Kinship has been a central concept in anthropology from its very onset, one of the few which anthropology managed to make its own. Radical shift in kinship studies came in 1970s and 1980s. The traditional approach has been challenged as too static, too fixed, too algebraic. The analytical feasibility of the very category of kinship has been undermined. The aim of this course is to shed light on these new critical developments. We will look at the demise of kinship studies brought about by the argument on their essentially Western ideas of biological reproduction, and their subsequent revitalization. This would include introduction of the Schneider?s critique and the feminist anthropologists? works on kinship, gender and power; motherhood and fatherhood; concept of relatedness; studies on the new reproductive technologies; gay and lesbian kinship; new family forms emerging in a consequence of divorces, separation, domestic and transnational adoptions; the migration-induced transnational families and cross-border marriages. We will discuss how recent theoretical and empirical works reformulated kinship, putting stress on process, flexibility negotiation, human agency, local meanings and symbols. How they countered the notions of ?naturalness? of marriage, sex, procreation and parenthood; kinship obligations and duty. After the course students are expected to identify central trends in the contemporary studies of kinship, and in a critical manner look at the folk assumptions on a family present in a public Euro-American discourse. 

The course consists of reading materials, discussions, lectures and the final essay.

Anthropology of Eastern Europe

Tuesdays 14.15-15.45 & Fridays 13.15- 14.45 (25.10-29.11)

Place: Linna 5015

Course abstract:

The course will look at the social and cultural complexities of the Eastern Europe in the context of its socialist past and post-socialist preset. It will introduce the Easter Europe from the anthropological perspective, privileging the perspective of ?ordinary people? and everyday lives.  It will show how anthropology may help to account for the fall of the socialist system and the transformations the fall ensued. The course will shed light on the construction of the Eastern-Western Europe boundary in the academic and popular discourse and the similarities and differences across the Eastern European countries. It will help to understand the mechanisms of centrally planned economy and the everyday life under real socialism. It will address issues of ?transition? to capitalism and democracy; changes in the intimate family and gender relations; the emergence of ?new? social identity movements; new patterns of social stratification and exclusion; the ethnic and religious differences and meaning of nationalism in the post-socialist period. The course will also introduce the theme of transnationalism and external migration taking place throughout the region.

The course will consist of the lectures, discussions, 15-minute presentations by the students and a final essay.