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.