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About the author
Kathryn E. Goldfarb is an associate professor of anthro-pology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Sandra Bamford is an associate professor and chair of anthro-pology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She is the editor of The Cambridge Hand-book of Kinship, coeditor of Beyond Kinship: The Genea-logical 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 Univ. and Hon. Life President of the UK Association of Social Anthro-pologists (ASA). She is the author of Relations: An Anthro-pological Account and Kinship, Law, and the Unexpected: Relatives Are Always a Surprise.
Difficult Attachments
Kathryn E. Goldfarb & Sandra Bamford (Ed.)
'This arresting and highly welcome collection provides a long-overdue, sustained scrutiny of the so-called 'negative' aspects of kinship.'
Janet Carsten - co-editor of Marriage in Past, Present and Future Tense
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.