The ties that bind us

ANTHROPOLOGY:Institutions such as marriage may have changed hugely, but this bestselling study suggests our social connections are as strong as ever

The Metamorphoses of Kinship, By Maurice Godelier Verso, 656pp. £30

A YOUNG BARUYA BOY is brutally torn from his mother’s arms in the verdant highlands of Papua New Guinea. He is about to become an initiate; much time ahead of him to engage in the ritual of becoming a man. An Inuit child is born, allocated the name of a recently deceased kinsman. This newborn will allow another to live again, to prolong the presence of one who has passed among family and friends. An Aboriginal Australian dances with close kin in the sunburnt landscape of remote Australia. A Trobriand Islander, much celebrated in anthropological literature, partakes in a “Kula ring”, a form of ceremonial exchange.

It is this constellation of world views and ways of being that we meet in Maurice Godelier’s powerful and often provocative new book, The Metamorphoses of Kinship. In this timely and challenging study, Godelier heralds the revival of kinship studies within the discipline of anthropology. In striking and elucidating prose, Godelier writes both for the trained anthropologist and for the general public. This is a book that aims to introduce the merits of anthropology to a broader readership.

With singular conviction and remarkable depth, Godelier traces anthropology’s long courtship with kinship studies, beginning with one of the discipline’s forefathers, Lewis Henry Morgan, through its many advocates and critics to its decline within the discipline. Godelier sets out a broad cartography of kinship in order to challenge the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Francois Heritier, two of anthropology’s big thinkers, by re-examining the issues of the exchange of women and of incest prohibition as universal questions. The book argues that kinship, once the key focus of anthropology, is no longer visible on university course lists; not vanished or vanquished, he insists, however, but merely transformed.

Its demise as the cornerstone of anthropological theory was generated by the work of anthropological greats, such as Edmund Leach, Rodney Needham, David Schneider, and Clifford Geertz (to name but a few). Each questioned in one way or another the validity of kinship studies.

Anthropology is a discipline that uses long-term embedded field research, known as ethnography, to investigate the gamut of human sociality in all its forms, such as kinship, ritual and politics. It is, put simply, the study of what it means to be human; its focus is on culture, identity and difference as well as on what unifies us as human beings. Anthropologists often say that their aim is “to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange”. It is an academic discipline, Godelier argues, that has much to give mainstream society.

Amid the maelstrom of change in Irish society (and, indeed, globally), the broad canvas of anthropology has much to offer in the way of understanding the contemporary world.

Godelier, through wide-ranging geographic examples and a long inventory of topics, such as the history of the family and marriage in Europe, theories of conception, exchange, incest, descent and filiation, sexuality, and the relationship between primates and Homo sapiens (to name but a few) convinces us of the revitalising role a re-examination of kinship can play.

It is the subject of the book’s introduction and conclusion that had the French public purchasing the book with such alacrity (it went through three print runs); in particular, Godelier’s discussion of the changing face of social institutions such as the family and marriage.

Marriage, he argues, has become the great paradox of our times: once the reserve of heterosexual communities and now rapidly in decline, it has become the subject of protest and campaign by homosexual communities. As such, the nature of family and, indeed, parenting has changed. Adoption (particularly international) and conception through assisted technologies, such as IVF, are on the increase. Gay couples are campaigning globally for parenting rights and for the rights of their children to be respected.

Parenting roles, too, are changing, with one partner in a union choosing to act as “mother” or “father” irrespective of gender. It is at this point that Godelier asks whether this confirms that kinship is basically social and not biological, thereby echoing the sentiments of earlier kinship theorists.

Divorce, too, is on the increase, and families are finding themselves reconstituted, with children needing to learn new configurations of persons and connections. Increasingly, however, children are central in these familial shifts, and our conceptions of what it means to be a child have changed (many argue for the better). But, for Godelier, the all-pervading presence of the “state” in the role of parenting rankles. The complex choreography of the “parent”, the “child” and the “state” has created what he calls a “crisis of parenting”. It is, however, he believes, the father within this crisis who often suffers most, very quickly losing his right to see his child.

While Godelier is in the main making reference to French society, his arguments are germane to a post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. With a general sense of disenchantment, malaise and protest being part of the zeitgeist (albeit anchored in a broader crisis of faith, identity and community), Godelier’s work carves out a space for anthropology’s relevance to the concerns of the wider public. So while images of a Baruya boy undergoing male initiation, or of an Aboriginal Australian child dancing in the warm glow of the desert sun, may seem very far removed from the lived experiences of crisis, loss and dramatic change on our small island, they, along with Godelier’s expansive and often insightful work, should teach us a lesson. In the shadowlands of crisis, Godelier’s study, and anthropology more generally, evince the fortitude and resilience engendered through the social relations that are our very make-up. That helps to make Godelier’s work a hopeful and compelling read.

Fiona Murphy is an anthropologist. She is the author with Dr Mark Maguire of Integration in Ireland: The Everyday Lives of African Migrants, to be published this summer by Manchester University Press