Chapter 4 presents kin group as an etic category that we can use to study ancient Egyptian relatedness. Kin group can be categorised as a polythetic class with a number of concurring attributes, not necessarily existing simultaneously. The six attributes that the primary sources reveal for kin groups in ancient Egypt are that they all live in the same household or area; they are displayed and commemorated together on monuments; they can function as and economic units or corporate groups; they are under the authority of one man who acts as the head of the group; they are buried together or close to each other in the same area of the necropolis; and they hold reciprocal duties with living and deceased members of the group.

This definition of kin groups is thus flexible and purely performative, as it based on what a kin group does rather than on what it is supposed to be. The main attribute is arguably display and commemoration, because most of the sources tend to be monumental in nature, representing an idea of the group that Egyptian themselves were trying to transmit to their contemporary and future audiences.

Chapter 9 summarises the most important contributions of the book. Weaving together archaeological and anthropological approaches makes it possible to characterise forms of relatedness in ancient Egypt as a process, as a phenomenon based on practice.

The main methodology relies on group approaches to monuments and people. Stelae need to be integrated within clusters into so-called memorial chapels, and analysed as parts of a wider landscape. Those objects can be regarded as agents, having a clear impact on their audiences and affecting the perception and construction of social fabric.

As people should not be treated in isolation, this book focuses on kin groups instead of individual kin types. Kin group is seen as an etic grid that acquires emic content through careful analysis of the primary sources. Although six attributes of these groups are proposed, not all need to occur at the same time. Kin groups are then analysed through koinography, taking the kin group as the preferred unit of social analysis in a diachronic framework. Overall kinship is understood as a process that by being displayed in monuments contributes to creating and disseminating ideas about ancient Egyptian social fabric.

Chapter 3 addresses the use of emic and etic categories to study kinship and marriage in ancient Egypt. Family and household are widespread but problematic concepts; the former is an emic term of our own Western culture, and the latter presumes that a group is bounded to a physical space. Kin group is proposed as the preferred analytical category, since it simply refers to a group connected by kinship, which should be understood in very broad terms. The chapter goes on to discuss the most appropriate categories for exploring material culture, outlining the difference between an object cluster (i.e. ANOC group, workshop) and its embodiment of a social group.

Terminology for individual kin types as well as for kin groups in ancient Egypt is explored. A limited terminology of kinship for individuals (basically lineal ascendants, lineal descendants, and collaterals) contrasts with a wealth of terms for kin groups in the primary sources. A productive way to understand kinship terminology may be to focus on what those individuals and groups do rather than on what they are. In this sense, a performative definition is advocated, in line with the theoretical framework of processual kinship.