Taboo and Descent in the Articulation of Gender Relations: An Eastern Indonesian Case

In the Lio region of Flores Island patrilineal groups coexist with taboos on animals and plants inherited through females, a combination previously interpreted as reflecting a system of double unilineal descent. Drawing on ethnography from the Lio district of Mego, maternal taboos are shown to accompany similar prohibitions conceived as a property of patriclans, most of which, however, are incumbent not on male clansmen but on their wives. As is further demonstrated, both sorts of taboo reflect ideas about female bodies and blood, particularly as women and their children are transformed through marriage into members of patrilineal groups dominated by men. Also discussed is whether variability in the way taboos are currently inherited in Mego may reflect recent social change, and how matrilineally inherited Lio prohibitions can be seen as an instance of complementary female and male principles equally operative in the social life of other eastern Indonesian societies.     

The Construction of Continuity in Lesu: The Historical Anthropology of a New Ireland Society

This study examines features of social organization originally encountered in New Ireland in 1929–30 by the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker. It aims to depict important aspects of social life before these were transformed by colonial and missionary influences. Kinship and marriage are discussed as topoi in discourses of continuity. It is suggested that in a social landscape of demographic limitations and widespread violence, social morphology was generated through categorical distinctions providing symbolic order in a dense texture of factual kinship, an order imposed to counteract the ever‐present shadow of incest. The social grammar prescribed a primary uterinely defined demarcation of belonging. As a parallel counterpoint, there was also an agnatically inspired alternative cultural modality. In this other possible world, the main distinction was that between men and women, uterine belonging being irrelevant.     

Changing electoral politics: The local level

This article explores contemporary notions of Italian kinship—procreation, the family, biological and social relatedness—as they are shaped by programmes of gamete donation (these are programmes that require the use of third‐party egg and semen to achieve conception). The research was carried out in Italian clinics of assisted conception and presents the views of heterosexual couples suffering from impaired infertility. The overall material reveals the power of kinship as a cultural form.     

Settler colonialism and the nuclear family

Colonial societies revolved around nuclear families. Though they often seemed natural, universal and inevitable, colonial nuclear families were in fact produced through a series of laws and customs that regulated sex and marriage. These legal, social and cultural practices conspired to make the family an adaptable and formidable social institution, both a pillar and a beneficiary of colonization. Hegemonic but not universal, family members were privileged over other members of colonial societies, who not only survived on the margins and in the shadows of colonialism, but also played crucial roles in resettlement societies.     

The Stalk that Supports the Flower: Orang Rimba Kinship,Marriage and Gender in Jambi Sumatra

This article examines Orang Rimba kinship, marriage and gender relations in the Bukit Duabelas region of Jambi, Sumatra. Orang Rimba social organization, its terms and concepts, primary kinship relations, use of botanic metaphor and key structural contrasts demonstrate their ties to Malay and Austronesian‐speaking peoples throughout the region. The manner in which these concepts are applied is very different, and is arranged in a way to fit their unique way of life in the forests. Some of the broader differences relate to their mobile economy, small and dispersed camps, and asymmetrical relations of affinity, which take place in the context of egalitarian social relations. This results in a set of social relationships not unlike many of the bride service societies throughout the world. Orang Rimba women have great rights over forest resources, yet are restrained in their interactions with men and outsiders by rigid gender relations.     

How Pre-modern State Rulers Used Marriage to Reduce the Risk of Losing at War: A Comparison of Eight States

Approaching warfare in pre-modern states from the perspective of risk reduction, we see that royal marriage was one strategy rulers used to reduce the probability that they would lose a war. Judicious marriage exchanges intensified and prolonged patron-client relations between rulers or between rulers and societal elites. Clientelism could affect the size and composition of their armies. The more warriors and troops one could field, the greater the chance of not losing a war (Otterbein 2004; LeBlanc 2006). Examination of eight pre-modern states suggests that their rulers used the same patterns of wife exchange even though most states developed independently. Marriage secured long-term patron-client relationships, which they used to support their military efforts. When rulers married their kin or married them to rulers outside the system (“foreigners”), they did not gain military support. Analysis of these marriage-military patterns reveals several characteristics of pre-modern states. First, marriage alliances helped rulers form networks of support that helped them win wars. Therefore, marriage—and by extension, royal women—is a key component to the study of warfare and a critical mechanism of network formation, as Blanton et al. (1996) write. Second, alliances were based on a different organizing principle from Levi-Strauss’ tribal societies, for rulers selected main wives (for themselves or their kin) based on relative rank rather than particular kinship ties. Third, marriage alliance reveals an important difference between alliance and patron-client relationships, a distinction that is often blurred in the archaeological literature.     

1. CONSTRUCTING A SELECTIONIST PARADIGM

In his latest contribution to the application of Darwinian evolutionary thinking to the social sciences, W. G. Runciman conceives of human behavior as resulting from three levels of selection—biological, cultural, and social. These give rise, respectively, to evoked, acquired, and imposed patterns of behavior. The biological level is hardly controversial, but to draw a distinction between separate cultural and social selective processes is more problematic. Runciman takes memes to be the variants competitively selected at the cultural level and the practices constituting rule‐governed roles to be the variants competitively selected at the social level—thus preserving separate spheres of research for anthropology and sociology. It is not clear, however, what drives cultural and social evolution. Nor are the three levels theoretically well integrated. The book's strength lies in the numerous examples provided of how the application of selectionist theory illuminates and enriches sociological and historical explanations and contributes to the construction of historical narrative.     

Modernity and Matrifocality: The Feminization of Kinship?

The extensive analytical focus on how gender relations in working lives, employment, education, political engagement and public life change under modernity needs extension into a consideration of the ways in which kinship and relatedness have also been changing. This article argues that relatedness under modernity tends towards matrifocality. This is explored through looking at broad patterns of social change in kinship practices across a range of societies experiencing transitions towards modernities over the past fifty years, and at how state and NGO development and social protection programmes contribute to this matrifocal turn.     

THE INCEST PASSIONS: AN OUTLINE OF THE LOGIC OF IQWAYE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Incest is best elucidated as a plethora of human desires, which are affirmed by their social regulation rather than negated by it This contrasts with the received wisdom of anthropological theory which is focussed on the prohibition of incest rather man on the incest desires which motivate the logic of their social regulation through interdictions. The theoretical fixation on prohibition expresses modern Western bourgeois incesto-phobic sensibilities and morality. The upshot of this study is that among the Iqwaye, contrary to the classic incesto-phobic formulations whereby the prohibition of incest is the condition of human sociality, without the positive fulfilment of incest there is no human kinship or social existence. In Part 1 the problematics of incest are delineated in the context of Iqwaye mythopoeic cosmogony. In Part 2 (to appear in the next Oceania issue) I present concrete articulation of incest passions in the main structural configurations of Iqwaye social organization (the naming system, patrifiliation, matrifiliation, affinity, cross-sex siblingship, institutionalized male homosexuality). Thus, the theoretical view of incest outlined in the first part is ethnographically demonstrated. A special emphasis is placed on the centrality and irreducibility of radical imagination in the constitution of human social reality.     

明清徽州家谱与徽州社会风俗

明清徽州社会是具有典型特征的区域社会,盛行"仁让之风"、重视血缘关系、重视婚姻门第是其中主要的几种社会风俗。这些社会风俗的形成是多种因素共同作用的结果,而明清徽州家谱在其中所起的作用则不可低估。明清徽州社会利用家谱宣扬了"仁让"之风,通过家谱保持血缘纯洁性,也利用家谱维持婚姻的门第等级。     

Resolving Risk? Marriage and Creative Conjugality

The idea of rural women as risk‐averse food producers has been powerful and persistent and constitutes one of our most enduring generalizations. This contribution begins with some critical thoughts about the prevalent consensus on women and risk behaviour and goes on to discuss some counter examples of risk‐taking women farmers in Zimbabwe and Zambia. It argues that risk behaviours of these kinds are strongly related to the character of marriage and forms of conjugality, and considers more broadly how insurance and dependence are gendered. There is a danger of overdrawing, and exclusively emphasizing, household and marriage as sites of gender subordination and thereby losing sight of the value to women of domestic groups and the existence of class‐based solidarities and emotional investments, across gender, which are intertwined with gender subordinations. To recognize these (and other) positive aspects of institutions of kinship and marriage, without simultaneously endorsing subordination, requires a focus on change and women's agency within such institutions, and the happy thought that there is no such thing as the status quo. This study therefore considers myths made within different but overlapping contexts; first the idea of women as reliably risk averse (as well as disadvantaged in access to insurance) which holds sway in international development organizations and some gender analysis; and second, the myth of households as composed of entirely separate individuals with opposed gender interests, in which marriage is predominantly a contract legitimating the exploitation of women. Marriage works as a safety net for women in many contexts, as a form of insurance, but it may become an impediment to accumulation — a feature shared with other social security institutions.     

Birkarlar and Sámi – inter-cultural contacts beyond state control: reconsidering the standing of external tradesmen (birkarlar) in medieval Sámi societies

It is not until the fourteenth century that written records offer a glimpse into the coastal societies of Northern Sweden. Records include references to a social stratum referred to as the birkarlar, who were tradesmen engaged in trading with the Sámi. The origin of the birkarlar, their prominent status and the meaning of the term, is an enigma that has been much disputed among scholars although there is consensus about the economic and fiscal supremacy of birkarlar vis-á-vis the Sámi. However, the paradox of tradesmen employing force against their most important circle of suppliers and customers remains a puzzle. The birkarla institution is analyzed by means of alternative reading of historical records from the perspective of the indigenous Sámi and coastal farming communities. The postulated animosity between Sámi and the birkarlar is critically examined in light of the social and economic context of interior and coastal communities during the Late Iron Age and Early Medieval period, and in relation to historically known Sámi kinship relationships and marriage traditions. Data are analyzed with regard to demography and social structure, and from a landscape perspective including the logistics and practicalities of inter-cultural contact. Analyses corroborate that birkarlar were deeply rooted in the coastal communities and fully involved in the regular subsistence activities. They were representatives given a commission of trust and contacts between the birkarlar and the Sámi were characterized by mutuality and inter-dependence.     

The Rise,Fall, and Transformation of Native American Cultures in the Southeastern United States

The culture area of Southeast United States saw the rise of the most complex societies in Native America north of Mexico before European contact. Many of these societies developed with matrilineal kinship systems. Some built impressive mounds. The “Southeast” volume of the Handbook of North American Indians presents numerous chapters that reconstruct the prehistory, history, and cultures found in this region and chronicle the European exploration and colonization that impacted the region's cultures. The differences between the prehistoric and postcolonial cultures are so great that they appear as different cultural traditions.     

On Female Presences and Absences in Heavenly Places

James (Oceania 1991) criticizes some of my interpretive proposals on the political ideology of ancient Tonga, claiming that my emphasis on predominantly male relationships in the titular system reduces ‘Polynesian truths’ to ‘Freudian dogma‘. James sees Tonga as a ‘markedly bilateral’ rather than ‘patrilineal’ society, manifesting symptoms of Malinowski's ‘matrilineal complex’, particularly an incestuous fixation on the sister rather than the mother, correlated with the importance of the brother/sister relationship in social structure, and the alleged transmission of rank through females only. James attempts to find evidence for her claims in the origin myth of the titular system. I show that — contrary to her interpretation — no brother/sister incest can be found in this myth, where, moreover, the female presence is subdued and desexualized. My rejoinder raises issues of general anthropological interest in the realms of symbolism, gender, the analysis of political myth, and of the interrelationship of psychological and cultural processes.     

Marriage,Love Magic,and Adultery: Warlpiri Relationships as Seen by Three Generations of Anthropologists

ABSTRACT A nuclear family, that is the social unit comprising a husband, wife(s) and their children, is one of the significant core elements around which the great majority of societies are built. An individual's most immediate social and emotional relationships, those between children and parents, between husband and wife, and between siblings are encapsulated within it. How these relationships are realised in actual practice is partly dependent upon the form marriage takes. In this paper, I analyse Warlpiri marriage as practice and institution by drawing on and comparing material by Mervyn Meggitt (from his work at Lajamanu in the 1950s), Diane Bell (based on her work at Alekarenge in the 1970s) and my own data from my fieldwork at Yuendumu (from the mid 1990s and onward). My aim is to explore the following questions: What constitutes a marriage in Warlpiri eyes today? Are there continuities with the past? What has changed since the 1950s? And, what do these continuities and changes mean in regard to the way Warlpiri people live their lives today?     

城市生活质量与生活空间质量研究评介与展望

在当今的社会-文化进程阶段,新人本主义强调人与社会(文化)和谐的可持续发展观,其目标体现在人们的生活质量上,其焦点是城市(社会)生活质量构成与城市(社会)生活质量空间耦合的建构。从新人本主义理念出发探讨城市(社会)生活质量与其对应(社会)生活空间质量对政府部门和学术界都是全新的课题。二者在不同领域,不同学科之间的研究并行不悖。对前者的研究是人文社会与管理学科聚焦的方向,对后者的探讨是区域与城市诸学科聚焦的方向。它们充分体现学科融合的新理念/原理及其前沿性。本文从研究源起、研究意义、研究阶段以及评价指标体系的构建等不同角度对二者的国内外研究动态及方向进行了评介与展望,目的在于明晰二者的研究方法,理论框架与研究趋势,为社会与城市发展及其规划指明方向,提供理论基础与科学依据。     

近代学生群体中文化教育与传统婚姻的冲突

学生婚姻中的冲突与矛盾,是近代学校教育兴起之后的特有现象。接受了西方自由平等观念之后,学生们崇尚婚姻自主,渴望知识女性。但受风俗所限,他们自身多数都被父母缔结了传统姻缘。具有新式价值观念的他们,无法再对旧式婚姻容忍和麻木,而打破僵局又会遭到家族与社会的责难。化教育与传统婚姻的冲突,在他们身上得到了最为典型的体现。     

The Stone Age of northern Scandinavia: A review

Throughout most of the Stone Age, which covers the time period between ca. 10,000 and ca. 3500 B.P., the majority of groups in northern Scandinavia was hunter-fishers with a strong orientation toward the coastal environments. Three areas, southwestern and northern Norway and northern Sweden, have been singled out for more detailed discussions of the social and cultural developments in different types of marine environments. Differences can be discerned between the societies in the southern and those in the northern regions, as the northern groups seem to have developed more complex social and cultural systems than in the south. These differences have been related partly to a greater emphasis on maritime sea hunting in the north. Agriculture was introduced twice. The first time, in the early Neolithic, agriculture was tried but apparently did not manage to compete with better-adapted local hunting-fishing practices. The second time, in the late middle Neolithic, agriculture resulted in drastic social, economic, and cultural changes.