Beyond Kinship brings together ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists for the first time in a common discussion of the social model of house societies proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss. While kinship theory has been central to the study of social organization, an alternative approach has emerged--that of seeing the "house" both as a physical and symbolic structure and a principle of social organization.
The house stands as a model social formation that is distinguished by its attention to a number of material domains (land, the dwelling, ritual and nonritual objects). As the essays in this volume make clear, the focus on material culture and on place contributes to the ongoing convergence of anthropology and history and helps erase the artificial distinctions between prehistory and history.
Contributions to the volume offer significant new interpretations of primary data as well as reconsidering classic ethnographic material. Beyond Kinship crosses the boundaries within anthropology--not only between cultural anthropology and archaeology but between structural--symbolic and materialist approaches and between American and British schools of anthropology; it is intended to advance the fruitful dialogue now taking place within the field.
- ISBN10 0812235479
- ISBN13 9780812235470
- Publish Date 5 June 2000
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 January 2017
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Pennsylvania Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 269
- Language English