Strong, Thomas (2002) Kinship Between Judith Butler and Anthropology? A Review Essay. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 67 (3). pp. 401-418. ISSN 0014-1844
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Abstract
This essay critically evaluates Judith Butler’s recent writings on kinship.
In this work, Butler challenges the universalist assumptions of psychoanalysis, hoping
to lay the analytical groundwork for imagining new forms of familial relationship.
Butler examines the way that anthropology and psychoanalysis have constructed
the incest taboo as necessitating heteronormative forms of kinship. Butler’s critique
of kinship, which draws on her theories of subjection, belies her own attachment to
a vision of social life occupied primarily by normative institutions, in particular the
state. I suggest that new forms of kinship must be understood on their own terms,
whether or not they are accorded legitimacy in law or accepted by psychoanalysis.
Anthropology’s ethnographic practice can emendate an account of subjection and
recognition that obsessively looks to institutions and norms even as it criticizes them.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | The definitive version of this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0014184022000031220 |
Keywords: | Kinship; homosexuality; the state; subjection; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology |
Item ID: | 4277 |
Depositing User: | Dr. Thomas Strong |
Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2013 16:49 |
Journal or Publication Title: | Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology |
Publisher: | Taylor & Frnacis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/4277 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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