Structure and Substance: Combining ‘Classic’ and ‘Modern’ Kinship Studies in the Australian Western Desert
Structure and Substance: Combining ‘Classic’ and ‘Modern’ Kinship Studies in the Australian Western Desert Journal Article
Australian Journal of Anthropology
- Author(s): Dousset, L.
- Published: 2004
- Volume: 16
Abstract: This paper attempts to participate in the reconciliation between ‘modern’ and cultural studies styles of approaches to kinship, and the more formal and structural analyses of the ‘classical’ type. It is argued that it is the methodological combination of these approaches that produces intelligible descriptions of social structure and process in relation to kinship. The fundamental assumption is that individual strategies play within, and to a certain extent (consciously) exploit, the structural particularities a kinship system provides. A heuristic tool is proposed from which such an analysis can be elaborated. The notion of ‘consubstantiality’ as a reflector of modes of ‘relatedness-conception’ is discussed, because such modes do exhibit interactionist processes while being framed within the structural precepts of the formal kinship system with its terminology and prescriptions.
- Urls: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2005.tb00107.x/abstract
- Keywords: Western Australia