ANTH 165: All Our Relations? Kinship and the Politics of Knowledge
Wesleyan University
Fall 2009
Dr. Gillian Goslinga
Anthropology Office 26
Office Hours: Tues 2:30-4:00 pm and Thurs 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Phone: 860-685-3265
Email: ggoslinga@wesleyan.edu
** ALWAYS include “ANTH 165” in your subject line when you email me! **
Course Objectives
What can imaginations and practices of kinship teach us about our lifeworlds, our bodies, ourselves and our
others? Everything according to feminist anthropologists because all big ideas can be found in the every day
details of how nations, communities, and peoples think, enact, and regulate kinship. In this course, you’ll come to
understand (and debate) the centrality of kinship and kinship ideologies to notions of identity, difference, and
politics in European modernity and on the global stage, as well as engage with imaginations of kinship and
relatedness that do not conform to Euro-American biogenetic norms. We’ll also consider how anthropologists
have understood kinship. Does ‘kinship’ as an idea have a history? What have been its assumptions? What are
some of the legacies of this history for the present moment? How have feminist anthropologists engaged
with/critiqued kinship and its study? In a first part of the course, we’ll study these histories and interventions, and
in a second part, we’ll turn our attention to salient domains of kinship in the contemporary moment such as the
reproductive technologies and the advent of genetic knowledge, gay and interracial kinship and chosen families,
women and nation-building, political demography, transnational adoption, and transnational female migrant labor,
all the while thinking about how kin and kind are being performed. In our last week, we’ll extend definitions of
kinship to our fellow animal critters and companion species in a bid take our thinking about kinship past the
human.
Readings will draw from historical and contemporary anthropology, including ethnographies, as well as from
cultural studies, science studies, and philosophy. I am a feminist and so this standpoint informs many of my
choices of readings and approaches, as well as pedagogy.
Pedagogical Objectives
All Our Relations? is reading and writing intensive seminar, designed to help freshmen hone their analytical,
interpretive, reading and writing skills. To do so we will create a safe and respectful environment where we each
can explore our thinking about the readings, share writing, and collaborate with each other, for example, by
reading each other’s work and peer-editing, or working in small groups. As the semester progresses, you will be
invited to give me feedback as to how the class is going for you so that I can respond to both individual and group
needs. Likewise, I will be giving you feedback throughout. The objective is to create a communal atmosphere
where we feel safe to sincerely explore how we think and feel about ideas encountered. IT is absolutely OKAY to
work out ideas with the group and to pursue/express your inspirations even if you haven’t yet fully formulated
your thoughts.
Main texts
Texts are available for purchase at Broad Books on Broad Street. Essays and articles will be uploaded to the course
blackboard. They are marked with a . I will be putting the books on reserve, if there is a need. Just let me know
privately.
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Foucault, Michel. (1980) The History Of Sexuality, Vol. I.
Margaret Trawick (1992) Notes on Love in a Tamil Family
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Carol Stack. (1997). All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community
Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, Conceiving the New World Order
Alma Gottlieb (2004) The Afterlife is Where we Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa
Donna Haraway (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto
Please understand that I may replace a reading or add/substract others as the semester progresses, in which case I
will re-issue the syllabus and notify you.
Course requirements
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Attendance is mandatory! More than two unexcused absences will result in one full grade loss. (e.g. A drops
to a B.) For your two allowed absences, a courtesy email would be appreciated. If you have to miss more than
two classes, you must have a documented and serious reason.
You must keep up with the readings! Plan your reading schedule: get a sense of how many pages per hour
you can comfortably read and budget your time accordingly. As this is a seminar, your participation will suffer
if you are not able to keep up with the readings. But do come see me during office hours if you are having
problems keeping up.
You will write ONE reading response/writing piece per week following my instructions, afor a total of 10 onepage reading responses (out of a possible 13). I will offer guidance on a weekly basis but the idea is to get you
to articulate your thinking about a reading, a passage, or an emerging theme in writing. The practice of
writing helps sort out one’s thinking. These writing assignments intend to give you experience putting your
thoughts down and experimenting with voice, style, organization, and so on. They are not supposed to be
mini-essays but rather solid paragraphs. ALWAYS bring 5 copies to class!
I will need one copy and the three others will be for use in small group discussions.
There will be one 3-4 page midterm essay, analytical, and a final 5-7 page paper, research. The research paper
will have an optional ethnographic component where you can, if you want, carry our a bit of research as an
anthropologist might. We’ll design this final project together.
For extra credit, you can sign up to give a presentation on a reading of your choice. You can present solo or
work on a presentation with a partner.
Overview:
Attendance
Class participation and in-class assignments
10 Reading Responses
Midterm 1
Final Research Paper
Extra Credit presentation
Mandatory, but two unexcused
absences allowed!
15%
30%
25%
30%
5%
Special needs
Wesleyan has excellent resources and support for you if you have a learning or other disability. Please come see
me during office hours so I can guide you appropriately. If there is anything else I should know about you, please
don’t hesitate to talk to me. I’m here to help or to guide you to help.
Grading Rubric
A range: The student is fully engaged and highly motivated. This student is well prepared, having read the
assigned texts, and has thought carefully about the texts’ relation to issues raised in seminar. This student’s ideas
and questions are substantive (either constructive or critical); they stimulate class discussions. This student listens
and responds other students. The written work is outstanding in form and content. Arguments are clear and
insightful; the writing is original, or it expands in a new way on ideas presented in the course. The evidence
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present in support of the arguments is carefully chosen and deftly handled. The thinking is not only unified and
coherent, but also complex and nuanced.
B range: The student participates consistently in discussion. This student comes to seminar well prepared and
contributes quite regularly by sharing thoughts and questions that show insight and a familiarity with the material.
This student refers to the readings and shows interest in other students’ contributions. The written work is clear;
the arguments are coherent and present evidence in support of key points. Arguments show good comprehension
of the material and manifest critical thinking about the issues raised in the course. Written work is reasonably well
written and proofread. Arguments, while coherent, do not have the complexity, the insight, or the integrated
structure of an A range student’s work.
C range: The student meets the basic requirements of seminar participation. This student is somewhat prepared
and participates once in a while but not regularly. This student’s contributions most often relate to the readings
and offer a few insightful ideas but do not help to build a coherent and productive discussion. Their written work
has some but not all of the basic components of good argumentation (i.e., unified argument, evidence, coherent
structure): for example, written work may offer a thesis of some kind, but it presents no evidence to support this
thesis; or it may present an incoherent thesis; or it may simply repeat points made in class without an overall
argument. Such written work is usually poorly organized, written and proofread. Written work will below a “C” if
it lacks more than one of the basic components of good argumentation.
Notes: Failure to fulfill satisfactorily any of these criteria will result in a grade of “D” or below. I do reward
genuine effort when I calculate final grades and especially honor good, steadfast progress.
Policies
Late work will be marked down by 1/3 of the grade per 24-hour period they are late unless you have a valid
medical or personal excuse. Late weekly responses will not be accepted nor count toward your commitment of 10
responses.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1
Tues 9/8
Course Introduction: Why study kinship?
Thu 9/11
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Familial Politics as Sexual Politics: a Genealogy
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Part I “We the Victorians”
Keep track of Foucault’s mentions of kinship, the family and reproduction
Week 2
Tues 9/15
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Kinship at the Heart of Biopower
Thur 9/17
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Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Part II “The Repressive Hypothesis” & Part III, “Scientia Sexualis”
Keep track of Foucault’s mentions of kinship, the family, and reproduction
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Part IV “Periodization” and Part V “The Right over Life and Death.”
Google the phrase “birth-pangs of democracy” – How might Foucault explain this turn of phrase?
Hint: You’ll find the answer in Part V of The History of Sexuality.
Week 3
Anthropological Complicities & Complexities
Tues 9/22
The Family of Man
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Anne McClintock, “The Lay of the Land” in Imperial Leather, focus exclusively on pp.36-56, starting
with “Panoptical Time,” unless you want to be brave. This book chapter (an introduction to her book)
is theoretically sophisticated but extremely important. Do not worry if you don’t understand
everything in the pages assigned. Circle words that don’t make sense to you, mark passages that are
dense, see if you can summarize McClintock’s key ideas in your own words.
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Film: view BEFORE class Bontoc Eulogy (Marlon Fuentes, 57 minutes) on Olin reserves
Thurs 9/24
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Kinship & Social Organization
Robert Trautman, “Kinship and Its Inventors” in Henry Lewis Morgan and the Invention of Kinship” 
Primary texts:
 Henry Lewis Morgan, excerpts from Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity, in Readings in Kinship and
Social Structure, edited by Graburn 
 Bronislaw Malinowski, Sexual Life of Savages, pp. 1-8, pp. 164-210.
Recommended:
Feeley-Harnick, Gillian. 2001. “The Ethnography of Creation: Lewis Henry Morgan and the American
Beaver” in Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Ed. Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon.
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 54-.
Week 4
Kinship as Methodology
Recommended: Graburn, “The Nature of Kinship and Social Structure” ®
Tues 9/29
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Genealogies and Trees
Mary Bouquet, “Family Trees and their Affinities: The Visual Imperative of the Genealogical Diagram”
in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 1 (1996), pp. 43-66. 
Sandra Bamford, “’Family Trees’ among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea: A Non-Genealogical
Approach to Imagining Relatedness” 
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Recommended:
Gisli Palsson, “The Web of Kin: An Online Genealogical Machine” 
Thur 10/1
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Lineages and Descent Groups
Adam Kuper, “Lineage Theory: A Critical Retrospect” in Kinship and Family, edited by Linda Stone and
Robert Parkin, pp. 79-96. 
Sharon Elaine Hutchinson, “Identity and substance: the broadening bases of relatedness among the
Nuer of southern Sudan” in Cultures of Relatedness 
Week 5
Kinship as Methodology II
** Midterm Essay Prompt will be handed out Week 5 **
Tues 10/6
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Alliance & Exchange
Louis Dumont “The Dravidian Kinship Terminology as an Expression of Marriage” 
Annette Weiner, “Women of Value, Men of Renown: epilogue” 
Thurs 10/8
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Re-thinking Relatedness
David Schneider, “The American Family” 
Janet Carsten, “The substance of kinship and the heat of the hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and
Relatedness among the Malays of Pulau Langkawi” 
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Week 6
Rethinking Social Structure
Tues 10/13
Notes on Love in A Tamil Family, Prologue through end of chapter 4.
Thur 10/15 Notes on Love in A Tamil Family, Chapters 8, and epilogue, and one chapter that interests you among
5, 6, and 7.
Week 7
Kinship at the Margins
Tues 10/20 Gay Kinship
 Kath Weston, “Coming Out to “Blood” Relatives” and “Families We Choose” in Families We Choose 
 Peer Review of Midterm Essays: Bring two copies of your draft to class.
Thur 10/22 Interracial Kinship
 Ruth Frankenberg, “Race, Sex, and Intimacy II: Interracial Couples and Interracial Parenting” 
 Visit and presentation by Kendall Hobbs, Reference Librarian and Purchaser: Kendall will orient you
to library resources and how to perform on-line searches. (20-30 minutes)
Papers Due Friday October 23, 12 p.m, in my mailbox in the Anthropology Department.
Week 8
Feminist Interventions: Race and the Family
Tues 10/27 Semester Break
Thurs 10/29
 Carol Stack. (1978) 1997. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community, all.
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Week 9
Film: Ordinary People (directed by Robert Redford). View outside of class at Olin Reserves.
Feminist Interventions: Reproductive Politics
** Final Paper prompt will be handed out this week. Make an appointment to meet with me no later than by
Week 11. I will extend office hours as needed. **
Tues 11/3 Stratified Reproduction
This week, small groups will be assigned to present on a rotation of 2 of the following chapters In
Conceiving The New World Order:
 Ch. 1: Faye Ginsburg & Rayna Rapp, “Introduction”
 Ch. 7: Leith Mullings, “Households Headed by Women: The Politics of Race, Class, and Genes”
 Ch. 5: Shelley Collen, “Like a Mother to Them”: Stratified Reproduction and West Indian Childcare
Workers and Employers in New York”
 Ch.3: Gertrude Fraser, “Modern Bodies, Modern Minds: Midwifery and Reproductive Change in an
African American Community”
Thus 11/5 Family Planning
(Check your small group assignments) In Conceiving The New World Order:
 Ch. 9: Soheir A. Morsy, “Deadly Reproduction among Egyptian Women: Maternal Mortality and the
Medicalization of Population Control”
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Ch.11. Gail Kligman “Political Demography: The Banning of Abortion in Ceausescu’s Romania, ch. 13
in Conceiving the New World
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Film: La Operacion (40 mns, Ana Maria Garcia ), in class viewing.
Week 11
Nation-Building
Tues 11/17
 Meira Weiss, 2001. “The Children of Yemen: Bodies, Medicalization, and Nation Building” ®
 Anne Allison, “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunchbox as an Ideological State Apparatus” in
New Directions in Kinship, edited by Linda Stone ®
 Rachel Salazar Parrenas, “Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender, and Intergenerational
Relations in Filipino Transnational
Thur 11/19
 Pauline Turner Strong, “To Forget their Tongue, Their Name, and Their Whole Relation: Captivity,
Extra-Tribal Adoption, and the Indian Child Welfare Act” ®
 Gershon, Ilana. "Going Nuclear: New Zealand Bureaucratic Fantasies of Samoan Extended Families" in
Gender in a Cross-cultural Perspective ®
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Week 10
Film: The Century of Genocide (Rosemary Gibbons, 2004, 22 minutes), in class viewing
The “New” Reproductive Technologies
Recommended: Sarah Franklin. “Biologization Revisited: Kinship theory in the context of the new
biologies” 
Tues 11/10
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Gillian Goslinga, “Bodies Boundaries, Fiction of the Female Self: Ethnographic Perspectives on the
New Reproductive Technologies”
Sarah Franklin, “Postmodern Procreation: A Cultural Account of Assisted Reproduction,” ch. 18 in
Conceiving the New World Order.
Film: The Child The Stork Brought Home (56 minutes, Gillian Goslinga), in class viewing
Thur 11/12
 Susan Martha Kahn, “Eggs and Wombs: The Origins of Jewishness” 
 Marilyn Strathern “Displacing Knowledge: Technology and the Consequences for Kinship”, Ch. 19 in
Conceiving the New World Order
Week 12
Transnational Adoption
Tues 11/24 Kinning and Dekinning
 Signe Howell “Imagined Kin, Race and Community: Some Paradoxes in the Transnational Movement
of Children in Adoption” 
 Barbara Yngvesson “Placing the “Gift Child” in Transnational Adoption” 
Thurs 11/26 Thanksgiving
Week 13
Tues 12/1
Moral Communities
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Thurs 12/3
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Week 14
Tues 12/8
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Alma Gottlieb, The After Life is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa, Part I and
chapters 4, 5, 6, 8 (7 is optional)
Alma Gottlieb, The After Life is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa, chapters
10, 11 (9 is optional)
All Our Relations? Extending kinship past the human
Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto, all
Also take a look at Ashes and Snow web “experience:” Go to http://www.ashesandsnow.org/ and
explore the website; write down your impressions
Film: The Grizzly Man (102 minutes, Werner Herzog). View outside of class, at Olin Reserves.
Thurs 12/10
 Last Day of Class: What Have We Learned? And of course, a party!
** Final Papers are due in the Anthropology Department no later than Thursday December 17 th at noon. **
Acknowledgements: I wish to acknowledge a debt to Rayna Rapp’s 2002 syllabus, The politics of Reproduction.