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The Rebirth of Kinship

Evolutionary and Quantitative Approaches in the Revitalization of a Dying Field

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Abstract

Kinship was one of the key areas of research interest among anthropologists in the nineteenth century, one of the most hotly debated areas of theory in the early and mid-twentieth century, and yet an area of waning interest by the end of the twentieth century. Since then, the study of kinship has experienced a revitalization, with concomitant disputes over how best to proceed. This special issue brings together recent studies of kinship by scientific anthropologists employing evolutionary theory and quantitative methods. We argue that the melding of the evolutionary theoretical perspective with quantitative and ethnographic methodologies has strengthened and reinvigorated the study of kinship by synthesizing and extending existing research via rigorous analyses of evidence.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participants in “The End/s of Kinship,” our December 2009 session at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) meetings; the Evolutionary Anthropology Section of the AAA for sponsoring it; the audience for their enthusiasm in attending; and Jane Lancaster for inviting us to turn it into a special issue of Human Nature. We would also like to thank the authors of the articles for their cooperation through the sometimes tortured process of review and revision.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, 107 Swallow Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211-1440, USA

    Mary K. Shenk

  2. Department of Anthropology and Morrison Institute, Stanford University, Main Quad, Building 50, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305-2034, USA

    Siobhán M. Mattison

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Correspondence to Mary K. Shenk.

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Shenk, M.K., Mattison, S.M. The Rebirth of Kinship. Hum Nat 22, 1–15 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-011-9105-9

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