2 Ethnocentric Projection and the Study of Kinship

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Ethnocentric Projection and the Study of Kinship … May 2008 8 attached to them. Indeed, the social and cultural attributes, though considered the primary subject matter of anthropologists, and of particular concern to social scientists, are nevertheless derivative of and of less determinate significance than the biological relations. These biological relations have special qualities; they create and constitute bonds, ties, solidary [sic] relationships proportional to the biological closeness of the kind … These are considered to be natural ties inherent in the human condition, distinct from the social or cultural. (p.188). Although Schneider here refers back to the naturalness or perhaps innateness of kinship relations with his characterization of them as “natural ties inherent in the human condition”, the primary pair of characterizations in this passage is of biological relations as being important or having significance in abstraction from any other properties and relations, including social or cultural attributes, and of them being determinative of such other properties and relations. These are yet fourth and fifth putative features of kinship relations, as they have been conceived within traditional kinship studies. So Blood is Thicker Than Water says any or all of the following of kinship relations: they are universal, unique in strength, innate (part of human nature, biologically determined), have significance in abstraction from any other properties or relations, and are determinative of such other properties and relations. A reading of the axiom that ascribes all five features to how kinship has been conceived throughout a traditional stretching 100 years would, however, offer little more than a caricature to that tradition, a kind of pastiche of different views within the tradition and an adequate characterization of none of them. Perhaps the most plausible way to understand just what the Blood is Thicker than Water axiom says of kinship relations is that there is a cluster of features ascribed to kinship, some subset or other of which has been drawn on by each of those who have contributed to traditional kinship studies. Schneider’s failure to state precisely what this third axiom says also interacts unfortunately with his reliance on the eponymous aphorism, since that aphorism is not typically used to express any of these five views. To say that blood is thicker than water, in common usage, doesn’t typically mean or imply that biological kin relationships • are everywhere and always the same (universality) • are the only relationships that generate strong bonds between people (uniqueness) • have their value as a part or direct result of human nature (innateness) • alone or by themselves generate strong bonds between people (abstraction) • are determinative of, or sufficient for, all other social relations (sufficiency) What the aphorism Blood is thicker than water means, in common usage, is that the bonds felt between people created by biological kin relationships (“blood”) are or should be, stronger (“thicker”) than all other kinds of bonds between people (mere “water”). It is used in two distinct but related ways. Descriptively, it is used to summarize, explain, or even predict, scenarios that involve interpersonal interactions; prescriptively, it is used, often as a reminder, to draw attention to the importance of one’s biological family obligations and expectations that are based on these familial ties. Schneider seems to forget, downplay, or ignore such (very common) prescriptive uses. To concentrate on the difficulties in pinning down just what the Blood is Thicker Than Water doctrine says, and the aptness of the name Schneider has chosen for it, however, would be to be unduly myopic, a case of missing the forest for the trees. Rather than approaching this doctrine analytically and compositionally, one can instead try to characterize the “big idea” at the heart of Schneider’s various expressions of Blood is Thicker
Ethnocentric Projection and the Study of Kinship … May 2008 9 than Water. Adopting this approach, we might say that the central claim that Schneider is making as a supplement to (A) is as follows: (B) The particular conception of kinship that is ethnocentrically projected by anthropologists is one according to which biological genealogical and reproductive relations play asymmetrically special or distinctive roles in structuring social or cultural relations, and governing social or cultural practices. Four clarifications about (B): (i) By “biological genealogical and reproductive relations” I mean both relations of descent and alliance, where each is understood via the notion of sexual reproduction. (ii) The phrase “asymmetrically special or distinctive roles” is meant to encompass not only the kinds of asymmetry that Schneider has identified (universality, uniqueness, innateness, abstraction, and sufficiency), but any asymmetric distinctiveness that such biological genealogical and reproductive relations play in structuring and governing sociality. (iii) This phrase is not to be understood so loosely, however, as to say simply that biological genealogical and reproductive relations are relevant to, part of, or mentioned in kinship in particular cultural contexts. (iv) Although Schneider himself is emphatic about the distinction between social and cultural relations and practices, I deliberately bracket consideration of the distinction by talking of the two together here. Call (A) and (B) together—perhaps getting into the Schneiderian spirit—the Ethnocentric Projection Thesis about Kinship. Its truth would motivate the kinds of studies that have been undertaken in post-Schneiderian kinship studies, and even provides grounds for thinking that kinship “exists in the minds of anthropologists but not in the cultures they study” (Schneider 1972: 51). For the Ethnocentric Projection Thesis to be true, the general conception of kinship under consideration, one according to which genealogical relations play asymmetrical or distinctive roles in a society or culture, must be a misleading or mistaken conception, one that fails to hold beyond the culture from which it is projected. When this is true of a specific target culture, I will talk of kinship as failing to exist in that culture. 4. The Ethnocentric Projection Thesis about Kinship We might contrast a number of ways in which social phenomena might fail to exist, in this sense, ways that I introduce and will refer to mnemonically via particular examples of each type of existence failure: The force of history. Sometimes the putative existence of something is denied because talk of that thing is merely the reification of a way of talking. Theorists might take an abstraction, such as the force of history or destiny, and start ascribing causal powers to “it” that treat that abstraction as an entity, a thing. Or they might collect together extremely different things under one term, with their invocation of that term imposing a unity on them that they simply do not possess: “consciousness” as used in contemporary consciousness studies might be one non-social example, and “anomie” as appropriated from Durkheim, a social example. Tennis. In this case, exemplified by particular recreational games such as tennis, the social phenomenon doesn’t occur in that particular culture at all, and it seems difficult to mistake something else in that culture for that particular practice or institution. The English play tennis, while the Yanomami do not. Moreover, there is nothing substantially like tennis in Yanomami society that might warrant us talking of tennis in discussing their culture. Here to speak of the structure or function of
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