Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care

Anthropologists have long considered kinship as the basis for social solidarity. Indeed, the idea that kinship is grounded in positive sociality has found its way into most anthropological accounts and has served as an orienting framework directing decades of scholarly research. But what about when it is not? What about instances when kinship is anything but ‘warm and fuzzy’ but is characterized, instead, by neglect, violence, negative affect, or a lack of nurturance and care? In the three interlinked sections of this volume, the view that kinship is about “solidarity” and “care” is challenged by exploring how kin relations are not only about connection and inclusion but also about disconnection, exclusion, neglect, and violence. Kinship relationships that feel “positive” and “good” take a great deal of perseverance and work; there is nothing “natural” about kinship ties as being based on positive sociality. In these chapters, the contributors take seriously the contingency of kinship relations (the moments when kinship breaks down or is a source of suffering) and how this prompts scholars to develop new theoretical and methodological perspectives.

KATHRYN E. GOLDFARB is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

SANDRA BAMFORD is an associate professor and chair of anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She is the editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship, coeditor of Beyond Kinship: The Genealogical Model Reconsidered, and the author of Biology Unmoored: Melanesian Reflections on Life and Biotechnology.

MARILYN STRATHERN is a professor emeritus of social anthropology at Cambridge University and Hon. Life President of the UK Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA). She is the author of Relations: An Anthropological Account and Kinship, Law, and the Unexpected: Relatives Are Always a Surprise.