Month: May 2019

Kinship can be difficult to understand when considering the many different relationships, cultures, religions etc. that people have. The readings for this module all demonstrated that defining kinship can be difficult and complicated, especially with new and emerging reproductive technologies. In class we discussed that there are two distinct branches when it comes to kinship. One is concerned with descent, genealogy, genetics and evolution, while the other is concerned more with social and legal relations. Anthropologist break down kinship by consanguineal, affinal, and fictive kinships. All of these components, definitions, and takes on kinship make its study even more challenging.

In the article “Complexities: Beyond Nature and Nurture”, Susan McKinnon challenges “both the presuppositions about genetics and gender that underlie the narratives of evolutionary psychologists and the theories of mind and culture that inform these presuppositions” through the anthropological lens. She argues that evolutionary psychologists often focus solely on genetics, natural selection, investment in sexual relations, among other biological based presuppositions without considering the variation of cultures and kinship relationships around the globe.

On the other hand, Warren Shapiro challenges McKinnon’s views in the article “What human kinship is primarily about: toward a critique of the new kinship studies”. He focuses on focality theory to argue against McKinnon’s claims positing that when thinking carefully people do consider “closer” genetic kin and that there is a focalization about it. He seems to side with evolutionary psychologists and claims that they do acknowledge that they do not know the intricacy of social and cultural contexts.

In “He Won’t Be My Son” by Marcia Inhorn, we learn about the attitudes towards adoption and gamete donation among the Lebanese Muslim families who undergo IVF. We also gain more perspective on the intricate complexities of the intersections of religion, science, kinship, parenthood etc. Fathers of children who are adopted or conceived by gamete donation hold this notion that the child “won’t be my son” due to the many cultural and religious views the community has. Yet there are those who consider these methods to create a family.

Personally, it came to no surprise to read about the complexities of kinship and about reproductive technologies with different religious and cultural contexts. One of the reasons why I decided to double major, exploring both the hard sciences and social sciences, was because I often saw this clash between biological aspects and cultural ones. Though I was not surprised about it, I did learn more about the different aspects that evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists consider with kinship.

Possible discussion questions we should consider in class are:

• What factors aside from genetics and social systems, are we not considering when studying kinship?
• Are McKinnon’s claims that evolutionary psychologists ignore the historical and anthropological record fair?
• Do you agree with the “collectivist” label Shapiro places on McKinnon’s argument and his argument for “focality”?

When it comes to McKinnon, I very much agree that genetics and evolution alone cannot give us the entire picture of what kinship is. There are complexities about culture, kinship is relativistic on culture, and not reducible to genetics. There are nuances such as people that you would consider kin, adopted children etc. However, I do not think that genetic components can be ignored. Though difficult to study, there are questions we can attempt to answer, for example about gestational trauma and how that later on affects kinship relationships. Studying the genetics of these children can give us some information and requires careful analysis. Other questions require experimental design but does have many ethical implications and limitations. There are many notions that have recently come to light such as that generational trauma can be inherited that are flawed in methodology and can be improved. Genetics can give us a good idea of biological components that are influential, but they also can’t give us all of the answers.

Not only is kinship complex, but it has very important implications in our societies such as in the legal system. Kinship is the system by which we organize our relationships. Like we discussed in class, in America, kinships are established by contract. This has serious implications for example is who can make medical decisions for a spouse, child, or family member. While in other cultures and religions, this would drastically change based on the way kinship is viewed. Inhorn’s text is an example of the complexities of how kinship structures change the way we view kinship relationships.

One of the last points of contention we discussed about kinship was if we could show which was more dominant, nature or nurture? People from different fields will have their own opinions, but personally, I find that question very difficult to answer. Both have a very significant and varying degrees of influence on kinship.

In addition to trying to explore these questions, perhaps we should consider how the two can help us answer questions about kinship than solely focus on their differences. Biology and ethnography alone might not give us the answers we seek.

In our class, we have touched upon how bioethics, and within that assistive reproductive technology, inherently includes a discussion and understanding of the concept of kinship. Kinship refers to how we relate to people closest to us and has two points of focus: the first following biological descent and the second acknowledging social and legal relations. In her chapter “On Kinship and Marriage: A Critique of the Genetic and Gender Calculus of Evolutionary Psychology,” Susan McKinnon illustrates how kinship is regarded from the standpoint of a social anthropologist versus that of evolutionary psychologists. McKinnon believes that evolutionary psychologists understand kinship in a “digital” manner, a very black and white structure based off of genetics, and in this chapter she argues that this is not human reality but instead that kinship does not relate directly to biological structure given varying cross-cultural understandings and expressions (McKinnon 109). McKinnon goes on to say that there is nothing self-evident about biological kinship, and while in many cultures distinctions are made between biological and other forms of kinship who counts as “real” kin is not necessarily genetically-defined but instead could be defined for instance by social action or groupings of people who live together (McKinnon 115). Ultimately, McKinnon draws from her evidence to depict how evolutionary psychologists choose to simplify kinship systems to a view that focuses on Euro-American appreciation of genetics and gender roles which in effect develops a hierarchal system of marriage and other manners (legal, spiritual, etc.) in which kinship is recognized or developed. McKinnon brings her point home by asserting that the evolutionary psychological perspective ignores the multiplicity of human existence and fails to recognize that kinship is relativistic and defined by culture rather than nature. 

On the contrary in his article ,“What Human Kinship is Primarily About: Toward a Critique of the New Kinship Studies,” Warren Shapiro attacks what he names the “constructionist” position on kinship that McKinnon takes due its lack of attention to focality and failure to provide accurate evidence. Shapiro meticulously goes through pieces of McKinnon’s evidence to disprove their legitimacy and illustrate how her distinction of genetic calculus versus kinship via social relationships is ultimately devoid of meaning. Shapiro maintains that McKinnon’s approach does not follow focality theory appropriately resulting in a disrespectful study of other cultures; he goes on to lament that the ultimately Marxist approach McKinnon takes is far from an appropriate cultural comparison and is instead aimed at denouncing the west and its traditional family views (Shapiro 137). 

After analyzing both arguments, I think that while McKinnon could have more aptly characterized the cultures from which she drew examples out of context as Shapiro suggests, Shapiro’s criticism of McKinnon’s article is unwarranted and largely unfounded. Shapiro believes that procreative kin are recognized as a near universal, and I personally disagree and think that this opinion proves McKinnon’s point that while kinship is culturally relative many of us take an ego-centric view and see the west’s biologically driven kinship system as the “real” way of categorizing these relationships.  Furthermore, Shapiro attempts to claim that developing kinship relationships is such an individual process  that it is not effective to even attempt to separate these experiences into different types of systems. I disagree and think that the sciences that describe life inevitability rely on categorization of sorts. Shapiro then goes further to take his argument against McKinnon as a crusade against anthropology denouncing the entire fielding as “a child of Enlightenment skepticism” which I think is blowing his difference of opinion far out of proportion (Shapiro 148). 

The last source in this module, “‘He Won’t Be My Son’: Middle Eastern Muslim Men’s Discourses of Adoption and Gamete Donation” by Marcia C. Inhorn discusses how in the Sunni Muslim world assistive reproductive technology has previously been vehemently prohibited by religious doctrine, but now both in vitro fertilization and gamete donation are becoming available in Middle Eastern populations. Inhorn illustrates how in the Muslim Middle East, moral reactions to the west’s infertility solutions are shaped by Islam and many muslim men cannot accept the possibility of “social parenthood via adoption or gamete donation” (Inhorn 116). However, in recent years attitudes of some Muslim men are shifting as they are beginning to accept the possibilities of assistive reproductive technology in the hopes of pursuing aspects of marriage and fatherhood otherwise unattainable. This article serves as a case study to prove McKinnon’s point that kinship systems are culturally relative and determined by more than a straight genetics tree. Contrary to the perspective of an evolutionary psychologist, Inhorn’s article exhibits how in this case the understanding of kinship is relatively fluid and changing as technology and religion transform. However, similar to Shapiro’s encouragement of accurate cultural comparisons, Inhorn’s study also determines that appropriate research and respect is due for the cultures at hand bringing up how Muslim men are so often approached with stereotypical perceptions that impedes research on their religiosity and marriage practices.

In conclusion, this module delves deeper into the idea that kinship systems are a pillar necessary to tackle the intersection of religion and assistive reproductive technology, and the reliance of the human experience upon culture—hence why it is so valuable to study this topic from an anthropological perspective. 

 

 

Sources

 Susan McKinnon, “On Kinship and Marriage: A Critique of the Genetic and Gender Calculus of Evolutionary Psychology,” In S. McKinnon and S. Silverman editors, Complexities: Beyond Nature and Nurture, 106-131 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 

Warren Shapiro, “What Human Kinship is Primarily About: Towards a Critique of the New Kinship Studies.” Social Anthropology (2008) 16: 137-153. 

Marcia Inhorn, “He Won’t Be My Son: Middle Eastern Men’s Discourses of Gamete Donation.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 20 (2006): 94-120. 

Cultural vs. Evolutionary Kinship

 In each of their works, Shapiro and McKinnon establish a guide for the reader to understand kinship and its universal applications. The two differ on a few definitions of kinship, and more generally how kinship is determined. McKinnon, a social psychologist, attempts to create a blank slate for kinship that rejects genetic relationships and can be interpreted differently across different cultures. Shapiro, an anthropologist, casts doubt on McKinnon’s criticisms of genetic kinship and therefore confirms that genetic-based kinship is a useful guide for understanding kinship relations. When applied to the studies of Lebanese Muslim and Jewish Israeli cultural perspectives, it seems that genetics are the basis of kinship relations but there are some cross-cultural differences.

West vs. Rest Perspective

One of the main claims made by McKinnon and undermined by Shapiro is that there is a different categorization of kin in the rest of the world that does not exist in western cultures. She uses this claim to support her conclusion that evolutionary kinship or genetic kinship has developed an “idealized 1950s version of gender relations”(McKinnon, 130). McKinnon never defines the characteristics of the ideals she attempts to refute and also fails to show proof that entirely counters genetic kinship. As a reader, we can assume the ideals she describes are within her secondary conclusions on marriage and “multiplicity of motherhood”.

Marriage: Gender Asymmetry

 McKinnon’s conclusion and subsequent evidence that the evolutionary theory on kinship in marriage is flawed because it presupposes that men control resources is in itself flawed. Her conclusion is based on the evolutionary assumption of gender asymmetry. McKinnon concludes that this assumption means inequality between the two genders while the description by evolutionary psychologists does not show that to be true. Evolutionary psychologists describe the inequality as limitations to each gender to fulfilling their desire to reproduce successfully. This inequality is reconciled by marriage in which each gender contributes to their abilities. McKinnon focuses on the female perspective and views it as disadvantageous, however, she fails to take the male perspective that their offering of “resources” makes up for their unequal contribution to the physical reproductive process. In her multitude of examples, she fails to show an example where the woman was placed in a disadvantageous position to the man. She also does not define what resources are and, in her evidence, shows examples where women have contributed resources in marriage. As Shapiro argues, kinship has been shown to take place bilaterally, showing equal importance on the maternal and paternal sides.

Kinship and Culture in the Middle East

The application of evolutionary kinship is clear in Inhorn’s experience with Lebanese Muslim Men. In all cases, there was a clear association between one’s genetics and one’s degree of kinship. While the Sunni and Shi’a restrictions to reproductive technology differ, their interpretation of Islamic law is based on maintaining bilateral kinship. Sunni Muslim tradition does not allow for a third party in IVF at all, as it is considered a breach in the marriage contract between a man and a woman. On the other hand, some Shi’a leaders allow for a third party either through a temporary marriage contract or the infertile parents’ assertion to give up their rights to the child.

Kahn’s Method of Study

Inhorn’s use of cultural context for understanding the decisions which motivate couples seeking alternative reproductive technology is very much missing in Kahn’s “Reproducing Jews”. In establishing the methods of her study, she frames the issues for Israeli women as a conflict between political incentives and religious (halakhic) guidelines. While reading her accounts with various women in her study, the cultural gaps are evident. For example, in one of her methods, Kahn states that she will not analyze the women as Ashkenazim (Eastern European) or Sephardim (North African or Asian).

Israeli Kinship and the Kibbutz

Her choice to omit this “ethnic” distinction leaves the reader clueless as to the role the “Kibbutz” plays for the individual women, the political arena and everyday life. For some of the women of Ashkenazi descent, the kibbutz would have been a part of their upbringing or their parents. Further, the kibbutz movement and its roots in communal living meant that some women or their parents were not raised in their own homes but by the women who ran the “children’s house” on the kibbutz. For the women of Sephardi descent, the idea of the kibbutz might strike a negative feeling as immigrants from North African countries were often turned away from kibbutz communities or horribly treated within kibbutz communities. The Kibbutz movement and its memory are just one of the cultural differences that drive the women in Kahn’s book and it will be interesting to see how she develops her conclusions without them.

Culture and Genetics in Jewish Israeli Kinship

Later in her study, however, Kahn inevitably encounters the cultural impact of the two groups in the choice of sperm donor for the women in her study. The Sephardi/Ashkenazi identification was one of the few details that the women were given by the clinic. Their reaction to discovering this detail reflects Jewish Israeli kinship as both cultural and genetic. Though Kahn fails to mention this fact, a child’s Sephardi/Ashkenazi identification in the Jewish religion is patrilineal. Therefore, while both the women and clinics voiced concern for physical attributes of the child, there is an inherent consideration for mothers maintaining their own traditions on both sides.

Sources

Marcia Inhorn, He Won’t Be My Son: Middle Eastern Men’s Discourses of Gamete Donation.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 20 (2006): 94-120.

Susan Martha Kahn, Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel, 1-87 (Duke University Press, 2000).

Susan McKinnon, “On Kinship and Marriage: A Critique of the Genetic and Gender Calculus of Evolutionary Psychology,” In S. McKinnon and S. Silverman editors, Complexities: Beyond Nature and Nurture, 106-131 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Warren Shapiro, “What Human Kinship is Primarily About: Towards a Critique of the New Kinship Studies.” Social Anthropology (2008) 16: 137-153.

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