Doing Field Projects

16 Charting Kinship

In this chapter, you will gather kinship data and develop a kinship chart. Charting kinship is a classic ethnographic technique that was common in early ethnographic research. These anthropologists found it useful because, in part, family and kinship are the foundational organizing structures of non-industrialized cultural groups. Kinship charts can be useful to ethnographers today for a variety of reasons. Kinship and kinship terms play a significant role in all cultures.

Learning Goals

1. Gather kinship data accurately
2. Present the collected information clearly on a kinship chart using anthropological kinship notation

By the time you get around to studying field methods you will probably be aware of the historic importance of kinship studies in anthropology. You may also be aware of the numerous approaches that anthropologists have taken to kinship over the years. Nowadays, the importance and significance of kinship studies are constantly being re-evaluated, and long-established conventions are continually questioned (see e.g. Carsten 2000). This project steers clear of most of the keen debates, but you may find yourself questioning older traditions of kinship study, and their relative value, within anthropology, nonetheless. If you are interested in new departures for kinship studies and the whole notion of what “kinship” is, you could consult works such as Kath Weston’s Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (Weston 1991), or those in the Further ...