Society, Classification, and Kin: Three Steps Toward a Typology of Culture?

After discussing the debates and problematics of culture it is probably worth looking into the other foundational assumptions that social anthropology has held to throughout its tenure. As outlined in the sociology of Durkheim, Mauss, and by the early British diffusionist and structural-functionalists alike the most essential aspects of any "cultural system" are found in the structural elements that make up the group that employs such cultural systems. The three most of important of these are first, society as it the conceptual apparatus in which the social sciences have traditionally used to refer to groups of people that adhere to some type of sociality. Second is classification, as it is the process by which individuals and societies are able to differentiate the various aspects and characteristics of their society. Third is kinship, as it was considered the primary (and universal) form of social classification, organization, and structure.

The propose of this post and reading group isn't necessarily to provide an introduction to how these concepts have been utilized, or to question the validity of the social anthropology's lexicon, instead it meant to help students understand the integral role that these concepts play in historical and contemporary anthropology today. Although concepts like classification and kinship may be out of vogue in terms of research projects, they continue to be foundational in the articulation of anthropology's reflexive evaluation of itself.

Society

Murphy, Michael D. (n.d.) Social Structure, ANTH 436: Some Definitions of Society. http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/436/defsociety.htm

Wagner, Roy (1974). "Are There Social Groups in the New Guinea Highlands?" In Murray J. Leaf, ed. Frontiers of Anthropology. New York, NY: D. Van Norstrand, 95-122.

Wolf, Eric (1988). Inventing Society. American Ethnologist. 15.4: 752-761.

Questioning Society

Ingold, Tim et al. (1996). "The concept of society is theoretically obsolete." In Time Ingold, ed. Key Debates in Anthropology. London, UK: Routledge, 55-98.

Godlier, Maurice (2009). "What is a Society." In In and Out of the West: Reconstructing Anthropology, trans. Nora Scott. Charlottesville: VA: University of Virginia Press, 138-157.

Classification

Bloor, David, et al. (1982). Durkheim and Mauss Revisited: Classification and the Sociology of Knowledge. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 14.4: 267-331.

Allen, N.J. (2000). Chapters 5 & 6 of Categories and Classifications. New York, NY: Berghahn, 91-116.

Ellen, Roy (2005). "Anthropological Studies in Classification." In The Categorical Impulse. New York, NY: Berghahn, 31-37.

Keck, Frederic (2009). "The limits of classification: Claude Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas." In Boris Wiseman, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Levi-Strauss. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 139-155.

Symbolic Classification

Needham, Rodney (1979). Symbolic Classification. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). Conclusion to Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 466-484.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko (1981). Phases in human perception/conception/symbolization processes: cognitive anthropology and symbolic classification. American Ethnologist. 8.3: 451-467.

Introduction to Kinship Terminology

Murphy, Michael D. (n.d.). A Kinship Glossary: Symbols, Terms, and Concepts. http://web.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/436/kinship.htm

Trautmann, Thomas R. (2001). The whole history of kinship terms in three chapters: Before Morgan, Morgan, and after Morgan. Anthropological Theory. 1.2: 268-287.

Bloch, Maurice (1971). The moral and tactical meaning of kinship terms. Man. 6.1: 79-87.

Kinship Today

Peletz, Michael G. (1995). Kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology. 24: 343-372.

Bamberger, Joan (2009). What We Talk About When We Talk About Kinship. Anthropological Quarterly. 82.4: 1043-1048.

Carsten, Janet (2001). "Substantivism, Antisubstantivism, and Anti-antisubstantivism." In Ed. Sarah Franklin & Susan McKinnon, ed. Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 29-53.

Godelier, Maurice (2009). "No Society Has Ever Been Based on the Family or on Kinship." In In and Out of the West: Reconstructing Anthropology, trans. Nora Scott. Charlottesvile, VA: University of Virgina Press, 62-79.

Gender, Sex and Kinship

Butler, Judith (2002). Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual? differences. 13.1: 14-44.

Strong, Thomas (2002). Kinship between Judith Butler and anthropology? A review essay. Ethnos. 67.3: 401-418.

(Godelier among Baruya men in New Guinea)