The Metamorphoses of Kinship

Maurice Godelier, Nora Scott

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English

Verso Books
28 April 2020

Cultural studies; Anthropology; Social & cultural anthropology

With marriage in decline, divorce on the rise and the demise of the nuclear family, it is clear that the structures of kinship in the modern West are in a state of flux.

In The Metamorphoses of Kinship, the world-renowned anthropologist Maurice Godelier contextualises these developments, surveying the accumulated experience of humanity with regard to such phenomena as the organisation of lines of descent, sexuality and sexual prohibitions. In parallel, Godelier studies the evolution of Western conjugal and familial traditions from their roots in the nineteenth century to the present. The conclusion he draws is that it is never the case that a man and a woman are sufficient on their own to raise a child, and nowhere are relations of kinship or the family the keystone of society.

By: Maurice Godelier
Translated by: Nora Scott
Imprint: Verso Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 41mm
Weight: 726g
ISBN: 9781788736626
ISBN 10: 1788736621
Pages: 656
Publication Date: 28 April 2020
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Maurice Godelier is Professor of Anthropology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris. His publications include Rationality and Irrationality in Economics, The Mental and the Material, The Making of Great Men, The Enigma of the Gift, In and Out of the West, and The Metamorphoses of Kinship.

Reviews for The Metamorphoses of Kinship

A truly monumental work - Wendy James, University of Oxford This is a blockbuster of a book. Nothing like it has been written since Levi-Strauss's Structures e?le?mentaires de la parente? (1949) or Meyer Fortes's Kinship and the Social Order (1969). Yet in the sweep of its evidence and argument, Godelier's summa is more ambitious and far-reaching than either of these. It is at once a major intervention in the discipline of anthropology, and a work of the widest human interest ... The book is both a monument of scholarship and a gripping set of reflections on universal experience. It is certain to be read and discussed for years to come. --Jack Goody, New Left Review Godelier has reasserted the value of our rich tradition of discussions of kinship matters. He has also shown how the category has metamorphosed as it has drawn in new issues of pressing current importance in modern life and made his case that, far from being genuinely in decline, the study of kinship is central to our understanding of what it means to be human. --Robert H. Barnes, Comparative Studies in Society and History