European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology

1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84545-573-6
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 14, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 496 g

Reihe: Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Interest in the study of kinship, a key area of anthropological enquiry, has recently reemerged. Dubbed ‘the new kinship’, this interest was stimulated by the ‘new genetics’ and revived interest in kinship and family patterns. This volume investigates the impact of biotechnology on contemporary understandings of kinship, of family and ‘belonging’ in a variety of European settings and reveals similarities and differences in how kinship is conceived. What constitutes kinship for different publics? How significant are biogenetic links? What does family resemblance tell us? Why is genetically modified food an issue? Are ‘genes’ and ‘blood’ interchangeable? It has been argued that the recent prominence of genetic science and genetic technologies has resulted in a ‘geneticization’ of social life; the ethnographic examples presented here do show shifts occurring in notions of ‘nature’ and of what is ‘natural’. But, they also illustrate the complexity of contemporary kinship thinking in Europe and the continued interconnectedness of biological and sociological understandings of relatedness and the relationship between nature and nurture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Edwards, Jeanette

Salazar, Carles

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Matter in Kinship

Jeanette Edwards

Chapter 1. Knowing and Relating: Kinship, Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the New Genetics

Joan Bestard

Chapter 2. Imagining Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Family, Kinship and ‘Local Thinking’ in Lithuania

Auksuole Cepaitiene

Chapter 3. Eating Genes and Raising People: Kinship Thinking and Genetically Modified Food in the North of England

Cathrine Degnen

Chapter 4. The Family Body: Persons, Bodies and Resemblance

Diana Marre and Joan Bestard

Chapter 5. The Contribution of Homoparental Families to the Current Debate on Kinship

Anne Cadoret

Chapter 6. Corpo-real Identities: Perspectives from a Gypsy Community

Nathalie Manrique

Chapter 7. Incest, Embodiment, Genes and Kinship

Enric Porqueres i Gené and Jérôme Wilgaux (France)

Chapter 8. ‘Loving Mothers’ at Work: Raising Others’ Children and Building Families with the Intention to Love and Take Care

Eniko Demény

Chapter 9. Adoption and Assisted Conception: One Universe of Unnatural Procreation. An Examination of Norwegian Legislation

Marit Melhuus and Signe Howell

Chapter 10. Fields of Post-human Kinship

Ben Campbell

Chapter 11. Are Genes Good to Think With?

Carles Salazar

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Über Autor(innen)

Salazar, Carles
Carles Salazar is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Ireland and Catalonia (Spain). His publications include A Sentimental Economy (1996, Berghahn) and Anthropology and Sexual Morality (2006, Berghahn) and a number of articles on kinship, sexuality, reproduction and Irish ethnography.

Edwards, Jeanette
Jeanette Edwards is Professor of Social Anthropology at Manchester University. She has published widely on the implications of new reproductive technologies for kinship both ethnographically and theoretically. She is author of Born and Bred: Idioms of Kinship and New Reproductive Technologies in England (Oxford University Press, 2000), co-author of Technologies of Procreation: Kinship in the Age of Assisted Conception (Routledge 2nd ed., 1999) and co-editor of Recasting Anthropological Knowledge: Inspiration and Social Science (Cambridge University Press 2011). She directed the European-funded project ‘Public Understanding of Genetics: a Cross- Cultural and Ethnographic Study of the “new genetics” and social identity’.

Jeanette Edwards is Professor of Social Anthropology at Manchester University. She has published widely on the implications of new reproductive technologies for kinship both ethnographically and theoretically. She is author of Born and Bred: Idioms of Kinship and New Reproductive Technologies in England (Oxford University Press, 2000), co-author of Technologies of Procreation: Kinship in the Age of Assisted Conception (Routledge 2nd ed., 1999) and co-editor of Recasting Anthropological Knowledge: Inspiration and Social Science (Cambridge University Press 2011). She directed the European-funded project ‘Public Understanding of Genetics: a Cross- Cultural and Ethnographic Study of the “new genetics” and social identity’.