Module ANTH2347: Relations and Belonging

Department: Anthropology

ANTH2347: Relations and Belonging

Prerequisites

• People and Cultures (ANTH1061) OR Being Human (ANTH1111)

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• Provide a cross-cultural overview of the theoretical and ethnographic importance of the anthropological study of kinship and relatedness
• Cover key theories of kinship in social anthropology, supported by ethnographic case studies
• Consider the form that kinship practices take in a variety of different societies and communities and their relationship with political, economic, religious, and cultural life.
• Provide an in-depth and broad knowledge of kinship and its importance to human sociality, situating it in the wider context of anthropological research on politics, economics, and religion.
• Provide an awareness of how a theoretical and ethnographic knowledge of these topics might help understand critical events and controversies in the contemporary world.

Content

• The indicative content of this module is:
• Overview of key issues in the anthropology of kinship followed by coverage of some of the following major themes: kinship and the social structure of human communities; the history of anthropological debates in the study of kinship and relatedness; anthropological approaches to relatedness; queer kinship; anthropological studies of new reproductive technologies; care and disability; human-animal relations; and death.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the place of kinship in human societies, and the various ways it has been theorised by anthropologists.
• Be able to demonstrate familiarity with a range of representative ethnographic cases (present and past, Western and non-Western).
• Understand how to relate their personal experience of kinship to the broader field of anthropological knowledge.

• Have an understanding of the basic conceptual vocabularies of kinship.
• Be able to analyse the symbolic foundations of kinship beliefs and practices.

• Library research
• Understanding kinship diagrams
• Debating skills
• Note taking
• Essay writing
• Critical reading and analysis.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures and seminars introduce students to the material and enable discussion of it, informed by wider reading.
• Seminars allow students to explore and discuss material from the lectures and readings in depth with their tutors and peers.
• Formative assessment is by one 500 word written assignment.
• Summative assessment is by one 2000 word essay.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Written feedback on one formative assignment

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University