CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

The course is compulsory for the MA in ACEL and optional for the MA courses in Philosophical sciences, History from the Middle Ages to Present. History of arts and conservation of artistic heritage.

The course has the objective of introducing students to the debates on kinship in Cultural Anthropology. The study of kinship has been at the centre of the development of Cultural Anthropology and its definition continues to accompany the most distinctive theoretical and methodological turns of the discipline. The course has the objective to introduce students to the debates on kinship in Cultural Anthropology. The study of kinship has been at the centre of the development of Cultural Anthropology and it would be possible to say that it continues to characterize the most significant theoretical and methodological turns of the discipline. The course proposes a critical reading of the main approaches to the study of kinship from the evolutionary period to today. The subjects include kinship terminology in social evolutionism; kinship as a social and political organizing principle in structural-functionalism; the elementary forms of kinship in levistrauassian structuralism; the post-structuralist critique by Pierre Bourdieu; the symbolic approach critique by David Schneider; kinship understood within the broader notion of 'relatedness' by Janet Carsten. This notion shifts attention to the construction of kinship (performing kinship) through daily practices. What is kinship? In what ways anthropologist have explained the articulation between natural and social aspects of kinship? What does it mean to be related to humans and 'other-than-humans' ? What role has conviviality, co-residence and sharing of food, and being close or distant in kinship relationships? The recent perspective focusing on the notion of relatedness emerges from the premise that natural/biological aspects are interdependent on the social construction of kin relations. In relation to specific ethnographic case studies, the course illustrates the efficacy of relationality in terms of "intersubjective belonging" (Stasch 2007:128, Sahlins 2011).

The course aims to provide students with knowledge and tools:
- to learn the main themes and debates in the study of kinship in Cultural Anthropology
- to acquire the ability to identify le limits of theoretical approaches in the light of more recent critiques
- to acquire an ability to synthesize ideas and articulate complex theoretical approaches

Attending class and participation in the course training activities (face-to-face lectures, class presentation, written exam essay) together with individual preparation of the compulsory readings will allow students to:
1. Knowledge an comprehension
- to know main themes and debates in the Anthropology of kinship
- to know theoretical approaches applied to contemporary realities (challenges of new reproduction technologies)
. to know main theoretical approaches characterizing the history . of anthropological thought
2. Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension
- to interpret a case study in the specific theoretical frameworks
- to apply theoretical notions to specific case studies from a comparative perspective
3. capacity for evaluation
- be able to formulate and express complex ideas comparing and contrasting different theoretical and methodological perspectives
- to develop a critical approach to the literature (identify contributes and limits)
4. Communicative abilites
- To be able to summarize and present complex ideas orally (class presentations) and in writing (final exam essay)
- to develop ability for synthesis and knowledge of technical language (expressions and terminology)
5. Learning capacity
- Specialized knowledge in structuring and writing a scientific essay
- capacity to develop research autonomy in the interpretation of data

The exam program deals with the course key themes providing students with a selection of texts on the study of kinship from different theoretical perspectives (Rivers, Lévi- Strauss, Bourdieu, Schenider, Carsten, Sahlins) in several ethnographic contexts (Africa, Australia, Europe, South America).

EXAM PROGRAM
1) list of 'COMPULSORY READINGS', see below, available in pdf format in pdf in MOODLE
2) TWO ARTICLES from the list " Testi facoltativi o letture integrative

PLEASE NOTE: Students who have no anthropological background are advised to choose the monograph by Arioti (2006)

COMPULSORY READINGS:
Lévi-Strauss, C. 2003 [1967]. "Endogamia e esogamia"; "Il principio di reciprocità", Le strutture elementari della parentela. Feltrinelli, pp. 87-99; 100-138.
Bourdieu, P. 2003. La parentela come rappresentazione e come volontà. "L'azione del tempo e il tempo dell'azione", Per una teoria della pratica. Raffaello Cortina Editore, pp. 75-91; 99-
114;281-292.
Schneider, D. 1968. "Relatives"; "A relative is a person"; "Conclusion", American Kinship. Englewood: New Jersey, pp. 21-29; 57-75; 107-117.
Carsten, J. 2000 Introduction: Cultures of Relatedness, Cultures of RElatedness. New approaches to the Study of Kinship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.1-20.
Carsten, J. 2004. Families into nations: the power of metaphor and the transformation of kinship, After Kinship, Cambridge University Press, pp. 136-162.
Hutchinson, S. 2000. Identity and substance: the broadening bases of relatedness among the Nuer of southern Sudan. In Carsten, J. ed. Cultures of Relatedness. New Approaches to the Study
of Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 55-72.
Myers, Fred 1997. Logica e significato della collera fra gli Aborigeni Pintupi. In Ricerca Folklorica N. 35:53-66 (
Orsi, A. 1985. The domus-centred society. In The Madonna of 115th Street. Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp.75-106.
Tamisari, F and J. Bradley 2005. To Have and to Give the Law: Animal Names, Place and Event". In Animal Names, A. Minelli, G. Ortallli and G. Sanga eds. Venice: Istituto Veneto delle Scienze,
Lettere ed Arti pp. 421-440.
Tamisari 2022 Yolngu Country as a Multidimensional Tangle of Relationships How ‘Everything is Linked to One Another’disponibile al seguente link: https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/the-venice-journal-of-environmental-humanities/2022/1/yolngu-country-as-a-multidimensional-tangle-of-rel/
Tosi, S. 2004. "Il gruppo, i legami, i luoghi"; "Stare insieme. Il sentimento, il racconto, il piacere di incontrarsi"; "Il dono di poesie". In Gente di sentimento. Per un'antropologia delle persone che vivono in strada. Roma: CISU, pp. 126-132; 158-180.
Sahlins, M. 2011 What Kinship is (part one), in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 17, pp. 2-19.
Viazzo, P. P. e F. Remotti 2007, La famiglia. Uno sguardo antropologico, in Personal Manager. L'economia della vita quotidiana, vol. V

Arioti, M. 2006 Introduzione all'antropologia della parentela. Bari:Laterza
Bourdieu, P. 2003 Per una teoria della pratica. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Carsten, J. 2007 Constitutive Knowledge: Tracing Trajectories of Information in New Contexts of Relatedness, Global Kinship: Anthropology and the Politics of Knowing, in Anthropological
Quarterly, 80, 2: 403-426.
*Carsten, J 2004 After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Carsten, J. 2000. Cultures of Relatedness. New Approaches to the Study of Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carsten, J. 1997 The Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. e D. Haraway 2022 [2018] Fare parentela non popolazioni, Roma, habitus environmental humanities.
Clark, M. 2007 Closeness in the Age of mechanical Reproduction: Debating Kinhip and Biomedicine in
Lebanon and the Middle East, in Global Kinship: Anthropology and the Politics of Knowing, in Anthropological Quarterly, vol 80, 2:479-402 (disponibile in pdf)
Di Silvio, R. 2008 Parentele di confine. La pratica adottiva tra desiderio locale e mondo globale, Ombre Corte.
Franklin, S. and McKinnon, S. 2001 Relative values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Duke University PressLevi-Strauss, C. 1969 (1949). Le strutture elementari della parentela. Feltrinelli, Milano.
*Lubkemann, S. C. 2007 Kinship and Globalisation, Anthropological Quarterly 80:2
Meillassoux, C. 2001. Le Sang et les Mots. Mythes et limites de l'anthropologie. Lausanne: Page Deux.
Orsi, A. 1985. The Madonna of 115TH Street. Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. New Haven: Yale University Press.
*Parkin, R. e L. Stone 2004 Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader, Blackwell Publishers.
Piasere, L. & P. G. Solinas 1998. Le culture della parentela e l'esogamia perfetta. CISU, Roma.
Remotti, F. 2008 Contro natura. Una lettera al Papa. Laterza
Remotti, F. 1973 I sistemi di parentela, Einaudi, Torino
Sahlins, M. 2011 What Kinship is (part two), In Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 17, pp.227-242
Schneider, A. 1984. A Critique to the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Strathern, M. 2006 Kinship, Law and the Unexpected. Relatives are Always a Surprise, Cambridge University Press.
Strathern, M. 1992. After Nature. English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Strathern, M. 1988 The Gender of the Girt, University of California Press.
Strathern, M. 1992. Reproducing the Future: Essays on Anthropology, Kinship and the New Reproductive Technologies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Tosi, S. 2004. Gente di sentimento. Per un'antropologia delle persone che vivono in strada. Roma: CISU.
Vilaca, A. 2002 Making Kin out of Others in Amazonia, in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8:347-365

Learning will be tested and evaluated as follows:
1) oral presentation in class: each student must present an article or book chapter choosing from the compulsory readings indicated in the exam program in collaboration with other students. Students are asked to contextualize the readings within specific theoretical approaches, present authors and formulate questions in order to stimulate class discussion. The oral presentation could serve to propose and get approved the argument of the final exam essay. Non attending students must obtain approval of the final essay topic from the lecturer.
2) Written essay (22.000 characters including spaces and references for attending students and 25.000 characters including spaces and references for non attending students) to be submitted to the lecturer in printed hard copy and in pdf format at least 15 days before the exam date.
3) Oral exam. Each student will receive comments on the written essay and on how to improve his/her own work (content and form). Each student will be asked a few questions on the exam material prepared.
4) The final vote is composed as follows:
70% written essay
20% oral exam
10% oral presentation in class

The course consists in face-to-face lectures with ppt aid aimed at presenting the main theoretical and methodological issues in this field of study and introduce the modalities and schedule of completion and submission of learning tasks (class presentation, written essay).
1. Class presentation. Each student must present one of the compulsory articles or book chapters in collaboration with other students. At the end of the presentation , each student must generate a discussion and answer colleague's questions
2. the written final essay must be submitted (printed hard copy) 15 days before the exam date. The essay submission date date will be communicated during the lectures. The essay must present an issue dealt with in the course and discuss it in relation to the compulsory and the further readings indicated in "Testi facoltativi o letture integrative". The issues identified in he introduction must be demonstrated with ethnographic examples and theoretical approaches discussed during the course and in the course readings. The essay is not a simple summary of the readings but an opportunity to reflect on specific approaches in order to develop one own critical capacity. The written essay (22.000 characters including spaces and references for attending students and 25.000 characters including spaces and references for non attending students) must be printed (Times New Roman 12), with a 1,5 line spacing and with 2 cm margin. All ideas quoted directly or indirectly in the course and further readings (monographs, articles, book chapters) must be attributed to the author indicating the author's name, publication date and page number. The author-date method is preferred but must be completed by a list of references at the end of the text. Students are invited to use editorial guidelines of a national or international anthropological journal.

Italian

Class attendance is not compulsory but it is highly recommended. Both attending and non attending students must agree the essay topic with the lecturer. The written essay must be submitted close to the submission date. Students who do not submit the written essay (in hard copy and in pdf format) to the lecturer within the date and time indicated cannot sustain the exam and must sustain at the next scheduled exam session. All students are invited to regularly check the lecturer's notices in MOODLE and on her web page.

Ca' Foscari applies the Italian law (Legge 17/1999; Legge 170/2010) in order to support students with a disability or learning problems. If you have any disability, you can ask for support for the lectures and the exams contacting the Disability Service disabilitàunive.it

written and oral