Siobhán M. Mattison: Stanford University Department of Anthropology and Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies

The study of kinship is foundational to anthropology. Though interest in kinship waned briefly, it has recently been rekindled, particularly in the area of evolutionary ecology. In this talk, I review briefly the major trends in anthropological thought on kinship and, by way of example, explore the contributions that evolutionary and quantitative studies have made to its study. In doing so, I consider the ethnic Mosuo of Southwest China, a population that traditionally was matrilineal and engaged in subsistence agro-pastoralism, but that recently has become integrated into the wider market economy. I discuss evidence for associated change in kinship practices, arguing that such change is at least partially consistent with hypotheses from evolutionary ecology. I consider several topics of traditional interest to kinship theorists, including marriage, residence and inheritance and conclude by emphasizing the need to synthesize often disparate findings and by suggesting several avenues of future research.
http://bec.ucla.edu/papers/Mattison.pdfhttp://bec.ucla.edu/papers/Mattison1.pdfhttp://bec.ucla.edu/papers/Mattison2.pdf