000			01989nam a2200193Ia 4500
999			_c18891 _d18891
005			20220223221948.0
008			200202s9999 xx 000 0 und d
020			_a422743607
082			_a306.83 NEE
100			_aNeedham Rodney
245		0	_aRemarks and inventions : _bskeptical essays about kinship
260			_aLondon
260			_bTavistock
260			_c1974
300			_a181 p.
520			_aKinship is a fundamental and character istic concern in social anthropology, yet as a theoretical topic it is in a state of deteriorating disarray. Dr Needham turns a skeptical scrutiny on questions of conceptualization, method, and history in this field of study, and proposes a radical revision of the conventional approaches and criteria. The first chapter considers in turn the standard divisions of the subject, such as marriage, descent, terminologies, incest, etc., and offers a theoretical readjustment, inspired largely by the precepts of Wittgenstein. The second makes innovations of analysis and method in exploring the necessary disparity between relative age and kinship categories as means of social classification. The third is an historical examination of Radcliffe Brown's claim to have predicted and then discovered the Kariera system in Western Australia, followed by a critique of the repeated assertions by Lévi-Strauss and others that this was a triumph of structural ism, a validation of scientific method in social anthropology, and evidence of the unconscious logic of the human mind. An introduction sets the essays in context and stresses their concerted significance for a more critical scholarship in the study of human nature. This volume, dedicated to the memory of Andrew Lang, a brilliant maverick and skeptical intelligence in the early development of social anthropology, is an incisive critique of many widely accepted ideas about kinship, social anthropology, and the claims of structuralism.
650			_aKinship.
942			_cB _2ddc