Kinship, Migrations and the State

Authors

• Claudia Fonseca Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
• Denise Jardim Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.127517

Abstract

Anthropologists have long studied ‘exotic’ kinship patterns in distant places that differed
from what was seen as the traditional nuclear family. The second half of the twentieth
century witnessed a number of changes (new patterns of birth and marriage, new reproductive technologies, the increased visibility of step- and adoptive  elations) that changed scholars’ perceptions, convincing them that the traditional—even in Europe and North America—was no longer a helpful concept in  understanding contemporary family dynamics. Accordingly, anthropologists reformulated their analytical tools to take stock of the variety of contemporary understandings of family life, placing the emphasis not on sexual procreation and blood connections, but on an enduring sentiment of diffuse solidarity: relatedness (Carsten 2000).