Postgraduate Course: Kinship: Structure and Process (PGSP11184)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course examines some of the ways in which people in different societies conceptualise and live out relatedness. It shows how notions about relatedness are linked to notions about gender, theories of procreation (which are themselves changing under the impact of New Reproductive Technologies), and ideas about bodily substance, as well as having emotional, economic, and political salience. Kinship has long been regarded as the core of the anthropological discipline, although the extent to which this is still the case is questionable. The course will consider some of the history of kinship studies, looking at some central debates in the subject and assessing their implications for anthropological theory. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
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WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | Seminar Room 4, Chrystal Macmillan Building | 1-11 | | | 11:10 - 13:00 | | |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| By the end of the course, students should have an advanced knowledge of the ways in which anthropologists have approached kinship in both some classic non-Western cases, and more recently, in Western cultures. They will have examined in depth the economic and political salience of kinship, the history of kinship within anthropology, and the theoretical significance of key debates about what kinship is, how it might be studied, and the sources of its emotional power. |
Assessment Information
| The course will be assessed by a single essay (word-limit: 4,000). |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Course Outline: Indicative Topics
What is Kinship?
Procreation
Gender and Kinship
Class, Economics, and Marriage
Kinship and Politics
The House
Sentiment, and Substance
New Reproductive Technologies and Gay Kinship
Kinship and Memory |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Janet Carsten (ed), 2000 Cultures of relatedness: new approaches to the study of kinship. Cambridge: University Press.
Janet Carsten After kinship (2004) Cambridge: University Press.
Robert Parkin & Linda Stone (eds), 2004 Kinship and family: an anthropological reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rita Astuti, 1995 People of the sea: identity and descent among the Vezo of Madagascar
Cecilia Busby, 2000 The performance of gender: an anthropology of everyday life in a south Indian fishing community
Jeanette Edwards, 2000 Born and bred: idioms of kinship and new reproductive technologies in England
Peter Gow, 1991 Of mixed blood: kinship and history in Peruvian Amazonia
Jonathan Parry, 1979 Caste and kinship in Kangra
David M Schneider 1980 (2nd edition.) American kinship: a cultural account
Marilyn Strathern, 1992 After nature: English kinship in the late twentieth century
Yunxiang Yan, 2003 Private life under socialism: love, intimacy and family change in a Chinese village 1949-1999
Sylvia Junko Yanagisako, 2002 Producing culture and capital: family firms in Italy |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
The course involves one two-hour session a week for the whole class, supported by tutorial teaching in separate one-hour sessions. In the main two-hour session, most weeks will involve a mixture of a lecture and some discussion and group work. You will be allocated to a group for the term in the first session, and each group will have a specific short reading to work on for each week, with the group reporting back to the whole class.The tutorial support teaching will normally be concerned with one or more readings that illustrate, underpin or extend issues raised in the main sessions. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Janet Carsten
Tel: (0131 6)50 3935
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Clare Nisbet
Tel:
Email: |
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