Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T10:26:20.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Genealogy (and the relationship between opposite-sex/same-sex sibling pairs) is what kinship is all about

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Carles Salazar
Affiliation:
Department of Art and Social History (Anthropology Program), University of Lleida, 25003 Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. salazar@hahs.udl.catwww.hahs.udl.es/hs/csalazar.htm

Abstract

What are the theoretical implications of a universal genealogy? After the demise of relativism in kinship studies, there is much to be gained by joining old formal-structural analysis of kinship to recent cognitive-evolutionary approaches. This commentary shows how the logic of kinship terminologies, specifically those of the Seneca-Iroquois, can be clarified by looking at the relationship between opposite-sex/same-sex sibling pairs.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, N. J. (1998) The prehistory of Dravidian-type terminologies. In: Transformations of kinship, ed. Godelier, M., Trautmann, T. R. & Tjon Sie Fat, F. E., pp. 314–31. Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hage, P. (1997) Unthinkable categories and the fundamental laws of kinship. American Ethnologist 24:652–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Héritier, F. (1981) L'Exercice de la parenté. Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Héritier, F. (1996) Masculin/Fémenin. La pensée de la difference. Éditions Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, F. (1964a) The structural analysis of kinship semantics. In: Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics, ed. Hunt, H. G.. pp. 1073–93. Mouton.Google Scholar
Morgan, L. H. (1997/1871) Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family. University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Read, D. (2001a) Formal analysis of kinship terminologies and its relationship to what constitutes kinship. Anthropological Theory 1(2):239–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salazar, C. (2009) Are genes good to think with? In: European kinship in the age of biotechnology, ed. Edwards, J. & Salazar, C., pp. 179–96. Berghahn Books.Google Scholar