Brother- and
sisterhood in changing and uncertain times
Invitation and call for papers for a BIGSAS symposium
Bayreuth University, castle of Thurnau , 5-7 November 2009
Convenors:
Erdmute Alber, University of Bayreuth, Germany, erdmute.alber@uni-bayreuth.de
<mailto:erdmute.alber@uni-bayreuth.de>
Sjaak van der Geest, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, s.vanderGeest@uva.nl
<mailto:s.vanderGeest@uva.nl>
Even though there has been a strong and remarkable conjuncture of kinship issues in the
anthropological debates since the late 1990s, some key relations are still missing and largely
overlooked in empirical research. One is the complex relations between brothers and sisters,
including so-called biological siblings, "half"-brothers and -sisters, classificatory brothers and
sisters or different forms of "made" or "constructed" sibling ties, like blood-brotherhood
between friends or people who shared important experiences in their lives.
It seems that even in "new" kinship studies, most research foci have remained within
the frame of what in kinship research was formerly called marriage and descent: themes like
reproduction, mother- and fatherhood, extra- and intermarriage forms of alliance dominate the
research agenda, while little attention is given to siblings, whether this is because their
relations seem to be too obvious, not sufficiently problematic, or do not seem to offer
theoretical potential for the researcher.
One additional reason for the neglect of sibling studies might be that brother-sister
relations are considered to be a category that does not produce or construct new kinship
relations: Brothers and sisters neither produce offspring nor "fictive" kinship relations. They
seem to be still there, maybe useful for everyday tasks, but not spectacular when compared to
cross-cousin marriage, new forms of reproduction, or marriage with all its connotations of sex
and violence. An exception to this might be blood-brotherhood or other forms of nonbiological brotherhood. This will be discussed during the symposium.
The silence around brother- and sisterhood is remarkable if one compares it with the
emphasis psychologists and psychoanalysts put on the complex relations between brothers
and sisters concerning relations of rivalry, proximity, love and hate.
The aim of our symposium is to focus on a persistently neglected theme in anthropological
research by encouraging scholars to present papers on topics like becoming (and losing)
brothers and sisters, emotions between siblings, economic competition and/or collaboration,
care and so on. Questions that come to mind are:
·
How are relations between brother(s) and sister(s) perceived, how do people
(or societies) speak about brothers and sisters, and how do relations
between them work in everyday practice?
·
·
·
·
·
Is brother- and sisterhood an important category for the construction of
social relations, and in which concrete situations do people mobilize
sibling relations? What about the elder brother, the elder sister? What
about sisters exchanging children when leaving for marriage?
Can brother- or sisterhood be an alternative to alliances between spouses? In
which way and in which social fields is brotherhood or sisterhood used
as a model for other relations?
When do people call relations between them brother- or sisterhood, and
what does that mean for their social relation?
What does brother- and sisterhood mean in changing patterns of
reproduction, for example in circumstances of reduced fertility or
instable marriage patterns as in Euro-American societies?
In how far is there a political meaning of brother- and sisterhood, taking up
the metaphorical speech of socialist brotherhood? How is that
implemented to social relations between individuals or group?
We invite you to send empirical case studies as well as theoretical reflections on the
conceptualisation of brother- and sisterhood in a changing world. The symposium has no
geographical focus. We welcome papers on Euro-American societies as well as papers from
Africa, Asia and Latin America. Comparative studies are welcome as well as historical
perspectives. The common ground of all the papers should be an anthropological approach
different from educational or psychological work.
During the symposium there will be no formal presentation of papers, but rather discussion of
papers that have been read by all participants beforehand.
We need an abstract of your paper by before 1st of May. The full text (which could be a draft)
should be submitted before 15th September to both conveners.
The symposium is a follow-up of a panel on brother- and sisterhood in the 2008 International
Conference of European Anthropologists (EASA) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The objective of
this second meeting is to prepare an edited volume or special issue on brother- and sisterhood
from an anthropological perspective.