Kinship And Gender: An Introduction [Hardcover]

Linda S Stone (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813328586 | ISBN-13: 978-0813328584 | Publication Date: March 20, 1997

This undergraduate textbook uses anthropological kinship as a framework for the cross-cultural study of gender. Connecting kinship with gender, Linda Stone focuses on human reproduction and the social and cultural implications of male and female reproductive roles. Her insightful narrative introduces new ways of approaching and understanding cross-cultural variations.Stone provides coverage of the field of kinship at the introductory level, but she also explores the major issues and debates in the study of the interrelation of gender and culture. The book reviews studies of primate kinship, considers ideas about the evolution of human kinship, and looks at kinship and gender in relation to different modes of descent, as illustrated by seven in-depth ethnographic case studies. Stone examines marriage through case studies of marriage in ancient Rome and Himalayan polyandry and offers a history of Euro-American kinship and gender, as well as an examination of the repercussions of the new reproductive technologies on both kinship and gender.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Besides providing a female perspective on marriage and family in different cultures, Stone has succeeded in making the study of kinship less arcane than classic texts." -- Christine Ho, University of South Florida --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Linda Stone is a Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. She is the author of Illness Beliefs and Feeding the Dead in Hindu Nepal and co-author of Gender and Culture in America (with Nancy P. McKee). She is editor of New Directions in Kinship Studies and co-editor of Family and Kinship: An Anthropological Reader.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (March 20, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813328586
• ISBN-13: 978-0813328584
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,424,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a kindrid spirit, September 18, 2001

By 

Peter Gray - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kinship and Gender: An Introduction (Paperback)

Perhaps because we have lessened its daily importance, the topic of kinship, as Stone quickly notes, strikes many of us as boring and painful. How then to minimize the pain, if not create some enjoyment, in reading about it, whether for a course (as this book was designed for) or for other reasons? Stone's answer is to join it to gender, and this certainly helps, tying into subjects that have greater daily importance to many of us (sex differences, cross-cultural marriage patterns, male/female status, etc.). Also earning "thumbs up" are the author's sensible positions on many topics, eschewing some of the cruder sociobiological interpretations and tempering extreme feminist views. By being a recent book, it helps fill a gap, too, by bringing the study of kinship up-to-date, including a nice chapter on the evolution of kinship and gender. Where the book falls short, however, is its unbalanced presentation of kinship and gender material. It mixes theory with case studies (e.g. the Nayar of India); though the case studies are rich in detail, for a book of this sort they seemed to carry on too long and form too much of the emphasis. The effect is to transform chapters on matrilineages, double descent and marriage into brief background discussions and then shift focus to a few case studies on each topic. More thorough cross-cultural comparisons would have helped balance these discussions. A more systematic cross-cultural perspective would have also shown that examples that seemed specific sometimes have broad applicability, such as Stone's "double sexual standard" (p. 226) that Daly and Wilson (see The Adapted Mind) have shown extends well beyond Eurasian traditions. Overall, the book does cause less pain than one could have supposed for a book on kinship.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent overview but skimpy on theory, July 27, 2009

By 

Scully (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kinship and Gender: An Introduction (Paperback)

I agree almost completely with Gray's review. I have used Stone's book in a course on kinship and while the conversational fodder is plentiful due to inclusion of interesting case studies, theoretical issues are largely glossed over. This would make a nice supplement to Parkin, however, who covers the fundamentals of kinship (as dryly as possible) and the major associated anthropological theories.

The tone of the book is uneven; though she dispenses with extreme "biological" and feminist viewpoints, Stone often exposes her own ideology in discussions of previous male biases in kinship research. Moreover, the text would benefit from general reorganization; the author's colloquial style often leaves ends untied or tied too quickly. In particular, case studies might be kept apart from the theoretical text while other theoretical issues (e.g., Levi-Strauss's contributions) should be kept together.

Finally, while the fundamental structural elements of kinship are well covered (marriage, descent, residence, etc.), some things are glaringly absent. It seems a shame not to include at least a chapter on the history of anthropological thought on kinship, even if the formalism of the past is best abandoned for the sake of teaching introductory courses. The chapter on evolution is also too broadly construed (considering both origins and current adaptations, primates, paleoevolution and contemporary groups), yet very little attention is paid to evolutionary ecological models of human kinship (which have largely replaced the sociobiological viewpoint).

In sum: this is a decent book for teaching (it even has suggestions for movies and discussion questions) -if- used in conjunction with a more rigorous text on kinship, per se. As one of the only contemporary textbooks addressing 150 years of anthropological kinship study, it has its work cut out for it.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent seller!, July 11, 2010

By 

Vickie - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kinship and Gender: An Introduction (Paperback)

My book came quickly and was exactly as described. Thanks for a great transaction!