David M. Schneider A Critique of the Study of KINSHIP j •j David M. Schneider Schneider challenges the assumptions on which anthropol• ogy has depended for the last century by showing that one of the major categories in terms of which social life has been under• stood is largely untenable. The idea of kinship is subjected to penetrating scrutiny. Unlike the proverbial Emperor, it is not that kinship has no clothes. The question is whether there is anything at all underneath those clothes. And even the clothes appear to be shreds and patches held together by a web of illusions. The critique uses a novel device in that the same set of ethnographic "facts" are looked at through different theories. This reveals a good deal about the different theories. By the same token, of course, the critique goes into the question of what a "fact" of "kinship" might be and how to recognize one either at home or in the field. Schneider's critique also uses history to raise cogent ques• tions about how kinship has been studied. But it is not as 20/20 hindsight that history is used. Due respect is paid to the climate of the time, as well as the climatic changes and the ways in which these helped to create the emperor's clothes. Right, wrong, or indifferent, Schneider's study of how the emperor "kinship" was dressed and then redressed as the winds of change threatened disarray, proves challenging to the theories by which anthropology lives, as well as to the specially privileged domain of "kinship." The implications of this study for a wide range of problems within theoretical anthropology are striking. The author of American Kinship: A Cultural Account and, with R. T. Smith, Class Differences and Sex Roles in American Kinship and Family Structure among many other books and articles, David M. Schneider is emeritus William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Pro• fessor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. "TQUE OF STUDY <* MN*HIP SCHNEIDER D 0,dor No: 1401/965214 Dept : 001 Shelf Loc :ANT ISBN : 0472080512 A Critique of the Study of Kinship David M. Schneider The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © the University of Michigan 1984 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press 1998 1997 1996 1995 8 7 6 5 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Schneider, David Murray, 1918— A critique of the study of kinship. Bibliography: p. 1. Kinship. I. Title GN487.S36 1984 306.83 84-5246 ISBN 0-472-08051-2 (pbk.) To Addy Preface In a paper read to the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1971 I asserted that " 'kinship,' like totemism, the matrilineal complex and ma• triarchy, is a non-subject since it does not exist in any culture known to man" and " 'kinship' is an artifact of the anthropologists' analytic apparatus and has no concrete counterpart in the cultures of any of the societies we studied" (Schneider 1972:59). I also said that the notion of "kinship as an idiom" was sheer nonsense, and this too was a bald assertion. This book is an attempt to make the grounds for those assertions clear and to back them with reasoned argument. Needham asserted a similar position at about the same time (1971). Though his reasoning differs from mine, we agree that there is no such thing as kinship. Needham's position is that since there is no unitary "thing" that kinship refers to, there can in the nature of the case be no theory about kinship, for there can be no legitimate theory about some "thing" which does not exist. Needham is thus relieved of the task of having to consider what other anthropologists, who believe that there is such a "thing," consider kinship theory. This obviously depends on the premise that there are objective "things" apart from an observer or an observer's relation to them and that their existence and nature can be objectively described. My own view is that whether kinship exists or not depends on how it is defined by the observer, which in turn states the observer's conception of "it" and his relationship to "it." Needham seems to take the view that this is simply an empirical question; kinship is either an existential "thing" that is "there," or it is not. If it actually exists, it is there, whether we like it or not, no matter how we define it or how we conceive of it, and our problem is to discover its nature and characteristics and so describe and define it correctly. I do not share this view. For me its very existence is in significant part a consequence of how it is understood and defined, and the definition does not, nor can it, arise solely as a consequence of "its" real nature. My second difference stems from the next step in Needham's argument. Despite the fact that he feels that there is no unitary thing which can be called "kinship" he affirms that "I am not denying, therefore, that the word 'kin• ship' is useful. ... it has an immense variety of uses, in that all sorts of institutions and practices and ideas can be referred to by it" (p. 5) and "Let me simply adopt the minimal premise that kinship has to do with the alloca• tion of rights and their transmission from one generation to the next" (p. 3). Needham justifies this position by invoking Wittgenstein: "the term 'kinship' viii Preface is what Wittgenstein calls an 'odd-job' word" (p. 5). In brief, despite the fact that there is no such thing as kinship, that there can be no such thing as kinship theory, it is nevertheless useful to use the word because all sorts of institutions and practices and ideas having to do with the allocation of rights and their transmission from one generation to the next can be referred to by it. Not only does the logic of this position escape me, but this only begs the question by shifting the problem onto the question of what generation means. For if we take generation in the sense in which it is usually used by an• thropologists and in studies of kinship, then we are right back where we started—is there really such a "thing"? The primary objective of this book is a critical examination of the presuppositions that are part of the study of kinship and the whole idea of "kinship" as it has been pursued by anthropologists in recent decades. It is the theory of Radcliffe-Brown, Lowie, Fortes, Eggan, Murdock, and Need- ham before he saw the light, among others, their co-workers and students. It is the theory which is the conventional wisdom of today and can be found in textbooks, monographs, and papers by anthropologists dealing with the subject. However, I will not deal systematically with "kinship terms," "de• scent," or "marriage" here although the discussion will necessarily have implications for these. In part this critical examination is conducted by juxtaposing two "de• scriptions" of the "kinship system" of the island of Yap, West Caroline Islands. Another objective of the book, though a minor one, is to make clear the degree to which I can no longer support my writings on Yap on which the first description is based. This is, therefore, a published, public correction or reevaluation of those materials. Many people have helped with this book. First, my debt to Dr. David Labby for his understanding of Yapese culture, based on a very fine piece of fieldwork, is great and obvious. As rs evident, in the light of his fieldwork and interpretation I not only reformulated my own conception of Yapese culture, but was able to understand a host of problems that had effectively prevented me from producing a monograph of my own. My interpretation of Yapese culture, as embodied in the papers listed in the bibliography, was simply inadequate. Labby did, for me at least, really "demystify Yap" and I think his demystification has held up under close study. Dr. Robert McKinley read the next to last draft of the book with great care, and in part as a result of his suggestions the book was largely rewritten and reorganized. I am most grateful for the care and attention he gave the manuscript and the many useful suggestions he made-—not all of which I had the good sense to follow, of course. He can on no account be held responsible Preface ix for the defects of the book—he tried his best. But he is responsible for some of its stronger points. Dr. John Kirkpatrick was particularly helpful with the ethnographic accounts, for he had himself done fieldwork on Yap and knew the materials intimately. I regret not having had the benefit of his views on this last draft. The penultimate draft was read by John Comaroff, Part I by Terrance Turner, and chapter 13 by Ward Goodenough. Their comments were appreci• ated even when we flatly disagreed. It is only fair to say that I doubt if any of these readers agrees with everything, or even most of the things, said in this book. I alone am responsible for its faults. D. D. Kaspin's editing helped immeasurably to make the book readable, where it is readable, that is. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the National Endowment for the Humanities for the fellowship during which the first two drafts of the manu• script were written. I am also grateful for the support of the Lichtstern Fund of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Chicago.