After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth CenturyCentral as kinship has been to the development of British social anthropology, this is the first attempt by an anthropologist to situate ideas about English kinship in a cultural context. Marilyn Strathern challenges the traditional separation of Western kinship studies from the study of the wider society. If contemporary society appears diverse, changing and fragmented, these same features also apply to people's ideas about kinship. She views ideas of relatedness, nature and the biological constitution of persons in their cultural context, and offers new insights into the late twentieth-century values of individualism and consumerism. After Nature is a timely reflection at a moment when advances in reproductive technology raise questions about the natural basis of kinship relations. |
Contents
making explicit | 1 |
Individuality and diversity | 10 |
Facts of kinship | 11 |
Facts of nature | 30 |
Analogies for a plural culture | 47 |
Overlapping views | 72 |
The progress of polite society | 88 |
Cultivation | 89 |
Socialisation | 109 |
Other editions - View all
After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century Marilyn Strathern No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
American analogy anthropologists appear artificial insemination assumption Austen Baruya become biological body child choice cognatic concept conceptualisation connections construction consumer context convention cottage culture displaced diversity domains domestic Dove Cottage effect emotions English kinship entity epoch evoke exercise explicit fact father foetus gametes genetic Gillian Beer groups Higher Education Supplement human idea idiom imagined individual person insofar Jane Austen kin terms kinship system late twentieth century Lewis Henry Morgan literalisation living marriage maternal Maternal bonding matrilineal Melanesian merographic metaphor middle-class modern moral mother nature one's organisation organism original emphasis outcome parents particular perceived perception perspective Petts Wood plurality political postmodern postplural produced question reference regarded relations relationships relatives Reproduced by kind role seems seen sense simply social social anthropology socialised society specific Sperling style symbolic things tradition turn twentieth-century unique values vitro fertilisation