Evolution of Kinship Anthropology

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[...] In fact, it is the ties of kinship and filiation that build the social group called family. Thus, the family can be defined as 'the enactment of kinship'2. A subject that has always sparked the curiosity of anthropologists, kinship has undergone significant upheavals over the past 50 years. In fact, the traditional family based on biology and as we knew it at the beginning of the 20th century within Western societies has evolved: they are formed and dissolved, same-sex parenting is increasingly recognized within society, and the question of procreation is put to the test of these new realities. [...]

[...] These first approaches allow us to evolve the classical conception of kinship. We will analyze in a second part the illustrations of ethnographic alternatives to the biological model of kinship through different cultures II- Illustrations ethnographiques In this second part, we will analyze alternative kinship structures that challenge classical anthropological approaches to reproduction and parenthood, while highlighting what they say about classical approaches. 2.1. Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) Assisted reproductive technologies include the new biological techniques that allow intervention in the reproduction process such as Medical Assisted Procreation (MAP). [...]

[...] Adoption and Child Circulation Other models challenge the classic visions of family and parenthood, generally located in non-Western geographical areas. For example, in Oceania, adoption is very common. French ethnologist Paul Ottino took an interest in this phenomenon in Rangiroa. He indicates that the occurrence of adoption is the norm and that it is often its absence that requires an explanation. In Oceania, many children live outside their biological families without having the status of adopted persons. As he indicates, while in Western societies, adoption is considered a crisis practice, this is not the case in Oceania.8. [...]

[...] Conclusion In short, the anthropology of kinship has undergone a drastic evolution: initially dominated by universal biological concepts, then reevaluated thanks to the contributions of David Schneider's work and the emergence of new theoretical orientations. The ethnographic illustrations of TRA and adoption as vectors of kinship thus challenge the classical and ethnocentric approaches of Western anthropology, thereby confirming Schneider's thesis that kinship is above all a social construct. Bibliography Allard, O. (2006). Kinship in Substance: The Critique of Schneider and its Effects. Man, 177-178, 437-466. https://doi.org/10.4000/lhomme.21770 Allard, O. (2021). Kinship. In Rennes, J. Critical Encyclopedia of Gender. [...]

[...] This acceptance has also been criticized for its ethnocentrism. Indeed, it is the American anthropologist David Schneider who is the first to take the opposite view of classical anthropologists in his work A Critique of the Study of Kinship published in 1984. In this work, he distances himself from the conception 'which makes kinship a privileged system by presupposing that the links resulting from procreation have a particular value or meaning'5. For him, kinship is above all a symbolic system specific to each society. [...]