Traditional Kinship System Research Articles

Politico-economic Implications of the Confucius Funeral Rites and Ceremonies in the 18-19th Centuries

『朱子家禮』에 의거한 유교적 상장례는 매우 위계적인 동시에 차별적이었다. 男尊女卑·尊高卑低라는 원칙이 작동하기 때문이다. 이 원칙에 따라 父親喪이 가장 무겁고, 母親喪이 그 다음이며, 婦人喪이 가장 가벼웠다. 『가례』를 준수했던 18~19세기 경상도 사족 가문에서 부인의 지위는 매우 낮았다. 부인상을 당할 경우, 남편은 4일 동안만 애도했고, 장례식을 끝으로 居喪 기간이 종료되었다. 여기에서 유교적 상장례는 한국 전통사회의 친족제도인 率壻婚[혹은 壻留婦家婚]과 강하게 충돌한다. 잘 알려져 있는 바와 같이, 한국의 전통적 친족구조는 17세기 이후 동요하기 시작했다. 그 기저에 『가례』가 있었다. 『가례』는 남성과 여성을 위계적으로, 그리고 차별적으로 배치시키는 것을 강제하는 이론서이기 때문이다. 그런 이유로 『가례』가 엄격하게 준행되면 될수록 부계(혹은 남성)의 위상이 높아졌고, 모계(혹은 여성)의 그것은 추락했다. 『가례』 준행 의지의 확산, 남성과 여성 지위의 역전과 간극의 심화, 인구 증가에 따른 공간 배치 압력의 증가 등이 복합적으로 작용하는 가운데, 한국사회는 18세기 전·중반 이래 男系親 중심의 宗族社會로 급속하게 전환하기에 이르렀다.Funeral rites of the Choŏon dynasty, based on Chu Hsi’s Book of Family Ritual, were hierarchical and discriminatory in accordance with the principle of predominance of men over woman and more respect for ancestors than descendants. Under the principle, the father’s funeral was of the greatest importance, followed by the mother’s, and the least importance was given to that of one’s wife. The status of wife in the families of Confucian literati remained marginal. In the case of the wife’s funeral, the husband mourned only for four days, with the mourning period lasting only until the end of the funeral service. Thus, the Confucian funeral ritual ran directly counter to the traditional kinship system based on matrilocal residence. As is widely known, the traditional kinship system of Korea started to be dismantled in the 17th century. This collapse was ascribed to the Family Ritual of Chu Hsi, which arranges men and women in a hierarchical and discriminatory order. Accordingly, as the Ritual was more strictly observed, men (as well as patrilineal lineage) came to have higher status than women (matrilineal lineage). Amid the stronger will to observe the Ritual, men’s dominance over women and their widening gap in status, and the growing demand for more living space under population pressure, Korean society witnessed a rapid transition to a patrilineal lineage-dominant kinship system in the early and mid-18th century.

A nation of families: traditional indigenous kinship, the foundation for Cheyenne sovereignty

One of the major destructive forces to American Indian peoples were the assimilation-based policies that destroyed traditional kinship systems and family units. This destruction contributed to the cycle of dysfunction that continues to plague families and homes in Indian country. A second major destructive blow occurred when colonial forces, through law and policy, reinforced white male patriarchal kinship and family systems. In this colonial system, American Indian concepts, roles, and responsibilities associated with fatherhood and motherhood were devalued and Indian children grew up with a dysfunctional sense of family and kinship. This article examines the traditional kinship system of the Cheyenne Indians, highlighting the importance of kinship terms, roles, and responsibilities. The traditional Cheyenne kinship system emphasized familial relationships for the sake of childrearing and imparting traditional values of respect, reciprocity, and balance. Traditional principles of heške’estovestôtse (motherhood), héhe’estovestôtse (fatherhood), and méhósánestôtse (love) were the backbone of the Cheyenne family.

Kekerabatan sebagai Pranata Sosial yang Mempengaruhi Agency Perlawanan Masyarakat: Studi Kasus Protes Petani terhadap Proyek Pembangunan Irigasi di Sumatra Barat

Studies have shown the importance of identity politics in the ability for small-holders to form a solidarity in a collective action protest against development project. However, those studies do not show how the kinship relations in the context of adat system could shape the agency of small-holder to organize collective resistance against the development project that affects their livelihoods. Although we are not denying the importance of traditional kinship relations in developing solidarity among agrarian communities in Indonesia to carry out a public protest, kinship relations system might also be used by other interest such as government, contractor, and traditional leader for shaping some forms of resistance action. Drawing from ethnographic study of the small-holders protests against a governmental irrigation project in West Sumatera, we attempt to show how social relations in the traditional kinship system have significantly shaped their ability to carry out open public protest and gain collective support. Small-holder ability to act need to be analyzed in the complex power relations dynamic among actors involved who are embedded in the traditional kinship relationships that were practiced. Small-holders agency of resistance was hindered by the government and project contractor strategy to incorporate the key traditional leaders into the project.

Песенный фольклор как источник исследования терминов родства (на полевых материалах Украинского Правобережного Полесья)

The article by Ukrainian ethnologist Olena Kondratyuk (Олена Володимирівна Кондратюк) is devoted to the structural-semantic analysis of the main themes of songs of the family cycle. Using archive materials and printed sources, we reveal the importance of song texts for the reconstruction of individual institutions of traditional kinship system. Key words: song, kinship terms, system of kinship, traditional society, Right-Bank Polissia.

Gender Inequality in Chinese News Discourse: A Critical Discourse Perspective

This article explores, from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, how the news coverage of male and female Chinese Olympians of the 30th London Summer Olympics in Chinese newspapers consistently perpetuates an ideology of gender inequality in the language through which achievement is recognized. The analysis reveals that while male athletes are described in terms which identify athletic achievement with masculinity, descriptions of female Olympians equate their achievements with submission to traditional female domestic roles. Due to the practice of the traditional kinship systems that define gender relations, newspapers in modern China constantly depict women as less competent than men, which has hindered the achievement of gender equality in Chinese society.

Barriers and facilitators of sexually transmissible infection testing in remote Australian Aboriginal communities: results from the Sexually Transmitted Infections in Remote Communities, Improved and Enhanced Primary Health Care (STRIVE) Study.

Background Remote Australian Aboriginal communities experience high rates of bacterial sexually transmissible infections (STI). A key strategy to reduce STIs is to increase testing in primary health care centres. The current study aimed to explore barriers to offering and conducting STI testing in this setting. A qualitative study was undertaken as part of the STI in Remote communities, Improved and Enhanced Primary Health Care (STRIVE) project; a large cluster randomised controlled trial of a sexual health quality improvement program. We conducted 36 in-depth interviews in 22 participating health centres across four regions in northern and central Australia. Participants identified barriers including Aboriginal cultural norms that require the separation of genders and traditional kinship systems that prevent some staff and patients from interacting, both of which were exacerbated by a lack of male staff. Other common barriers were concerns about client confidentiality (lack of private consulting space and living in small communities), staff capacity to offer testing impacted by the competing demands for staff time, and high staff turnover resulting in poor understanding of clinic systems. Many participants also expressed concerns about managing positive test results. To address some of these barriers, participants revealed informal strategies, such as team work, testing outside the clinic and using adult health checks. Results identify cultural, structural and health system issues as barriers to offering STI testing in remote communities, some of which were overcome through the creativity and enthusiasm of individuals rather than formal systems. Many of these barriers can be readily addressed through strengthening existing systems of cultural and clinical orientation and educating staff to view STI in a population health framework. However others, particularly issues in relation to culture, kinship ties and living in small communities, may require testing modalities that do not rely on direct contact with health staff or the clinic environment.

Traditional kinship system enhanced classic community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI) for onchocerciasis control in Uganda

The challenges of community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI) for onchocerciasis control in Africa have been: maintaining a desired treatment coverage, demand for monetary incentives, high attrition of community distributors and low involvement of women. This study assessed how challenges could be minimised and performance improved using existing traditional kinship structures. In classic CDTI areas, community members decide upon selection criteria for community distributors, centers for health education and training, and methods of distributing ivermectin. In kinship enhanced CDTI, similar procedures were followed at the kinship level. We compared 14 randomly selected kinship enhanced CDTI communities with 25 classic CDTI communities through interviews of 447 and 750 household members and 127 and 64 community distributors respectively. Household respondents from kinship enhanced CDTI reported better performance (P<0.001) than classic CDTI on the following measures of program effectiveness: (a) treatment coverage (b) decision on treatment location and (c) mobilization for CDTI activities. There were more female distributors in kinship enhanced CDTI than in classic CDTI. Attrition was not a problem. Kinship enhanced CDTI had a higher number of community distributors per population working among relatives, and were more likely to be involved in additional health care activities. The results suggest that kinship enhanced CDTI was more effective than classic CDTI.

Westfried, Alex Huxley., REINVENTING THE CULTURE OF WOMANHOOD IN AMERICA AND BRAZIL, AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: Models for the 21st Century 1964-2001

Westfried, Alex Huxley., REINVENTING THE CULTURE OF WOMANHOOD IN AMERICA AND BRAZIL, AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: Models for 21st Century 1964-2001. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002,199 pp. Paperback.While this small text does not quite live up to expectations of its title, it none-the-less provides reader with valuable information concerning women's movement in Brazil which would be difficult to find otherwise. In Preface, Westfried explains that book has two objectives: the description of Life Histories of Militant Women who were able to overcome obstacles to their independence in a courageous manner, and comparison of cultural and structural features American and Brazilian society (pg. vii). He goes on to claim that in spite of more advanced modernization in United States, that feminist movement in Brazil has had greater success.We learn from Acknowledgments, Introduction, and Author Biography that author is a retired professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Western Connecticut State University, where he taught for 25 years. He began his work and interest in Latin America with his PhD work at Syracuse University. While on a summer fellowship at University of Florida in 1981, he began his 14 year study of Brazilian women. The project is based on interviews of 30 professional Brazilian women from seven cities. Twelve of interviews are used in book. The women who were selected for case studies are all active feminists with university degrees and professional careers.The first two chapters provide some historical background on gender and work issues, and illustrate them with six of case study interviews. Even though details vary, each woman has a similar story. They tend to come from a family that can support their career desires, in which they become very successful. Most of them marry a husband who is initially supportive, though eventual divorce is a common theme. Most of women also make some career sacrifices in connection with rearing of their children.Chapter 3 places women's independence movement within context of traditional kinship system. We learn that over time power of patriarchy has weakened as divorce and demands for sexual equality have become more common. As women break from extended family they also lose valuable support in child care. Racial discrimination continues, making it very difficult for those of African descent (which make up 65% of population) to receive kind of education necessary for professional careers and escape from poverty. …

Dilemmas in Working in Partnership with the Parents and Relatives of Children Involved in Child Protection Planning

This paper considers the currency of the word “partnership” in child protection as it relates to the parents and other relatives of children subject to child protection investigations orprocedures. Parents, it is suggested, are often effectively ignored, or worse, deliberately excluded, once child protection concerns are being addressed. To ignore, however, the families that children were either born to or live with when efforts are made to protect them is, it is suggested, to de‐contextualise their lives. Ultimately indeed it may be to place them at greater peril than exists as the consequences of any abuse. The basis for professional power in child protection is analysed along the dimensions of legal mandate and statutory role, gatekeeping functions and the organisational and professional context in which it operates. Seligman's theory of learned helplessness is employed as a conceptual framework in which to understand the processes by which birth parents and other relatives are likely to become increasingly ineffectual, once child protection procedures are invoked, in participating in a partnership with professionals to promote the best interests of their children. The paper concludes in examining what Sir Henry Maine first described as the move from ‘status’ to ‘contract’ in modern liberal democracies, a process whereby the regulatory functions of traditional kinship systems increasingly have been eroded by the State. It is suggested that only those models of child protection which can effectively begin to reverse this trend are likely to lead to effective partnerships between parents and birth relatives of children who are seen to be at risk, and the various professionals concerned to protect them. The paper concludes in suggesting that good intentions on the part of professionals are necessary but insufficient requirements for partnership; partnership can only effectively be achieved, it is suggested, through a fundamental reform of the legal framework.‐

Paul's Fictive Kinship Movement

This examination of Paul's kinship terminology focuses on Paul's perception of Jesus as Son and of those baptized into his death, thereby sharing in the fruits of his resurrection as adopted sons of God. In the fictive kinship model of God's bonds with those "in Christ," Paul eschews the notion of a kind of political messiahship that the Gospel accounts perceive for Jesus. Moreover, Paul opens his fictive family to gentiles in a way not so promoted in the Gospels. Thus, Paul's model of Jesus, based on rebirth as Son, carries with it a complex of implications that issue in the renewal of a more traditional kinship system for an extended family of Abraham. Adding gentiles to this kinship group creates in effect a movement, many of whose components continue even today.

A Modern Batak Horja: Innovation in Sipirok Adat Ceremonial

The peoples of North Sumatra have an almost alchemic knack for reshaping their traditional cultural patterns to adjust to social conditions in today's urban-centered, multi-ethnic Indonesia. Institutions and ideologies built up over centuries in the homeland farming villages of Tapanuli have in many cases made the transition to town and rantau life with striking success. The anthropologist Edward Bruner has, for instance, described the traditional kinship system's ability to help many Tapanuli villagers adapt to life in large Sumatran cities.1 Bruner found that these new city Batak do not abandon their village patterns of asymmetrical cross cousin marriage and firm clan loyalties. Rather, they use these forms of traditional social alliance as very modern mechanisms for easing the transition to urban life. Yet, not surprisingly, kinship has changed considerably in the process, to the point that this basic idiom of local village sociality has been stretched to accommodate such outlandish new kinsmen as Javanese in-laws and Balinese daughters-in-law.2

The Location of the Proletarian and Deferential Worker

three types : deferential, proletarian and privatized. He defines each type in terms of a distinctive occupational culture, community situation, reference group and life style. The deferential worker is employed in small scale or service industry, interacts with the boss on a face-to-face basis, and accepts as legitimate the distinctions of both the occupational and local status hierarchy . Socially he is relatively isolated from other workers, and tends to political conservatism. The proletarian worker is employed in traditional heavy industries and interacts with large numbers of other workers through formal and informal groups. Social distance between worker and employer is great, and the sense of 'us' and 'them' engenders a perception of worker employer relationships as one of power and conflict. The trade union is an expression of solidarity, and not merely an instrument to achieve individual economic goals. Local communities with solidary traditions and limited cultural horizons reinforce the tendency for the reference groups to be working class. The privatized worker lacks occupational and community ties of the solid working class kind. Both job and trade unions are viewed instrumentally3 rather than as sources of solidary relationships. The community is generally a lower-median income private or council estate in which traditional kinship systems and reference groups are missing. People are evaluated by what they possess and the privatized worker has what Lockwood calls a 'pecuniary image of society'. The three categories above are ideal types, and not many areas conform in community and occupational structure to only one type. To test Lockwood's typology, and to produce a range of urban sociological comparisons, we thought it necessary to isolate towns in which the social characteristics appropriate to deferential, proletarian and privatized workers apply in a relatively unmixed form.

Kinship and Lineage among the Yoruba

Opening ParagraphThis paper presents an analytic description of the principles underlying the traditional kinship system of the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria in the community of Oshogbo. Aggregation into large-scale urban-like communities which are characterized by the close interdependence of their political constitution and their economic and religious systems is a striking feature of Yoruba social organization. In these communities we find that the behaviour of individuals to one another, in the past at least, was very largely regulated on the basis of kinship and it would be accurate, I think, to state that among the Yoruba kinship was the usual means of articulation between the various elements of the social organization. Today, under the influence of systematic and far-reaching contact with the West, new patterns of behaviour are beginning to or have already superseded the old. New values and attitudes have intruded and there is an increased fluidity in social norms. In the present generation the bonds of kinship have been greatly weakened as a foundation for social organization and as a mechanism for co-ordinating and regulating social behaviour. Yoruba society is indeed transitional in the sense that the old is in the process of disintegration and new forms are rapidly emerging. However, it is the internal and traditional patterns that determine the particular form and direction of the effects which the external alien forces of change exert. Consequently, in this paper, we shall place primary emphasis on the principles of kinship as they emerged as regulative factors in the traditional life of the Yoruba in the belief that, apart from purely ethnographic value, they will provide us with a better understanding of the manifold changes that have become apparent.