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.