Week 3: Essay C Introduction

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 What are the advantages of the concept of ‘relatedness’ over that of ‘kinship'?

This essay attempts to show the evolution of theories of kinship from twentieth century Eurocentric ones, based more upon traditional familial relationships arising from blood or law, to a more modern approach (via an initial critique of the traditional kinship model by Schneider (1984) which led to a more rounded theory of relatedness, hypothesised by Carsten (1995)). The article seeks to better explain the complexities and nuances of how such relations can arise by further taking account of wider processual practices that can lead to such bonds.

 In examples of such processual practices in non-European cultures, this essay attempts to build a map of how these can bring awareness to familial-type relationships and trigger seemingly familial taboos (such as incest), even in a non-familial context. It proposes that such a theory (i.e. of 'relatedness'), if it had been available to be applied in previous research, might have identified other forms of kinship that may have been missed at the time and will further suggest that the advantages of the concept of relatedness over kinship (in addition to the above) would be a more holistic and accurate ability to identify and represent examples of kinship-type relationships, together with a much more balanced and less male-centric approach which acknowledges the place of women in creating kinship relations.