The course aims to introduce the students to contemporary anthropological debates on kinship, family, intimacy and “relatendness”. Indeed, the course analyzes classic and contemporary theories of kinship. Additionally, it concentrates on culturally diverse ways of kinship/family organization and arrangement of the domestic sphere in different societies and cultures. Further emphasis is placed on the concepts of marriage, dowry, descent, motherhood, fatherhood as well as “old” and “new” forms of family-making. Simultaneously, the course associates relationships and practices of kinship and family with processes of learning and knowledge, socialization, becoming and belonging as well as with various domains of social life. In the context of the analysis of contemporary kinship transformations, attention is placed on the national and international legislative framework for the family.
The course is structured around the following thematic areas:
1. What is kinship?
2. Anthropological approaches to kinship from the 19th until the first half of 20th century
3. Anthropological approaches to kinship from the second half of 20th century until today
4. Descent and marriage
5. Domestic space
6. Kinship and gender
Gender, Family and power relations
Contemporary approaches to parenthood-motherhood-fatherhood
7.Kinship and age
Children και family
Intergenerational relations
Children’s rights
8.Kinship-“relatedness”-“belonging”
The family as a locus of learning processes-Informal learning within the family
The family as a locus of belonging
9. Social exclusion and family
Socially vulnerable groups
Children and poverty
10. “New” forms of family relations
11. Political and legal regulation of the family