Shifting circles of support

State economic policies are increasingly premised on an opposition between growth and the social responsibilities of the state, reflected in the dis mantling and/or neglect of state welfare systems. This has often been justified by assumptions regarding the unchanging 'security' provided by family and kinship. This volume questions such perspectives and assumptions through its focus on shifting relations of kinship support and sanction. Combining the fields of kinship, law and political economy, the contributors address three impor tant themes.

First is the dialectical relationship between mac roeconomic and political processes and structures on the one hand, and the relationships of gender, family, and kinship on the other. Second is the mutual implication of kinship and gender rela tions. And third is a historical perspective informed by a sensitivity to change. The chapters presented in this book broadly argue that not only do these themes necessarily entail each other, they require that kinship and gender relations be viewed as dynamic, interacting and shifting struc tures, rather than as static principles.

The case studies cover countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Through their commonalities and differences, they provide comparisons within and across regions that yield unusual insights, highlighting the foregoing themes. The studies address various dimensions of changing kinship and gender relations-how people view them, make them, live in them, and in the process are both influenced by and affect alternatives to family support and kinship ties, including state provisions for 'weaker' family members-women, children, the elderly. The contributors-drawn from the dis ciplines of law, anthropology, sociology, and economics-point to the duality of kinship and family networks as networks of both care and con trol, and to the increasing imbalance between sup port and power, between controlled care-givers and resources controllers.