: Identity Construction and the Exilic Period

Previous studies of the book of Ezekiel have overlooked its peculiar association with the expression בית ישראל ("house of Israel"). While most commentaries content themselves with briefly mentioning that Ezekiel is the main promoter of the idiom (83x; 56.5% in the Hebrew Bible), an investigation of its function and meaning within the overall rhetoric of the prophet is lacking. This article addresses this shortcoming and analyzes the term בית ישראל by means of three arguments: its distribution and connotations within the Hebrew Bible and the book of Ezekiel, the effects of the exilic period on Judean deportees, and the use of the theoretical concept of "collective memory" to read Ezek 20. I conclude that [inline-graphic 01] directly answered to the crisis of the exile and offered a new identity to the Babylonian exilic community. This idiom emphasized the role of past cultural traditions (e.g., the exodus), religion, and kinship for the maintenance and perpetuation of its identity.

Kinship as a Social Capital in Rural Development: An Anthropological Perspective

This paper is the study of institutional and organizational aspects of the management system of a community based micro hydropower. It mainly focuses on the role of kinship as well as social capital for the sustainability of micro hydropower management. However, social capital has been analyzed as one of the fundamental sources of kinship organization. This study also emphasizes on the social transformation that is only possible with an effective social mobilization and reliable institutional sources. An organized form of management system for micro hydro is functioning continuously due to the consistent engagement of community, proper mobilization of groups/institutions and institutional guidance, where social and cultural substances are primarily embedded. Ethnographic fieldwork was the principal data collection method. Both direct and indirect participant observations were used to garner the substantial amount of data. In-depth nature of semistructured interviews on various social, structural and cultural aspects was used to conduct the key interviews. To make the representative units inclusive, twenty people were purposively selected for key informant interviews including male, female and from the various occupation status. The related structural issues as well as regarding the entire management system of micro hydropower were probed through the informal interviews and group discussions to enhance the ethnographic data.

Kinship influences social bonds among male southern Australian bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops cf. australis)

Male mammals employ a wide variety of mating strategies in order to increase their reproductive success, which in turn influence their social behavior. In some populations of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.), males cooperate in small groups or alliances to gain access to females for mating. However, the occurrence of these male cooperative groups has been predicted to occur only under certain social and ecological conditions, driven by factors such as differences in population density, operational sex ratio, and sexual size dimorphism. Here, we used generalized affiliation indices, social network techniques, and maternally and bi-parentally inherited genetic markers to investigate the affiliation patterns and genetic relatedness among male southern Australian bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops cf. australis) in a small embayment in South Australia. Photo-identification data and biopsy samples were collected in Coffin Bay from 2013 to 2015 through systematic boat-based surveys. We found that highly sighted male dolphins formed 12 social clusters composed of two to five individuals. Genetic analyses revealed that general male affiliation patterns were significantly correlated with mtDNA haplotype sharing. In addition, preferred affiliates showed significantly higher levels of genetic relatedness compared to casual and avoided male pairs. Our results corroborate theoretical expectations for the formation of social bonds in small delphinids and suggest that a high density of dolphins, with an expected skewed operational sex ratio and no apparent sexual size dimorphism, is likely to have favored the formation of strong male affiliations. In addition, the availability of genetic relatives within the population may have favored male affiliations based on kinship relationships. Male bottlenose dolphins use different strategies to gain access to females, from single roving individuals, pairs or trios in alliances, to stable mixed-sex groups. Moreover, the role of kinship in the formation of male social bonds also varies within and among populations. This variability has been attributed to differences in ecological and intrinsic factors. Here, we studied the affiliation patterns and genetic relatedness in southern Australian bottlenose dolphins and demonstrated that kinship plays an important role in the formation of close male social ties. Furthermore, the results corroborate previous findings about the factors that contribute to the formation of male social bonds in these animals.

The Influence of Social Capital on Farm Household’s Borrowing Behavior in Rural China

This paper evaluates whether social capital affects the ability of farm households to obtain formal and informal loans. We test for the impact of two measures of social capital. The first measure, kinship, captures the traditional aspects of bonding social capital in rural areas that might affect the probability of getting informal loans. As the economic reforms in China have changed the traditional rural way of life and weakened the role of kinship, more mobile farmers are likely to develop a different kind of social capital also based in the Chinese tradition but not focused exclusively on kin. This friendship social capital is hypothesized to affect farmers’ ability to get both formal and informal loans. We use the Chinese Household Finance Survey data from 2013 and estimate the probability of obtaining credit, while also accounting for the reverse causality. In addition, we use the Heckman selection model to establish how social capital affects not only the probability of getting loans but also the size of the loan. Empirical results suggest that social capital affects borrowing by farm households. In particular, the friendship social capital has a positive effect on farm household’s ability to get formal loans, and has a substitution effect on informal borrowing, while kinship has a positive effect on farm households’ ability to get informal loans. Friendship and kinship are positively associated with the amount of a farm household’s formal and informal loans, respectively.

Cause of Death and Guilt in Bereavement: The Role of Emotional Regulation and Kinship

The purpose of this study is to analyze the role that emotional regulation and kinship play in the relationship between cause of death and guilt. The sample consisted of 91 people that had suffered the loss of a loved one to illness, suicide, or accident. The results show that suicide was the variable with the greatest impact on levels of guilt during bereavement, and that those people losing a child to suicide experienced more difficulties in terms of emotional regulation than those that had lost another family member, with this finding being useful for the design of intervention programs.

Brood parasitism, relatedness and sociality: a kinship role in female reproductive tactics.

Conspecific brood parasitism (CBP) is a reproductive tactic in which parasitic females lay eggs in nests of other females of the same species that then raise the joint brood. Parasites benefit by increased reproduction, without costs of parental care for the parasitic eggs. CBP occurs in many egg-laying animals, among birds most often in species with large clutches and self-feeding young: two major factors facilitating successful parasitism. CBP is particularly common in waterfowl (Anatidae), a group with female-biased natal philopatry and locally related females. Theory suggests that relatedness between host and parasite can lead to inclusive fitness benefits for both, but if host costs are high, parasites should instead target unrelated females. Pairwise relatedness (r) in host-parasite (h-p) pairs of females has been estimated using molecular genetic methods in seven waterfowl (10 studies). In many h-p pairs, the two females were unrelated (with low r, near the local population mean). However, close relatives (r = 0.5) were over-represented in h-p pairs, which in all 10 studies had higher mean relatedness than other females. In one species where this was studied, h-p relatedness was higher than between nesting close neighbours, and hosts parasitized by non-relatives aggressively rejected other females. In another species, birth nest-mates (mother-daughters, sisters) associated in the breeding area as adults, and became h-p pairs more often than expected by chance. These and other results point to recognition of birth nest-mates and perhaps other close relatives. For small to medium host clutch sizes, addition of a few parasitic eggs need not reduce host offspring success. Estimates in two species suggest that hosts can then gain inclusive fitness if parasitized by relatives. Other evidence of female cooperation is incubation by old eider Somateria mollissima females of clutches laid by their relatives, and merging and joint care of broods of young. Merging females tended to be more closely related. Eiders associate with kin in many situations, and in some geese and swans, related females may associate over many years. Recent genetic evidence shows that also New World quails (Odontophoridae) have female-biased natal philopatry, CBP and brood merging, inviting further study and comparison with waterfowl. Kin-related parasitism also occurs in some insects, with revealing parallels and differences compared to birds. In hemipteran bugs, receiving extra eggs is beneficial for hosts by diluting offspring predation. In eggplant lace bugs Gargaphia solani, host and parasite are closely related, and kin selection favours egg donation to related females. Further studies of kinship in CBP, brood merging and other contexts can test if some of these species are socially more advanced than presently known.

The House of the Mother: The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry

The House of the Mother: The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry

Facebook Interactions: An Ethnographic Perspective

This article starts with a consideration of the different reasons academics might be interested in the detailed analysis of who interacts with whom on a social media platform such as Facebook. We then describe our analysis of the levels of interaction between Facebook friends for two populations, one based in South England and the other in South India. We first used statistical data analysis to identify those who interacted most with our informants. We then exploited our ethnographic grounding to elucidate who exactly these interactions were with upon returning to our informants. This allows us to characterize the nature of interactivity in the two sites, for example, the role of kinship as against friendship. In general, we found that the explanation for interactivity in the English fieldsite tended to depend on identifying specific genres of communication for particular social relations, while the Indian fieldsite reflected strong social parameters such as gender and class. We also comment on a few of the many general issues that arise, including the relationship between online and offline sociality, the importance of both reciprocity and asymmetry in interactivity, and the question of whether people are aware of who interacts most with them on their Facebook profiles.

Toward a Kinship Perspective on Entrepreneurship

This article develops a theoretical framework for analyzing the role of kinship in entrepreneurship. Kinship, we argue, is a key ingredient of the social and cultural environment of entrepreneurs, and, therefore, essential in understanding how and why entrepreneurship happens. Building on qualitative research conducted among Cambodian Chinese entrepreneurs in Phnom Penh, we define kinship as interpersonal ties grounded in relatedness. We distinguish different categories of kinship ties that involve different levels of relatedness and are used for different aspects of entrepreneurship, and we identify different types of reciprocity and trust as the sociocultural dynamics that buttress kinship involvement in entrepreneurship.

Evaluating the influence of ecology, sex and kinship on the social structure of resident coastal bottlenose dolphins

Animal social structures are shaped by external environmental factors and individual intrinsic behavioral traits. They represent a balance between the costs and benefits of group-living to maximize individual fitness. Bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, societies are fission–fusion with high variations in association strength, grouping patterns and influence of kinship on social bonds throughout the wide range of habitats where they occur. Here, the drivers of social structure in resident coastal bottlenose dolphins of the Normano-Breton Gulf (English Channel) were studied using a multidisciplinary approach combining individual monitoring (photo-identification) information, genetic and ecological data. First, the ecological segregation of the social clusters was tested. Then, the influence of kinship, sex and ecological specializations on association patterns was evaluated. Stable isotopes revealed that the social clusters had relatively distinct ecological niches. Resource partitioning among social clusters may reduce competition and may allow the area to sustain a larger resident bottlenose dolphin population. Individuals did not preferentially associate with related individuals or individuals of the same sex. However, sample size was relatively low for females and, therefore, a role of kinship in shaping association patterns could not be totally ruled out for those individuals. Instead, dolphins preferentially associated with individuals of similar ecology. The study also emphasizes that stable isotope analysis is a promising tool to investigate the link between social structure and ecological specializations, particularly in taxa that are difficult to observe in the wild.