Metaphorical and Ideological Concepts of Post-Socialist Mongolian Kinship

This paper focuses upon changes that have occurred in the use of metaphors and ideologies of kinship in post socialist Mongolia. Three major kinship metaphors and symbols (bone, blood and flesh), which were used historically and are now in the process of being transformed, are examined. It also looks at various types of non-kin relations that imitate kinship. Then I outline the ways in which the new metaphors of ‘blood’ are involved in the discourse of ethnicity among the Halh Mongols.