Blog 4

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Critical Feedback for Essay C: "What are the advantages of the concept of 'relatedness' over that of 'kinship'?"

Essay C on the whole was a well-written essay with many references to different approaches to the advantages of the concept of ‘relatedness’ over that of ‘kinship’. However, the essay does lack the detail of critical judgement which could have been achieved. For example, in the main body paragraph 1, line starting “Many anthropologists…”, this paragraph has good ideas but the lacked the depth it could have gone into. This paragraph could have had more detail about why David Schneider (1984) thought that fictive kin carried these negative connotations. In addition, in paragraph 2, there could have been an example given which supports the judgement that conducting fieldwork through the lens of traditional kinship studies lacks certain acknowledgments, as by giving this example it creates a stronger and more convincing argument. Within paragraph 3, there is mention of Levi-Strauss’ (1949) theory of alliance but does not go into much detail about what this consists of and if the student had gone into more detail about this, it would have shown an increase in awareness for the scholarly opinion. To end the essay, there could have been a better critical judgement given to directly answer what the advantages are for the concept of ‘relatedness’ over that of ‘kinship’, although this was achieved to some extent, it could have been done to a higher degree. Overall, this essay was well written with good factual knowledge of the scholarly opinion related to this topic, but did lack in certain areas, such as the critical judgement and maintaining a strong line of argument. 


Bibliography:

Levi-Strauss, C. (1949) The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Beacon Press∫ Boston Lopez, R. A. (1999) ‘Las comadres as a social support system,’ AFFILIA. 14(1), p. 24-41.

Schneider, D. M. (1984) A Critique of the Study of Kinship. University of Michigan Press∫ Ann Arbor. p. 1-174























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