Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)
Study Course Description
Kinship and Relationships in Different Societies
Course Code
SZF_258
Branch of Science
Social Anthropology; Sociology and social work
ECTS
3.00
Target Audience
Social Anthropology
LQF
Level 7
Study Type And Form
Full-Time
Study Course Implementer
Course Supervisor
Anna Žabicka
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts
SZF, Kuldigas Street 9C, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
The objective of the study course is to equip students with theoretical knowledge and analytical skills to understand how kinship and relatedness are formed, negotiated, transformed, and disrupted across different socio-cultural, historical, and political contexts, and how these relations shape social life, care, belonging, and moral obligations.
Preliminary Knowledge
Prerequisites for classical and modern anthropology theories are desirable. Ability to read and analyse academic texts in English.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.Students are familiar with classical and contemporary anthropological theories of kinship and relatedness, and understand how anthropological approaches to kinship have evolved over time.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on seminar topics • Discussion papers on elective topics
2.Students understand kinship not only as a system of descent, marriage, and family, but as a broader field of social relations encompassing care, intimacy, co-residence, reproduction, materiality, memory, and belonging.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on seminar topics • Discussion papers on elective topics
3.Students are familiar with ethnographic and historical examples that demonstrate the diversity of kinship forms across different societies and periods, including the relations between kinship and the state, economy, morality, environment, and ecology.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics • Discussion papers on seminar topics • Active course participation
4.Students understand current debates in kinship anthropology, including questions of insecurity, care relations, systemic transformations, and the impact of global socio-economic and political processes on intimate and familial life.
Individual work and tests
Active course participation • Discussion papers on seminar topics • Discussion papers on elective topics
Skills
1.Explain how kinship relations are culturally and historically produced, maintained, and contested in different social contexts, drawing on ethnographic and theoretical literature.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics • Discussion papers on seminar topics • Active course participation
2.Analyse ethnographic cases to identify how kinship intersects with domains such as politics, economy, care, morality, environment, and material life.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on seminar topics • Active course participation • Discussion papers on elective topics
3.Compare different anthropological approaches to kinship and relatedness, and critically assess their analytical strengths and limitations.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics • Discussion papers on seminar topics • Active course participation
4.Analytically read and interpret high-quality anthropological literature on kinship, family, care, and relatedness.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on seminar topics • Discussion papers on elective topics
5.Verbally and in writing articulate a reasoned, example-based analysis of kinship relations and their broader social significance.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics • Discussion papers on seminar topics • Active course participation
Competences
1.Students can competently discuss kinship and relatedness as dynamic social processes rather than as fixed biological or legal categories.
Individual work and tests
Active course participation • Discussion papers on elective topics
2.Students are competent at situating intimate relationships, family forms, and care practices within broader sociocultural, political, and economic frameworks.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics
3.Students can critically reflect on the role of kinship in shaping social organisation, inequality, belonging, and moral responsibility across societies and historical periods.
Individual work and tests
Discussion papers on elective topics
Assessment
Individual work
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Active course participation |
40.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Students are required to independently study the compulsory literature and actively and meaningfully participate in classes. |
||
Examination
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Discussion papers on seminar topics |
30.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Three discussion papers on the compulsory seminar topics. |
||
|
2.
Discussion papers on elective topics |
30.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Three discussion papers on elective topics. |
||
Study Course Theme Plan
FULL-TIME
Part 1
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Kinship systems?
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Origins and their legacy
|
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Kinship as exchange
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Exchange, gender, and sexuality
|
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Search for kinship
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Kinship and state
|
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Kinship and political economy
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Nature, culture, and substances
|
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
House, home-making, memory, and movement
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Belonging to place, land and landscape
|
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Kinship and complexities of care
|
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Ruptures and violence
|
Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
3.00
Contact hours:
24 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam (Written)
Bibliography
Required Reading
1.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1950. “Kinship and the Local Community among the Nuer.” In African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde, eds. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. 360-391. (hrestomātisks avots)
2.
Feeley-Harnik, Gillian. 1999. Communities of Blood’: The Natural History of Kinship in Nineteenth-Century America, Comparative Studies in Society and History 41. 215-262. (hrestomātisks avots)Suitable for English stream
3.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1969. Elementary Structures of Kinship. 12-68. (Chapters 1-5) (hrestomātisks avots)
4.
Rubin, Gayle. 1975. The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex, Toward an Anthropology of Women, 157-210. (hrestomātisks avots)
5.
Schneider, David M. 2004 [1972]. “What is Kinship all about?” [abridged]. In Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader. Parkin Robert, and Linda Stone, eds. 257-274. (akceptējams avots)Suitable for English stream
6.
Thelen, Tatjana, and Alber, Erdmute. 2018. “Reconnecting State and Kinship: Temporalities, Scales, Classifications, In Reconnecting state and kinship. Thelen, Tatjana, and Alber, Erdmute. eds., pp. 1 – 35. University of Pennsylvania Press. (akceptējams avots)
7.
Bear, Laura. 2013. “This Body Is Our Body”: Vishwakarma Puja, the Social Debts of Kinship, and Theologies of Materiality in a Neoliberal Shipyard. In Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship. Susan McKinnon and Fenella Cannell, eds. Pp. 155-178. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press. (akceptējams avots)
8.
Carsten, J. 2011. Substance and relationality: blood in contexts. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40(1), 19-35. (akceptējams avots)Suitable for English stream
9.
Marcoux, Jean-Sebastien. 2001. The 'Casser Maison' Ritual: Constructing the Self by Emptying the House. Journal of Material Culture 6(2):213-235. (akceptējams avots)
10.
Ingold, Tim. 2000. Ancestry, Generation, Substance, Memory, Land. In The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Pp. 132-151. London: Routledge. (akceptējams avots)Suitable for English stream
11.
Lambek, Michael. 2007. The Cares of Alice Alder: Recuperating Kinship and History in Switzerland. In Ghosts of Memory: Essays on Remembrance and Relatedness. Janet Carsten, ed., pp. 218-240. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. (akceptējams avots)
12.
Delaney, Carol. 2001. “Cutting the ties that bind: the sacrifice of Abraham and patriarchal kinship.” In Relative values: Reconfiguring kinship studies, Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, eds., pp. 445-67. (akceptējams avots)
Additional Reading
1.
Thelen, T., Thiemann, A., & Roth, D. 2014. State kinning and kinning the state in Serbian elder care programs. Social Analysis, 58(3), 107-123.
2.
Benezra, A. 2021. Microbial kin: relations of environment and time. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 35(4), 511-528.Suitable for English stream
3.
Schneider, L. T. 2022. ‘My home is my people’: homemaking among rough sleepers in Leipzig, Germany. Housing Studies, 37(2), 232-249.
4.
Herrmans, I. 2020. Spirits out of place: relational landscapes and environmental change in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 26(4), 766-785.Suitable for English stream