Search

Despite the long history of kinship studies, we still lack agreed theories capable of explaining the connection between terminological systems and kinship practice. This article argues for a cognitive approach centering on two distinct but complementary aspects of identity. It is argued that patterns of shared identity are implied by terminology and combine with other factors to motivate practice—in a feedback loop which transmits influences between terminological systems and political and economic institutions. The argument is illustrated by statistical and historical analyses of an aspect of European kinship.

Kinship is a most significant organizing principle of human grouping, the basic matter of social categories in archaeological and ethnographic societies, and an important concept universally. However, its significance has rarely been adequately incorporated within archaeology’s theoretical and interpretative practice. This article aims to not only show the potential of bringing kinship into social archaeology, but also argue that archaeology can make important contributions to wider social research. Grounded on prehistoric data, spanning from the 8th to the 4th millennium bc, and drawing on cross-cultural discussions, it explores how understandings and practices of kinship might have been constructed and enacted in the first farming communities through architecture, time, material products, burials, and rituals. In doing so, the article addresses key issues of common interest in archaeology and anthropology, inviting interdisciplinary dialogue.

Among the Wampar in Papua New Guinea, children are active participants in the dynamics of kinship and identity construction. This article explores the transformative capabilities of children of interethnic marriages, particularly those with non-Wampar fathers. It examines children’s notions of belonging and rights through their practices and engagement in the discourses on social boundaries of kinship and ethnicity. Amid changing economic conditions that foster tightening of kinship boundaries and restrictions on land rights, children, who are valued as social capital, shift the balance towards mutuality of rights and benefits. Moreover, they further fluidity in reckoning kinship and the ordering of social relations.

Ethnographic research amongst Sinhala Buddhists in community and clinical settings in the Madampe Division, northwest Sri Lanka, suggests that local understandings and practices of suicidal behaviour reflect the kinship structure. In particular, acts of self-harm and self-inflicted death arise in response to the breaking of core kinship rights, duties and obligations, or as a challenge to inflexibility or contradictions within the system. In either case, the morality of kinship is closely associated with the causes of suicidal behaviour, as the ‘inevitability’ or ‘evitability’ of kin relationships is negotiated and lived in practice. This article analyses how local political economies give rise to particular kinship and moral conditions, with special attention paid to those between household (gē) members and brothers-in-law (massinā).

This article builds on sociological accounts of the negotiated, creative character of kinship and on previous studies of children's involvement in family life to ask how children actively create and define kinship and relatedness. Drawing on data from a qualitative study with children aged 7—12 in the north of England, the authors identify five interconnected ways in which children made sense of kinship. They explore how children understood genealogical kinship conventions, creatively deployed or interpreted kin terms, and defined some unrelated others as `like family'. The interplay between children's creative agency and adults' involvement in children's kinship is considered.

This article uses the examples of the `kinship consequences'of assisted conception, the contemporary enthusiasm for tracing family histories, and a more general interest in family resemblances to argue that there is a contemporary fascination with kinship which existing sociological and anthropological theory do not entirely explain. It proposes a conceptual framework for understanding what is both distinctive and fascinating about kinship, based on four dimensions of affinity: fixed affinities, negotiated and creative affinities, ethereal affinities and sensory affinities. These are dimensions where kinship is engaged with, defined, known and expressed. Collectively, these are referred to as`tangible'affinities, not because they are all literally tangible but because of their resonance in lived experience and their vivid and palpable (or almost palpable) character.

Distinctive in its content and nature, Dravidian kinship has been the object of considerable interest and debate among social anthropologists and sociologists studying South Asian social systems. This article examines the kinship terminology of one of the Dravidian communities, the Yanadi, inhabiting the Sriharikota island, Andhra Pradesh, India. In this endeavour, some of the theoretical issues concerning Dravidian kinship are reflected upon and attempts are made to resolve some issues in the light of the Yanadi data. It is argued that the native classification of kinsmen and the cultural construction of affinal relatives reflect a close association of the kinship terminology with cross-cousin marriage and affinity. The article underlines the importance of a cultural analysis of kinship to supplement the formal and widely-employed structural analysis of kinship terminologies.

This article introduces chimerism and mosaicism as two recent scientific ‘discoveries’ that present challenges to western heteronormative notions of kinship. Chimerism, in the form of xenotransplantation, already demands a rethinking of traditional boundaries between what is considered ‘kin’ and ‘non-kin’. Recent biological studies describing chimerism as two genetically distinct cell lines in one organism not caused by transplantation, invites further questions regarding the stability of kinship ideology. The aim of the article is to argue, with anthropologists and feminist science studies scholars, that the western understanding of kinship relies upon a problematic use of ‘nature’, and that this dependence necessarily produces shifting and contradictory definitions of kinship.

Anthropological kinship theory is explored for potential contributions to a theory of family business. This article considers the costs and benefits of a role for kinship in business. Both derive from the discrepancy between the normative orders of kinship and markets; respectively, long–term generalized reciprocity and short–term balanced reciprocity. Because the former reflects the morality of society as a whole, kinship integrates social fields more readily than more specialized orders like markets.

Kiss, A. N., Fernhaber, S., & McDougall–Covin, P. P. (2018). Slack, Innovation, and Export Intensity: Implications for Small– and Medium–Sized Enterprises. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Jiang, H., Cannella, A. A., & Jiao, J. (2018). Does Desperation Breed Deceiver? A Behavioral Model of New Venture Opportunism. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Hechavarría, D. M., Terjesen, S. A., Stenholm, P., Brännback, M., & Lång, S. (2018). More than Words: Do Gendered Linguistic Structures Widen the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurial Activity? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Verver, M., & Koning, J. (2018). Toward a Kinship Perspective on Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Fang He, V., Sirén, C., Singh, S., Solomon, G., & von Krogh, G. (2018). Keep Calm and Carry On: Emotion Regulation in Entrepreneurs’ Learning from Failure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Smolka, K. M., Verheul, I., Burmeister–Lamp, K., & Heugens, P. P. M. A. R. (2018). Get it Together! Synergistic Effects of Causal and Effectual Decision–Making Logics on Venture Performance. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Covin, J. G., Garrett, R. P., Gupta, J. P., Kuratko, D. F., & Shepherd, D. A. (2018). The Interdependence of Planning and Learning among Internal Corporate Ventures. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Schwens, C., Zapkau, F. B., Bierwerth, M., Isidor, R., Knight, G., & Kabst, R. (2018). International Entrepreneurship: A Meta–Analysis on the Internationalization and Performance Relationship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Li, C., Isidor, R., Dau, L. A., & Kabst, R. (2018). The More the Merrier? Immigrant Share and Entrepreneurial Activities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.Articles Withdrawn by PublisherSAGE Publishing regrets that these articles, due to an administrative error, were accidentally published OnlineFirst and in Volume 42 Issue 4 or in Volume 42 Issue 5 with different DOIs. The correct and citable versions of the articles remain Kiss, A. N., Fernhaber, S., & McDougall–Covin, P. P. (2018). Slack, Innovation, and Export Intensity: Implications for Small– and Medium–Sized Enterprises. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(5), 671–697. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718795318 Jiang, H., Cannella, A. A., & Jiao, J. (2018). Does Desperation Breed Deceiver? A Behavioral Model of New Venture Opportunism. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(5), 769–796. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718795347 Hechavarría, D. M., Terjesen, S. A., Stenholm, P., Brännback, M., & Lång, S. (2018). More than Words: Do Gendered Linguistic Structures Widen the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurial Activity? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(5), 797–817. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718795350 Verver, M., & Koning, J. (2018). Toward a Kinship Perspective on Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(4), 631–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718783431 Fang He, V., Sirén, C., Singh, S., Solomon, G., & von Krogh, G. (2018). Keep Calm and Carry On: Emotion Regulation in Entrepreneurs’ Learning from Failure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(4), 605–630. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718783428 Smolka, K. M., Verheul, I., Burmeister–Lamp, K., & Heugens, P. P. M. A. R. (2018). Get it Together! Synergistic Effects of Causal and Effectual Decision–Making Logics on Venture Performance. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(4), 571–604. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718783429 Covin, J. G., Garrett, R. P., Gupta, J. P., Kuratko, D. F., & Shepherd, D. A. (2018). The Interdependence of Planning and Learning among Internal Corporate Ventures. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(4), 537–570. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718783430 Schwens, C., Zapkau, F. B., Bierwerth, M., Isidor, R., Knight, G., & Kabst, R. (2018). International Entrepreneurship: A Meta–Analysis on the Internationalization and Performance Relationship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(5), 734–768. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718795346 Li, C., Isidor, R., Dau, L. A., & Kabst, R. (2018). The More the Merrier? Immigrant Share and Entrepreneurial Activities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(5), 698–733. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718795344

This paper explores the role and importance of kinship within the lives of 14 working class women as they seek to make sense of motherhood and their own self-identity as a young mother. Within late modernity, numerous discourses suggest that kin networks and the role and importance of kinship are in decline as ‘the family’ changes and adapts. Indeed, the idea of extended family support and networking is frequently viewed as a historically cozy image rather than an everyday reality as we enter the twenty-first century. However, this paper demonstrates that the situation is far from straightforward. The young mothers' discourses and everyday experiences remain firmly grounded in relations of class, gender and the locality within which they live. Hence, although many of the young women are increasingly individualised, self-reflexive actors seeking to make sense of intimate relations and kinship in an ontologically insecure world, kin networks, especially female kinship continue to play a pivotal role in their lives – practically, socially and emotionally. Indeed, female kinship is closely interwoven with their self-identity as a caring and capable mother.

There is an influential strand in the history of the Englishfamily, casting its shadow over interpretations of the nineteenth century and rapidly becoming sociological orthodoxy, which stresses the centrality of what has been termed the autonomous nuclear family. In this interpretation, the nuclear family dominates household structures, kinship is weak, and the community rather than family or kin is the main source of support for the needy sections of society. This article, which employs the technique of total reconstitution, examines the role of kinship in three adjoining rural communities in nineteenth-century Kent to question some of these orthodoxies. It shows that as many households in the area went through an extended phase as experienced only the simple family structure, and that kinship links in the immediate area were strong. Any separation between kin and commu nity would have been meaningless in these rural parishes where kinship was part of neighborhood.

The social domain of kinship covers a broad range of institutions: genealogy and descent, marriage and divorce, and dowry-systems and inheritance. Because kinship in the ancient Mediterranean impacted virtually every part of life and every other social domain, it is fundamental for readers of the Bible to have a solid grasp of how kinship functioned in these cultures. While one might assume that "family" is a straightforward concept determined by biology, it is, in fact, a social construction. Kinship studies provide analytical frameworks within which to interpret the biblical texts that assume the reader's knowledge of kinship transactions. This "Reader's Guide" introduces the secondary literature most helpful in beginning kinship analysis of these biblical texts.

This is the third of a three-part, cross-cultural study analyzing kinship in the Mediterranean world. The Herodian family serves as a test case for analyzing Jewish kinship structures and family systems of the Second Temple period, and thus providing the data for an analysis of biblical kinship. In this third part, the focus is on the economics of kinship, specifically: dowry, indirect dowry, bridewealth, inheritance, and the symbolic values they communicate.

This article is based on the thesis that kinship structures were an important element of communal politics and were thus inscribed into the political system of even early constitutionalism. The investigation presented covers an important change in the political culture from the Ancien Régime to the modern constitutional state in southwest Germany, and it raises the question of whether election processes affected traditional structures of representation based on kinship relationships and the ascription of political competence to an elite of notables. The analysis of kinship networks within the city council and city deputation, however, comes to the opposite conclusion—that kinship networks survive even in a system where each year people were newly elected. The analysis of voters’ alignments along kinship lines also demonstrates the power and persistence of kinship structures in the early nineteenth century and reflects the differences between kinship mobilization within agriculturally bound and urban artisan groups.

The post-World War II development of kinship history was initiated by the emergence of methods for the analysis of quantitative historical-demographic sources: in France by means of the Family Reconstitution Method based on genealogi cal records and parish registers; in England by the analysis of nominative household censuses. The essay discusses five areas of subsequent development in the field : (1) the search for an investigation of large-scale kinship structures, and their influence on society as a whole; (2) life-course analysis, which integrates both events in individual life histories and larger historical events with the household developmental cycle; (3) interactions between kinship and economic relations, and particularly the roles played by women in the economic life of the family; (4) the effects of kinship on social relations at the community level; and (5) the relationships between kinship and social structures more generally. In this last respect, the essay emphasizes the influence of the particularly French intellectual institutions and traditions, and of the alliance theory of marriage on the distinctive direction taken by French social historians. Finally, the essay considers the study of mentalités, as it has influenced kinship history.

This paper reconsiders the predominant views on the acquisition of kinship terms and challenges the argument that the ontogenesis of these terms reflects global processes of semantic development in which weakly constrained initial representations evolve in discreet stages toward mature representations. Instead, through a re-examination of existing experimental data, an alternative account of kinship acquisition is offered which attributes to the child a significantly greater native conceptual sophistication and argues that age-dependent advances in kinship semantics are constrained by a priori hypotheses the child maintains about human beings in groups rather than through changes in the capacity to handle logical relations or semantic features.

This is the second in a three-part, cross-cultural study analyzing kinship in the Mediterranean world. The Herodian family serves as a test case for analyzing Jewish kinship structures and family systems of the Second Temple period, and thus providing the data for an analysis of biblical kinship. In this part, the focus is on marriage strategies (endogamy and exogamy), choice of spouse (liberty and authority), locality of residence, and divorce. The major family types operant in the Roman Empire are placed within the analytic framework articulated by the anthropologist Emmanuel Todd.

This is the first of a three-part, cross-cultural study analyzing kinship in the ancient Mediterranean world. The Herodian family serves as a test case for analyzing Jewish kinship structures and family systems of the Second Temple period, and thus providing the data for an analysis of biblical kinship. In this first part, the focus is on genealogy and descent and the symbolic values they communicate. The major family types operant in the Roman Empire are placed within the analytic framework articulated by the anthropologist Emmanuel Todd.

Aspects of the practice of kinship in a Highland Scots community in nineteenth- century New Zealand are examined through archival and oral historical sources. Although the word clann does not appear in the written vocabulary of these settlers there is evidence that the extended family was central to settlement patterns and to support systems throughout the life course. It is further suggested that support extended to those beyond the circle of "close" kin to include friends, acquaintances, and others in need, especially when these were children. The study concludes that a biologistic model of kinship does not fit the evidence from Waipu and that the settlers had a wider and more fluid concept of appropriate people toward whom "kinship" could and should be practiced.

This paper tests the proximity hypothesis, which asserts that residential propinquity influences the possession by a society of certain kin avoidance and kin terminological practices. The hypothesis is shown to be invalid, and the results for classical theories of kinship organization are sketched. Briefly these are that Murdock's theoretical claims in Social Structure (1949) are called into question, as is "Main Sequence" kinship theory, which postu lates that residence, descent, and kinship terminology form a typical devel opmental sequence.