Transcript Why Conduct Qualitative Research?

Status, role and kinship
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All cultures recognize
personal differences and developmental
differences
 differences by age and sex and
 differences based on consanguineal and
affinal kinship
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Statuses …
Statuses are the labels assigned to
recognized differences among
people.
 Societies, families, and groups in
general are constellations of
statuses.
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… and roles
Roles comprise the set of rules for
acting out statuses properly – within
limits that can be more or less rigid.
 The limits of these rules for role
behavior are a source of debate in
many societies.
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Ascribed and achieved statuses
Ascribed: birth order, sex, family
membership, physical characteristics
 Achieved: college student,
carpenter, accountant
 Statuses must be filled each
generation
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Ratio of ascribed/achieved statuses
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Societies differ in the ratio of
achieved/ascribed statues.
In foraging societies, most statuses are
ascribed and are tied to age and sex.
In technologically advanced societies,
most statuses are achieved.
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Sex, especially, has come to be less and less
important in determining statuses and roles in
those societies.
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Social class is still partly an ascribed
status in England.
Because England is a technologically
advanced society, status ascription is
anomalous.
But the phenomenon of status ascription
in England is diminishing.
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The rate of social change is not equal in all
societies, but over the long term,
infrastructural convergence is leading to
structural convergence - - that is, to
achievement-based statuses.
The meaning of statuses can change
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Consider the meaning of status based on
gender and age:
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What is adolescence? In 1900, people 20
years old were no longer adolescents. Today,
adolescence may last until 30.
What is old age?
How has the meaning of the status “mother”
and “father” changed over the last 30 years?
Concurrent and serial statuses
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Statuses can be held concurrently
and serially:
Sister/brother and student are
concurrent statuses. We change our
behavior, depending on which status we
occupy at a given moment.
 Being a married man or woman and
being a mother or father are serial
statuses.
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Indicators of status
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Insignia
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Dress and accessories
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Fraternity and sorority pins
Backpacks vs. attaché cases
Ornaments
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Jewelry and makeup
Hairstyle
 Speech style
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What does the following ad say
about status and role?
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Kinship
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Kinship has always been important for
understanding social relations.
Kinship, however, is less important today
than it once was in technologically
advanced societies.
In our society, other institutions have
taken the place of family for teaching the
young their vocations; for passing on
religious knowledge; for taking care of
the sick and the aged.
Why we study kinship
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Kinship rules define how social ties
of descent and marriage are
established and elaborated and how
these ties relate to all other areas of
behavior, like economic and political
behavior.
Social vs. biological parenthood
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The distinction is recognized
everywhere and provision is made
in all societies for socially defined
kin.
Godparents
 Adoptions
 Foster parents
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The basis of kinship terms
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Kinship systems are based on
recognition of distinctions in:
Generation
 Relative age
 Lineality (and collaterality)
 Sex of relative, sex of speaker, sex of
intervening relative (cross- or parallel
cousins – mbd vs fzd, for example)
 Consanguineal vs. affinal relatives
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Here is the list of kinship terms in
English.
 Which basic features are reflected in
these terms?
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Kin terms in English
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mother
father
sister
brother
grand mother
grandfather
uncle
aunt
great uncle
great aunt
Cousin
niece
nephew
m-i-l, f-i-l
s-i-l, d-i-l
b-i-l, z-i-l
The fuzzy edges of kinship systems
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At some level, everyone is related to
everyone else on Earth. Kinship systems
place boundaries on whom we recognize
as our relatives.
The boundaries are fuzzy. We can see the
fuzzy boundaries of kinship in our
society: What do you call your:
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Wife’s sister’s husband
Husband’s brother’s wife?
Sister’s husband? Wife’s brother?
Other systems
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Spanish has clear kinship terms for
the relatives that are at the fuzzy
boundaries of the English-language
kinship system:
concuñado, concuñada
 consuegro, consuegra
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That is: co-brothers[sisters]-in-law
and co-fathers[mothers]-in-law
These terms in Spanish are
becoming rare, especially in urban
areas, like Miami and New York.
 In other words, in those situations,
the Spanish kinship system is
coming more and more to look like
American English kinship system,
with the same fuzzy edges.
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If you think those edges are fuzzy,
consider 9th cousins …
Unilineal and bilateral kinship
About 70% of the world’s kin
systems are unilineal.
 Matrilineal kinship is relatively rare:
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30% matrilineal
 60% patrilineal
 10% dual lineal
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Matrilineal: in each generation,
children are assigned to the kin
group of their mother.
 Patrilineal: in each generation,
children are assigned to the kin
group of their father.
 Bilateral: no lineal descent rule.
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Unilineal descent: lineages, clans
traced through known and mythical
links to a common ancestor.
 Unilineal descent is most common in
the middle range of socio-economic
complexity.
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The Ashanti kingdom of West Africa
was matrilineal.
 The Navajo are matrilineal.
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Bilateral rules
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Bilateral = no lineal descent rule, but it
does not mean a lack of rules for
marriage.
The U.S. is a bilateral system –
alsko known as the Eskimo type –
common among highly mobile
people and found at both ends of
the socioeconomic complexity scale.
Cousin marriage
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G.P. Murdock: H/G groups are always
exogamous in order to develop exchange.
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But 75% of marriages among the Iban of
Maylaysia are to first and second cousins (J.
D. Freeman)
Jack Goody argues that the prohibition
against cousin marriage in European society
was to discourage the accumulation of wealth
in the nobility.
Descent groups
People in bilateral systems do not
remember the names of their greatgrandparents.
 By contrast, people in unilineal
systems may be able to recite five
or six generations of names.
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Corporate descent groups
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Descent groups are often corporate
groups that hold land and that have a call
on the loyalty of members.
Two theories to account for the existence
of corporate descent groups:
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the need for order in stateless societies
the need for management of swidden
agricultural land in pre-irrigation (pre-state)
societies with long fallow periods
Lineages and clans
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Lineages are often grouped into
clans:
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Common (perhaps mythical) totem
ancestors, without common links.
Clans may be combined into
phratries or into moieties.
 The Kariera four-system case
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Bilateral groups have more relatives
and are more fragile, with the
nuclear family and the generalized
kindred as the core groups.
Kinds of marriage
Monogamy: 24% of the world's
cultures
 Polygyny: 70%
 Polyandry: 1%
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In Tibet, serfs had a fixed amount of
land that could be passed to sons.
 Only these landed serfs practiced
polyandry.
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Postmarital residence
Neolocal, matrilocal, patrilocal – and
ambilocal
 Hypothesis: residence should follow
the gender that produces the most
food, as in patrilocal bands and
many matrilocal horticulturalists.
 This is not the case
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The Embers’ study of residence
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Carol and Melvin Ember tested the hypothesis
that warfare was an intervening variable.
If a community is at war with close neighbors,
then it is advantageous to keep men (through
sentiment) nearby.
If warfare is low or with distant groups, then this
will result in high domestic production for
women and residence will tend to be matrilocal
Here are the Embers’ findings:
RESIDENCE
MATRILOCAL
EXTERNAL
PATRILOCAL
5
3
1
24
WARFARE
INTERNAL
source
Goldstein's study of Tibetan polyandry
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Two or more brothers take a wife.
Compare to primogeniture in 19th
century England:
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3 brothers take 3 wives
each wife bears 3 sons
3 brothers take 1 wife who bears 3 sons
In the second generation
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9 sons take 9 wives who produce 27 sons.
Third generation, 27 grandsons take 27 wives
who produce 81 sons
Explanations of the Tibetan case
Female infanticide and the supposed
control of population growth
 Poor land
 But: there is no institutionalized
infanticide and the land is not that
poor.
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Polyandry and population growth
When Goldstein did his work in Limi
the ratio was 60/53 F/M among 1535 year olds.
 FP marriages in Limi had 2.35
children and 31% of females were
unmarried.
 Married women had 3.3 children and
unmarried women had 0.7 children.
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Etic reasons for the Tibetan case
Land is hard to farm and needs to
be kept intact.
 In traditional times, serfs practiced
FP but not the landless or the lords.
 Serfs owed labor to lords: one
brother did the corvée, one tended
animals, the wife did the agriculture.
 More brothers went into trade.
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Tibetan polyandry today
It is declining among the poor as
new economic opportunities open
up.
 It is practiced more among the
middle class that is keeping land
holdings intact.
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What explains kinship systems?
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Kinship systems comprise a selection of
the possible distinctions that can be
made: sex of intervening relative,
collaterality, etc.
So far, there is no explanation for all the
variations in kinship systems.
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We do know that matrilineal systems are
fragile and become bilateral or patrilineal
under conditions of urbanization.
And we know that foragers are likely to
be patrilineal and patrilocal. This is
probably because it is easier for women
to learn how to extract plant food from a
new environment than for men to learn
how to extract protein out of new
environment.
Restrictions on sexuality
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Societies differ on the kinds of sexuality
that are permitted, restricted, or
encouraged.
Abortion, famine, war, colonization, and
homosexuality restrict reproduction.
Accounting for differences in emphasis on
virginity and tolerance for homosexuality.
Alice Schlegel’s study of status, property, and virginity
Correlation of value on virginity with type of marriage transaction
virginity
valued
none
bride
wealth
bride
service
gift
dowry
exchange
total
yes
3
16
6
9
18
52
no
26
27
10
3
7
73
N=125, chi-square = 27.13, p <.0001
Dowry
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Dowry is associated with restrictions
on female sexuality and involves
wealth transfer from bride’s family
to groom’s family.
 Occurs in < 3% of societies and in
8% of societies with economic
transactions associated with
marriage.
Dowry
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Not the mirror of bride price
Occurs where women contribute little to
subsistence, there is a high degree of
social stratification, and monogamy.
But many such societies do not practice
dowry.
Declared illegal in India in 1961
Dowry deaths
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Bride deaths have increased:
1982
389
 1985
999
 1988
2209
 1990
4835
 1993
4936
 1995
4811
 1997
6000
 2000
6995
(the facts are in dispute, but it is generally accepted
that the problem has been increasing).
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Kinship and economics
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Acrury’s study of rural Kentucky, 19001980
1900 barter and subsistence agriculture
1960 mostly farmers but with food for
sale, not for subsistence
1980 factory, commerce, and service
economy is 80% and 20% is farming
1900 nuclear families grew into
complex families. 40% of families
where head of HH was 45-54 were
complex
 By 1980, this was down to 10%
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Family structure and social change
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This shows how sensitive family structure
is to social and economic change.
We see this now, with female headed
households on the rise at both ends of
the socioeconomic spectrum.
Among the poor, it is an adaptation to
circumstances that they did not choose.
Note again the emic and etic
explanations.