Dimensions of Social Life A
- Our Relations which art in a test tube A consideration of human kinship
as a cultural or biological reality
- Approx. 2000 words (including footnotes & citations)
Dimension of Social Life: ASS 223
DATE May 07 1997
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CONTENTS
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 3
MODELING & REDEFINITION .............................................. 4
SUBVERSIVE REDEFINITION ............................................. 5
NRT’s INTENSIFY CULTURAL REALITY ............................ 7
CULTURAL CONNECTIVITY - A CONCLUSION.................. 8
APPENDIX ................................................................................ 10
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................... 11
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
Introduction
If one considers theological and evolutionist views of how human life began (despite the
theoretical opposition each has to the other), the simplistic answer as to whether human kinship is
a cultural or biological reality should be: It is biological; a point which Malinowski (1930; 19)
believed occupied anthropologists too strongly because, supposedly, kinship was “...flesh and
blood, the result of sexual passion...” And Peletz (1995: 343-72), following Malinowski, suggests
that in the wisdom of Freud, and Woody Allen, “we recognize that all meaningful and intense
attachments are infused with mixed emotions, and that anthropology's intense involvement with
kinship is no exception”.
Nevertheless, if we concede an understanding of “ancestral populations provides us with a
perspective so that we can establish our place in relation to other human beings who have
occupied the planet” (Lazer, 1995) , then, to answer the question Is human kinship a cultural or
biological reality?, it must be considered in terms of Levi-Strauss’ (1969) contention that
“[m]an is both a biological being and a social individual”, and asking: Are the two functionally
coextensive yet separable, or are they already functionally separate?
Therefore, the thrust of this essay maintains a polemical, functionalist argument; that kinship is
more a socio-cultural construction than bio-genetic. And in doing so, it will be argued in
contemporary terms through the impact of New Reproductive Technologies (NRT’s). But this of
itself will not provide any definitive view: for as Finnegan (1970) contends, kinship may be
ideological - a myth - rather than actual; a view which in terms of NRT’s will further challenge
the structures and source of kinship realities.
Modeling & Redefinition
If one accedes to the middle ground posited by Seymour-Smith (1986) that:
[M]ost anthropologists today would agree that kinship
relations involve some kind of modeling on ‘natural’ or
‘biological’ ties, but would recognize too that such natural
ties are conceived of in many different ways in different
cultural contexts...
p.158
then the key to determining kinship as a cultural or biological reality lies in the word modeling:
because, as will be seen, although NRT’s can create kin without bio-genetic or cognatic
relatedness to any singular member within a family unit, kinship will be imputed as between that
manufactured person and his/her familial group, extended or otherwise. Yet imputation is not a
biological fact; it is a cognizant decision resulting, arguably, from one’s socialisation and cultural
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
beliefs.1 Thus, kinship will be modeled on what is accepted socially and culturally, within the
confines of that particular society or culture at that time.
Arguably, if kinship were purely biological its structure would be intransigent to change;
inevitably unilineal, irrespective of whether or not descent may in itself be patrilineal, matrilineal
or bilateral. Yet, kinship relations do change, sometimes without biological actuality. Geddes
(1983), commenting on the (post-colonial) social structure of Tabiteueans considered kinship as
“socially rather than biologically determined:
Although imputed biological kinship was considered
important, the closeness of residence with non-kin, coupled
with a sharp reduction in the number of kin in the residential
neighbourhood, resulted in non-kin being redefined as if
(emphasis added) they were kin.
p.38
More recently, cultural reality overcoming biological reality has been evidenced, in microcosm, in
Cambre, northern Spain. The town council, having discovered a brother and sister (separated
early in life with no knowledge of the other) had been living as a couple with two children for
nearly 18 years, voted to allow:
[this] ... and other non-traditional unions to register and gain
local legal status .... [T]he Cambre municipality ... has
opened a new registry for all unions, including those between
blood relatives or between more than two people”.
(Reuters, 1997)
Thus, cultural reality transposed a consanguineous relationship, where exogamy is the rule, into
an endogamous, conjugal union; changing one’s consanguineous sister to a consanguineous wife,
mother to her own cognatic nieces and nephews.
Subversive redefinition
Functionally, this redefining of ‘blood’ kinship may be applied to NRT’s. However, Peletz (op
cit.), considering the effect on kinship surrogacy and NRT’s may have on humankind, warns:
Surrogate motherhood is an important example of how motherhood
and kinship as a whole are created through intention, choice, and love.
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However, arguably, if one attributes such a cultural imputation to a cognizant decision in term of kin
selection, then it may be said that the imputation is biologically based because kin selection is essentially a
form of natural selection (See: Walker, M.B. (ed.), (1991), Chambers science and technology dictionary, W
& R Chambers Ltd., Edinburgh. p.498) of which the biological ideology is that “altruism shown to genetic
relatives can be worthwhile”(See: Laferty, Peter & Rowe, Julian. (eds.), (1993) The Hutchinson Dictionary
of Science, Helico Publishing Ltd., Oxford.; p. 331.)
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
The more general point, however, is that the new reproductive
technologies [NRT's] call into question the supposedly "invoidable
chain of events" linking marriage, sex, conception, pregnancy,
gestation, parenthood, and childrearing ... as well as "natural kinship"
and "nature" itself ... If only for these reasons, they have profoundly
subversive potential.
p.365
Arguably, this “subversive potential” already exists: intimating kinship is more cultural than
biological. And often, notwithstanding biological determinism, it is socio-cultural arguments
which surface against the NRT realities of trans-sexualism, or “conception without sperm, [and]
babies born without genetic mothers” (Sunday Mail, 1997: p. 10), or children born into
lesbian/homosexual families.
Additionally, although Malinowski (op cit.) questioned anthropology’s intense relationship with
“the bastard algebra of kinship”, it is posited his averment to kinship being, inter alia, “the result
of sexual passion and maternal affection” suggests biology of itself is insufficient to give kinship
a reality beyond that which is a bio-genetic truism of one’s own being; that one may be a
biological group member but not necessarily cultural kinsperson of that group, and therefore
denied such rights and/or obligations membership accrues. Indeed, this aspect of
biological/cultural modeling is clearly at issue today among New Zealand Maori.
Firth (1963: pp. 34-5) points out that among the Maori (as with the Tikopia) group membership
claims were primarily determined by residence and “essentially” validated through social action:
“primarily that of living with other members of the group concerned”. Today, that social action,
or rather lack of it, is fostering a legal battle over the allotment of a Maori grievance settlement;
indicating cultural kinship is more determinative than biological kinship:
The long-brewing argument between urbanised and tribal
Maoris strikes at the heart of the definition of what it means
to be Maori. Newly constituted “urban Maori authorities” are
attempting to take on a role akin to tribes for detribalised
urban Maoris .... The [Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries]
Commission is refusing to recognise urban Maori authorities
as legitimate recipients [to the allotment of Moana Pacific
assets]
(Smellie, 1997,The Weekend Australian: p.4.)
NRT’s intensify cultural reality
NRT’s make it possible for a jointly infertile couple to create a family; a social and economic
unit, as parents of children borne within the same woman via gestational surrogacy2, with each
2
Gestational surrogacy is where the surrogate mother provides a uterus, but not an ovum, for the period of
gestation.
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
child being bio-genetically unrelated to the other via different ovum/sperm donation.3 Hence, a
filational relationship would, despite the non-cognatic nature of the familial unit, extend toward
affinal relations as between the children and those with whom they are perceived to be
biologically related. Why?
Despite the anglocentric view of kinship meaning “blood relationships” or “shared genetic
substance”(Newton: 1987, p. 17), kinship is not only “a social network of relatedness through a
common ancestry”, and the legitimacy of birth, (Robertson: 1989, p 284) it is also a social
network of relatedness via social institutions such as marriage and adoption.(Robertson, op cit.:
Green & Fife-Yeomans: 1997, The Weekend Australian, p. 3) Nonetheless, should NRT
derived kinship, as a cultural reality, be tested socio-culturally, especially in more complex
societies where, for example, Schneider (1986: p. 40) found ‘blood’ and marriage were two
central concepts in how American’s determined kinship relations, would it win against biological
reality? It is posited it would because they are dichotomous concepts returning us to the basal
question: ‘blood’ is biological and ‘marriage’ is cultural.
And if NRT’s potentiality is taken further where, for example, a cloned twin may be factually
several years younger than his/her sibling, how in kinship terms would a human clone refer to its
DNA donor? (Herbert, Sheler, & Watson: 1997, p. 25)
Cultural Connectivity - A conclusion
Even in societies where “concepts of procreation and heredity are at the crux of the central
structural features of the [that] society” (Wagner: 1967) (notwithstanding that kinship is neither
“ideal rules” nor “solid” or “frozen” models {Newton: op cit.}) the concept of blood relatedness
is a cultural construction. For example, Strathern (1992: pp 161-2 n.13) in a passing observation
of similarity between New Guinea’s Baruya and their “cultural neighbours” the Ankave, on how
they conceptualise duplication and division of substance, briefly compared how the use of blood
ties and social construction are made. He said of the Ankave:
Blood takes various forms, though it appears neither as milk
(its nourishing counterpart) nor as semen. The mother
converts food into blood, and her blood into food for the baby
as well as filling the foetus up with its own blood. 'Blood', in
the form of red pandanus juice, is applied to boy initiates to
make them grow. Ties of substance and nurture are
The possibility is real: for example; “A 35-year-old Italian woman, artificially impregnated by to two
fertilised ova belonging to two different couples, is to give birth to unrelated twins.” (The Advertiser, March
8, 1997.
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
conceptualised as blood ties, and flow from the mother;
although Ankave are, like Baruya, 'patrilineal' ... in the
Ankave case continuity of substance is determined through
women.
(Strathern: op cit.)
It is posited too that the Fulani, whose marital union is “devoted to the procreation of legitimate
children” (emphasis added) (Stenning: 1958), would merely reconstruct their kinship to include
NRT’s within “cyclical changes ... brought about by the birth, marriage and death of a family
member” (Stenning: op cit.) as another means of “family development”.
Thus, while biological relatedness is central to tracing one’s cognatic and consanguineous
descent, it is coextensive and separable from cultural kinship. This proposition is best summated
by Kelly (1993: pp 521-22):
Kinship relations are social relations predicated upon cultural
conceptions that specify the processes by which an individual
comes into being and develops into a complete (i.e. mature)
social person. These processes encompass the acquisition and
transformation of both spiritual and corporeal components of
being. Sexual reproduction and the formulation of paternal
and maternal contributions are an important component of,
but are coextensive with, the relevant processes. This is due
to the ethnographic fact that a full complement of spiritual
components is never derived exclusively from the parents ....
Foods may also constitute essential ingredients in the
spiritual or corporeal completion of personhood .... [And]
maturation frequently entails ... replacing, adding, and/or
supplanting spiritual and corporeal components of
personhood.
o0o
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
APPENDIX
- Validatation through social action In coming to the conclusion that kinship is more a cultural than a biological reality, I have to a
certain degree been influenced by my own experiences. Growing up in New Zealand I was in
constant contact with numerous ethnic and cultural groups including Maori, various
Pacific Islanders, Chinese and Hindus and was fortunate to have experienced (albeit in a small
way) the intricacies of some of their cultures and how they acted and reacted toward specific
group and non-group members.
I was, in many instances often referred to as a ‘son’ or ‘brother’ - particularly within the
Maori and Islander groups - while I in turn would often refer to various members as either
‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘brother’ or ‘sister’. And while not realising the significance at the time, such
affiliations did, in some small ways, give me attendant rights and obligations towards these
groups; including, some ‘informal’ authority and attendant responsibility to ‘watch out for’
younger members of the group, and certain rights in terms of the order in which food would be
served to me while eating with them. Further, such ‘titles’ did not come until long after our
association had been shown worthy of being accepted as such.
In relation to the Maori, even where I live today in Mount Gambier, South Australia,
there is a sizeable Maori population among which there are some who now call me ‘father’,
which in turn has seen me refer to those persons as ‘son’ or ‘daughter’. It is notable that even
within this constructed kinship relation there is still evident the respect and reciprocity of rights
and obligations.
Further, some years ago while working in the Northern Territory I went through an
informal yet apparently symbolic and recognisable ‘rite’ (and I use the term reservedly) giving me
a ‘cultural’ blood-brother status to a particular individual from Finke. It apparently came about as
a result of my being the only “white fella” who took the time and effort to mix with the
Aboriginal stockmen on the beef cattle property where I worked as musterer.
At the time I considered it a light-hearted affair. However, some years later when in Alice
Springs I “ran into” this same person who immediately recognised me, and with great pride and
gusto announced to those he was with that I was his “brother” from HorseShoe Bend, the name of
the property on which we had both been working at the time.
I now also realise that the ceremony (light-hearted as it was) was in fact, a symbolic
‘blood’ exchange. Yet, understandably, that ‘ceremony’ gives me no tribal rights or obligations
but on reflection it gives me an obligation toward this man as my ‘brother’, as does the same
apply to him.
It is these types of association that I hold, the belief that kinship is more a cultural reality
than it is biological. It is, in a sense, a reinforcement of Firth’s validation through social action.
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University
Dimensions of Social Life A
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AFP (1997, March 8) 'Woman to bear unrelated twins’. The Advertiser, p. 3.
Finnegan, R. 'The kinship ascription of primitive societies: Actuality or Myth?' International Journal of
Comparative Sociology, Vol. 11, 1970, pp. 171-3, 181-94; extracted in Dimensions of Social Life,
Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin University Geelong, Victoria, 1987, pp.111-16
Firth, R. (1963), Bilateral Descent Groups: an Operational Viewpoint, Royal Anthropological; Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland, Occasional Paper no. 39, London, pp. 34-35; cited in Newton, Janice,
(1987) 'Kinship' in Dimensions of Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin University
Geelong, Victoria, 1987, p. 16
Geddes, W.H. (1983), Tabiteuea North (Atoll Economy: Social change in Kiribati and Tuvalu Series, No.
2), Australian National University, Development Studies Centre, Canberra, ACT, ch. 2, pp.28-44
Green, Penelope & Fife-Yeomans, Janet. ( 1997, January 18-19) 'Young lovers seek legitimate chance
for child’ The Weekend Australian, p. 3.
Herbert, Wary; Sheler, Jeffery & Watson, ,Traci (1997, March 8) 'Double Trouble’ The Advertiser, p. 25.
Kelly, R. (1993). Constructing Inequality: The Fabrication of a Hierarchy of Virtue Among the Etoro. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press; pp. 521-22. Cited in Peletz, M. (1995). 'Kinship studies in late
twentieth-century anthropology, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24: 343-72 p. 348.
Laferty, Peter & Rowe, Julian. (eds.), (1993) The Hutchinson Dictionary of Science, Helico Publishing Ltd.,
Oxford.; p. 331
Lazer, Estelle, Dr.(1997, March 22-23). 'Digging for Gold', The Weekend Australian. The Weekend
Review.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1969), The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Tavistock, London; extracted in
Dimensions of Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin University Geelong, Victoria,
1987, pp. 65-9
Malinowski, B. (1930). ‘Kinship’, Man 30(2): 19, cited in Peletz, M. (1995) 'Kinship studies in late twentiethcentury anthropology', Annual Review of Anthropology, 24: 343-72
Newton, Janice, (1987) 'Kinship' in Dimensions of Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin
University Geelong, Victoria.
Peletz, M. (1995),. 'Kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology, Annual Review of Anthropology,
24: 343-72
Reuters, (1997, April 5) 'Recognition of incest family fuels Spain row’ The Advertiser. p.19.
Robertson, Ian, (1989), Society: A Brief Introduction, Worth Publishers, NY, New York, p. 248
Schneider, D. (1968), American Kinship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 40; cited in Newton,
Janice, (1987) 'Kinship' in Dimensions of Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin
University Geelong, Victoria, 1987, p. 17
Seymour-Smith, Charlotte. (1986). Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology, The Macmillan Press Ltd.,
London. p. 158
Smellie, Patrick. (1997, April 19-20) ‘Maoris face tribal row’, The Weekend Australian. p. 4.
Stenning, D.J., (1958), ‘Household viability among the pastoral Fulani’ in Goody, J. (ed.), (1958), The
Development Cycle in Domestic Groups, Cambridge University Press; extracted in Dimensions of
Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin University Geelong, Victoria, 1987, pp. 100-9
Strathern, M. (1992). Reproducing the Future: Anthropology, Kinship and the new reproductive
technologies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.161-62 n.13
Unknown, (1997, February 9) 'Birth of ethical dilemma’ Sunday Mail. p. 10.
Wagner, R. (1967), The Curse of Souw, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, cited in Newton, Janice,
(1987) 'Kinship' in Dimensions of Social Life, Volume A: Kinship and Community, Deakin University
Geelong, Victoria, 1987, p. 17
Walker, M.B. (ed.), (1991), Chambers science and technology dictionary, W & R Chambers Ltd.,
Edinburgh. p.498
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Note: This essay was written in 1997 while studying Anthropology at Deakin University