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The making and breaking of marriages among the Mian of Papua New Guinea: Can ‘New Kinship Studies’ contribute to the understanding of affinity?

20. Juni 2017
Don Gardener, Australian National University (emeritus)

Eine Kooperation mit der Österreichisch-Australischen Gesellschaft

Critiques of “classical” anthropological studies of kinship frequently stress how kin relations generally are “made,” “done,” or “performed.” Yet older views distinguished between consanguineal and affinal relations partly in relation to the specific role of marital relations in forging and/or reforging links between social units (individuals, families, settlements, lineages and so on). This paper asks, through a consideration of fieldwork data on Mian marriage strategies whether ‘New Kinship Studies’ can account for the specificities of marriage and affinity and their role in social reproduction.

Don Gardner recently retired from the Australian National University and the University of Lucerne. He has conducted fieldwork among Mian people, of central New Guinea, since 1975. His interests focus on Melanesian ethnography; social theory/the philosophy of social science, and the relations between explanation in the social and the historical sciences.

Beginn: 18.30h

Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie, Universitätsstraße 7/ 4. Stock, Hörsaal C