Week 9 · Readings & resources

Week 9 — Readings & Resources

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 9 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 69–81 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–22 min total)

① Who counts as family

Chapter 9, Section “Ask who counts: kinship as cultural” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Kinship as cultural” · Remember: every society decides which ties count as family, so kinship rests on birth, marriage, and choice, not on biology alone.

What is kinship as a social practice, not genetic inheritance? — AnthroDorphins — an anthropologist and filmmaker explains kinship as something people do, not only something they inherit, with chapters on adoption, surrogacy, and family-making beyond marriage; after it, name one tie from the video that is neither consanguineal nor affinal, as Auntie at the birthday party was. Use it while completing the Week-9 module overview. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)

② Descent through women: a documented case

Chapter 9, Section “Compare documented cases: descent through women is not rule by women” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Two documented matrilineal cases” · Remember: matrilineal describes how membership passes, through women; it does not say who rules.

Haudenosaunee: People of the Longhouse — American Museum of Natural History — a short film made by a Haudenosaunee filmmaker with citizens of the Confederacy's six nations, speaking from the present about their government, languages, and lacrosse; as you watch, notice how people introduce themselves by nation and clan, and keep the chapter's past-tense record separate from what people say about their lives now. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
On The Mother's Side, Seneca Culture and Women — Onöhsagwë:de' Cultural Center — a short page from a Seneca Nation cultural center on its matrilineal lines; read the line on how children receive their clan, then say in your own words which parent passes membership on. This builds on Week 3's work with ethnographic methods: a community's own account is a source you read with care and credit as theirs. (reading, 3–5 min)

③ Naming the cousins

Chapter 9, Section “Name the cousins: kinship terminology” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Naming the cousins” · Remember: a language decides which relatives share a word, so one person's cousin can be another person's sister.

Family Trees in Other Languages: our world's 7 kinship systems — NativLang — an animated tour of how languages group relatives, with a family tree you can follow; the video uses the older ethnic labels for terminology types, so translate the three types this course teaches into its descriptive names, lineal, generational, and bifurcate merging, and treat the video's other systems as types this course does not cover. The video's own correction note says one of its labels does not reflect the languages of the people it names, which is why the course uses descriptive names. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)
Cousin terms: Your Cousin's Kids Aren't Your Nieces and Nephews — CGP Grey — a quick animated guide to English cousin terms, first cousins and cousins once removed; notice that every one of them stays a cousin and never becomes a brother or sister, which is how lineal terminology works. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
We All Have Kin but We Think About Them and Name Them Very Differently — A Way with Words — a language radio show's segment and transcript on a large database of kin terms from many languages; read the part on sibling words and the term that covers a same-gender sibling or cousin, then decide which of the three terminology types it is closest to. (reading, 6–8 min)

④ Family by choice and by care

Chapter 9, Section “Widen the circle: chosen and fictive kin” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Chosen and fictive kin” · Remember: fictive and chosen kin share no birth or marriage, yet they carry real family duties.

What does being a brother or sister mean around the world? — AnthroDorphins — an anthropologist and filmmaker on siblinghood across cultures, with chapters on ritual relationships and fictive kin, including godparent ties in Latin America; for each fictive tie named, say what duty it carries. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
A Brief But Spectacular take on prioritizing kinship care — PBS NewsHour — a short first-person piece from a former foster youth on keeping children with the people they already count as family; listen for who he includes, and sort each person into kin by birth, kin by marriage, or fictive kin. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
Kinship Care, kin and fictive kin defined — Iowa Health and Human Services — a state child-welfare agency's page on relatives and close family friends who care for a child; read the definitions near the top and compare the agency's fictive kin with the chapter's. Stop here before marriage payments and where couples live after marriage; next week takes that up. (reading, 5–8 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Parenthood and Procreation, Becoming Parents — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a reference-work entry; read only section 4, which sets genetic accounts of becoming a parent beside accounts based on labor, intention, cause, and the child's interests, and skip the rest of the entry. (reading, 10–15 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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