The Play is Now Reality: Affective Turns, Narrative Struggles, and Theorizing Emotion as Practical Experience

Discursive approaches to subjectivity have been critiqued most recently for its dismissal of a living body that moves and senses. While identity as performative has proven invaluable to contemporary cultural theory for its dynamic conceptualization of power in everyday practice, the emergence of what some scholars have named an “affective turn” has prompted calls for configuring the body as more than a complex set of significations, but also a vibrant energy field in perpetual emergence. Centered on an enacted story created by two clinical therapists and two South Asian immigrant domestic violence survivors during a therapeutic support group session, this paper brings the affective turn into dialog with narrative theory. I juxtapose two different readings of this clinical “performance.” One interpretation recognizes affect theory’s value for highlighting sensation and the virtual in moments of transformation. Nonetheless I argue it overlooks a lived history. Thus, using a specifically dramatistic approach to narrative, the second analysis stresses the importance of personal experience and meaning-making in strengthening the link between affect and subjectivity. In doing so, the case study also argues for emotion’s critical link to practical and moral experience.     

Kinship vis-à-vis Myth Contrasts in Lévi-Strauss' Approaches to Cross-Cultural Comparison

The enormous secondary literature which relates Lévi-Strauss' comparative studies to different schools of thought has failed sufficiently to emphasize the major discontinuity within his own work. This paper characterizes the basic methodological differences in his approaches to "kinship" and to "myth." It then suggests how, by concentrating on the kinship/myth distinction, we might constructively refine various structuralist concepts, such as distinctive feature analysis and the logical foundations of the "elementary" kinship structures. Only by concentrating on the few inconsistencies in Lévi-Strauss' remarkably coherent corpus of work can an adequate critique of his theories of comparison be commenced.     

The Oedipus Complex, Antigone, and Electra: The Woman as Hero and Victim

This paper reinterprets the structural interpretation of Greek mythology presented by Leach and Lévi-Strauss from a feminist perspective. The reinterpretation approaches the Oedipus myth and Freud's analysis of it from the perspective of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and a hero of Sophoclean tragedy. Ancient Greek tragedy allowed a few mythic women the role of hero, although women in ancient Greek society were confined to the domestic sphere. The paper discusses Antigone, Electra, and other mythic women in their relations to family and the public domain. The interpretation of Greek mythology differs from previous ones but is not inconsistent with them, [mythology, gender roles, Oedipus complex, myth and social structure, structuralism]     

Symbolic violence and sexualities in the myth making of Mexican national identity

Symbolic violence has the capability to transform aspects of gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality and it is portrayed in a vast iconography, from myth, historic documents, prints and drawings. In this article I focus on two constructions of national identity that are entwined with gender and sexual roles: first, the mestizo myth, or the narrative of the common ethnic origins of the Mexican nation, and, second, the popular consumption of this national myth in the form of pictures and drawings depicting mestizo couples, the progenitors of idealized Mexican families conforming an integrative nation. To illustrate my argument I have used newspaper articles written by nineteenth-century women and picture cards of calendars and almanacs (mid-twentieth century) which give account of roles of sexuality and gender in shaping the nationalist mythology of common origin.     

Procreative and performative kinship among residents in Victorian caravan parks

Recent senior anthropologists have heralded a new era where performative social and cultural kinship may eclipse procreational ‘biological kinship’ in contemporary western society. This article takes research on permanent residents in caravan parks as an extreme case that may act as an exemplar for future western contexts. Between 2003 and 2008, interviews with caravan‐park managers, 50 interviews with park residents and short field stays at 17 outer Melbourne and rural Victorian caravan parks, provided multi‐sited ethnographic material for analysis. I argue that contemporary contexts for relatedness give scope for creative development of social performative ties with ‘ex’ spouses and in‐laws, friends and pets. ‘Biological’ kin and family with a material dimension remain central, however, and a response to family need or rupture is often the broadening of the procreative kin links between grandparent and grandchild and between siblings. Childhood institutionalisation and divorce in particular, contributed to pathways towards caravan park housing. Other kin‐based motivations include finding safe accommodation for wives; providing housing for young adult males after injury and family divorce; and arranging for housing succession for children. Ideas of blood and folk biology demonstrate considerable resilience in contemporary kinship arrangements.     

Are the Siriono Raw or Cooked?

In this paper Siriono myth and ritual are interpreted with a model of Siriono social structure. Whereas other students of the Siriono have noted their lack of sociability and have even suggested that their culture is incoherent, the present approach suggests that social exchange among the Siriono is a total social fact, but one that focuses on a peculiar relationship between men and women within a kinship idiom of parallel descent and matrilateral cross-cousin marriage .     

Whatever Happened to the Id?

There has been a strong tendency in structural and symbolic anthropology to assume that sex and aggression are of no concern to cultural symbol systems. Even when cultural beliefs, myths, or rituals are explicitly and preponderantly sexual or aggressive in content, they are typically interpreted as metaphors for social structural themes. This thesis is illustrated with respect to aggression by an analysis of Lévi-Strauss' interpretation of a Bororo myth, after which the assumptions that structural theory makes concerning the place of aggression in cultural symbol systems are contrasted with the opposing assumptions of psychoanalytic theory. [structuralism, psychoanalysis, cultural symbol systems, myth]     

A Structural Analysis of a Mandan Myth

Abstract

This is an exercise in the application of Levi-Strauss’ techniques for the structural analysis of a myth. The technique puts form or structure before content-saying that cultural forms are reducible to Mind. The operations of the Mind conform to a dialectical process, pitting one form with its contrary, and arriving at a synthesis or mediation of terms. The elements of the myth will be strung out in two dimensions as the score of an orchestra -- a sequential order of notes is matched up with the harmony. Interpreting the score is like deciphering a code, which only becomes significant through the proper identification of the permutation of symbols.

Three myths concerned with the Shell Robe Bundle from the Mandan were analyzed. Starting with one myth, opposing categories were constructed from a four-column sequence of elements. Permutations and homologous relations that obtained were then examined when all myths were compared. The structure of the myth rested on the oppositions winter and summer, and moved in cycles of opposition to that of life and death. Each opposing pair was mediated by the succeeding cycle as Winter and Summer are mediated by North and South.     

Kin Preference and Partner Choice

This paper presents a comparison of social kinship (patrilineage) and biological kinship (genetic relatedness) in predicting cooperative relationships in two different economic contexts in the fishing and whaling village of Lamalera, Indonesia. A previous analysis (Alvard, Human Nature 14:129-163, 2003) of boat crew affiliation data collected in the village in 1999 found that social kinship (patrilineage) was a better predictor of crew affiliation than was genetic kinship. A replication of this analysis using similar data collected in 2006 finds the same pattern: lineage is a better predictor than genetic kinship of crew affiliation, and the two together explain little additional variance over that explained by lineage alone. However, an analogous test on food-sharing relationships finds the opposite pattern: biological kinship is a better predictor of food-sharing relationships than is social kinship. The difference between these two cooperative contexts is interpreted in terms of kin preferences that shape partner choice, and the relative autonomy with which individuals can seek to satisfy those preferences. Drawing on stable matching theory, it is suggested that unilineal descent may serve as a stable compromise among multiple individuals' incongruent partner preferences, with patriliny favored over matriliny in the crew-formation context because it leads to higher mean degrees of relatedness among male cooperators. In the context of food-sharing, kin preferences can be pursued relatively autonomously, without the necessity of coordinating preferences with those of other households through the institution of lineage.     

The Veil of Objectivity: Prophecy, Divination, and Social Inquiry

It is possible for folk inquiry to become a source for the modification of anthropological thought. This paper discusses two alternative knowledge systems: traditional divination and syncretic prophecy in Central Africa. The processes of scientific discovery, causal reasoning, and the evaluation of evidence are compared with oracular reasoning and prophetic prediction. The oracular aspects of scientific reasoning are delineated along with the problems of reformulating and presenting basic data. Part of this presentational process is the "translation" of events from the context of their occurrence into a theoretical framework. The modifications generated by data analysis affect the explanatory adequacy of the method of inquiry. A rapprochement between folk inquiry and Western scientific assumptions diminishes the forms of theoretical reductionism that inhibit the possibility for describing and analyzing contrasting belief systems within an anthropological framework . [folk inquiry, prophecy, divination, scientific reasoning, Africa]     

Godrap Girls,Draou Boys,and the Sexual Economy of the Bluff in Abidjan,Côte d'Ivoire

In Abidjan, both economic and sexual exchanges are structured around the bluff, a mimetic performance of modern urban identity that is both a form of deception and a means of social transformation. Men and women attempt to seduce each other through the bluff and exploit the relationship for material gain. While marriage is held up as an ideal, it is increasingly elusive as kinship has come to mimic the peer networks of the informal economy. Like drag, the bluff collapses oppositions between appearance and reality, highlighting the performative aspects of ‘modernity’. I suggest that widespread urban sexual antagonism may be constructed around gendered performative consumption, such that the impossible demands of maintaining a deceptive appearance of success produces sexual exploitation and anxiety on both sides of the gender divide.     

Spatial genetic structure in two congeneric epiphytes with different dispersal strategies analysed by three different methods

Three different approaches were used to assess the kinship structure of two epiphytic bryophytes, Orthotrichum speciosum and O. obtusifolium, that have different dispersal strategies. The two species were sampled in a 200 ha landscape where species occurrence and host trees had been mapped previously. Local environmental conditions at sampled trees were recorded and kinship between individuals was calculated based on amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP)-marker data. We did not detect any association between AFLP-markers and investigated environmental conditions. In both species, significant kinship coefficients were found between individuals up to 300-350 m apart which shows that both species have a restricted dispersal range. The spatial kinship structure was detected with both autocorrelation analysis and generalized additive models (GAMs), but linear regression failed to detect any structure in O. speciosum. Although the dioecious O. obtusifolium is currently the more common species it may, none the less, due to its restricted dispersal range and reproduction mode, become threatened in the future by current silvicultural practices which enhance the distance between host trees and decrease their life span. Finally, GAMs seem most appropriate for analysing spatial genetic structure because the effects of local environmental conditions and spatial structure can be analysed simultaneously, no assumption of a parametric form between kinship coefficient and distance is required, and spatial data resolution is not lost in the arbitrary choice of distance classes characterizing autocorrelation analysis.     

The structure of dream sequences

The present study examines the relationships between dreams reported by a subject in the course of two nights in a sleep laboratory. The method used is derived from Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis of myth. The dreams are shown to constitute a set of systematic transformations of a single structure. The structure itself is formed by a set of oppositions, which in part represent a dilemma or conflict facing the dreamer. In the course of the night's dreams a series of transformations of the problem are generated and scanned. These transformations are governed by regular quasi-logical procedures.     

Introduction: Reclaiming Paradigms Lost

This introduction is a critical response to claims made about the demise and revival of the sub‐discipline of kinship studies. Contemporary calls to a reclaimed and revitalised area rest, ironically, on a misplaced concentration on the preoccupations of dominant cultures, one of the grounds used to discard kinship in the past. It is argued that many of the issues debated up to the 1970s in the domain of kinship involve more general problems such as arguments about structure and process, gender and biology and the way in which indigenous categories are to be apprehended and accommodated in a genuinely comparative discipline. The case is also made that kinship's demise is largely an Anglocentric phenomenon and that the continuing importance of many of the issues debated in the past, such as the relationship between people and land and its local ideological representations and global consequences, make knowledge of kinship's more exotic manifestations vital to contemporary graduates. The final section introduces the papers in the volume, each of which addresses, in a contemporary and critical way, an area that was important to previous kinship debates and remains of interest in the present.     

Transforming history and myth: On the mutuality and separation of shared narratives in Eastern Tibet

Questioning the distinction between ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ societies, and an implied separation between myth and history, anthropologists have increasingly urged for an understanding of both myth and history as equally valid modes of shared social consciousness. This article takes up this point of view by referring to a written history of Lhagang, a town in Eastern Tibet; a history that appears to have the transformative content and oral circulation of myth. Using Lévi‐Strauss’ structural analysis of myth and Santos‐Granero's concept of topograms to demonstrate the mythemes that derive from the written history and circulate among Lhagang Tibetans, the article argues that, within the political and cultural context of Lhagang, myth and history shift in and out of indigenous categories even while being categorically distinct.     

Lévi-Strauss on the Oedipus Myth: A Reconsideration

The first half of the article presents a critique of Lévi-Strauss' well-known analysis of the Oedipus myth. A consideration of Greek beliefs suggests that Lévi-Strauss is incorrect in tying certain events in that myth to the "overvaluation of blood relations" and in asserting that the myth is concerned with the "affirmation/denial of man's autochthonous origins." The second half of the article presents a different structural analysis of the entire Theban Saga, of which the Oedipus myth is but a part. It concludes (1) that Lévi-Strauss is correct in identifying a series of events in the myth which indicate the devaluation of blood relations, but that these events specifically refer to the devaluation of patrilineal kin ties and that the range of events indicating the devaluation of patrilineal ties is broader than his analysis would suggest, and (2) there is another series of repeated events (unmentioned by Lévi-Strauss) which indicates the affirmation of patrilineal kin ties. The final hypothesis— that the opposition between the devaluation/affirmation of patrilineal kin ties underlies the Theban Saga— "makes sense" in terms of Greek history, as the period in which the Olympian myths look their present form is also the period in which the Greeks moved from a society organized along patrilineal kin ties to one organized around allegiance to the polis. [structuralism, Oedipus myth, myth and social structure, Lévi-Strauss, anthropological theory]     

Migration and genetic structure in Northumberland

To understand the genetic variation that occurs among regions of northern England, we estimated migration from places of birth and residence in the last two generations for a sample of 1367 families in Northumberland. There has been an increase in kinship among regions, compatible with the increased mobility of recent decades, but the kinship patterns suggest that any regional gene frequency differences have remained relatively undiluted. Comparison of kinship and geographic distance between regions indicates that geographic location is an important determinant of genetic structure.     

Dispersal,kinship and inbreeding in an island population of the Great Tit

We investigated the kinship structure of an island population of the Great Tit (Parus major). Kinship of birds could be inferred by comparing their family trees. Dispersal was also studied to explain the observed pattern of kinship. On the island of Vlieland the tits breed in several wooded areas. Both males and females preferred to breed in their natal area; males did so more strongly than females. Hence gene flow between the areas is restricted. However, within the largest wooded area females showed random dispersal, while males showed a slight tendency to breed near their natal site. The degree of kinship of neighbouring birds is a suitable control group for the relatedness of partners that takes into account the effects of dispersal. In the largest wooded area, birds were on average equally related to their partner and to their neighbours. Moreover, the mean coefficient of kinship between male and female neighbours was equal to the average kinship in this part of the population. We conclude that mating is random with respect to kinship. There is no evidence for avoidance of inbreeding. It is unlikely that kin recognition plays an important role in the process of mate choice in this population of Great Tits. We suggest that ecological factors are the main causes for the observed patterns of dispersal and mating. On the island more female than male immigrants enter the population each year. Incidental data indicate an exchange of birds between the population studied and surrounding populations. Ancestries of immigrants are not known, and indeed a first analysis of all birds, including immigrants, showed that males were more closely related than females. However, differential immigration could not fully explain the observed difference in kinship. The presence of local adaptation in males is suggested as a possible additional cause.