A new season.
We think of family.
Of our families.
How these relationships shape us,
How we relate with others.
‘Kinship 101’ or a few thoughts from Ben
Introduction
Don’t get your hopes up too much for this note. Most theories in anthropology are either common sense or just plain wrong. The reason I like anthropology is not for the theory, but for the descriptions of different societies. It should be a branch of literature, not social science. So listening to each other’s stories is better anthropological practice than reading text books on kinship.
However, it may be that a few of the things which have most interested anthropologists about families and culture will also help spark some conversations about the wider culture significance of our individual family stories.
I should stress that anthropologists are interested in the role of families as components of wider cultures, not the juicy detail of individual family circumstances. They leave the later to psychologists!