Cultural Anthropology Study Question Answer 2022

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY 1
Cultural Anthropology Study
Name of University

SOCIOLOGY 2
Introduction
Question 1: Explain how kinship is a cultural system. What are, and how do, cultural
categories function; what are their role in kinship?
Human racial classifications and socio-cultural evolution have progressed from primitive
to civilized and are segregated in a system of units in specific ways. Culture is a system of these
units that work in relation to each other and define the world. The human species exhibit the
most extensive and differentiated networks of kinship. Kinship networks regulate social life and
behaviors in humans and are part of the cultural system. It is the culturally defined relationships
between members of society, and all societies rely on kinship to define social groups and classify
people.
As human societies became more complex and sophisticated, the Kinship systems
became descriptive and classificatory. The association between evolutionary forces, kinship,
economy evolves and develops in different cultures. The kinship has reconfigured many times
within the global marketplaces as the new studies on kinship reflect. The natural consanguineal
groups with increasing inclusiveness and integration and the historical and social factors play an
integral role in the landscape of kinship and kinship theory (McKinnon,1997). Human
cooperation behavior draws upon social, cultural, and psychological aspects and requires a
capacity for a sense of identity and a kinship-based social system with well-established social
identities.
For example, a family is both a natural and cultural unit of the society in American
kinship. The family is natural as it is constructed by the idea of natural endowment of having a
husband, wife, and children in the family. Thus, the family is culturally defined as natural as the
father earns for the family, while the mother nurtures the children born. The family lives by rules

SOCIOLOGY 3
that are in natural relation to each other. Those cultural units and rules get transferred from one
generation to another. However, those cultural units and rules and their relations may change
with time. Still, there are normative standards set for every individual who is expected to behave
in accordance with those norms and play his role in real life. He carries a primary identity as a
cultural unit. Thus, kinship has evolved and developed as a part of the cultural system.
The kinship is constructed within the cultural universe of relatives under the order of
nature and the order of law. Marriage, reproduction, and family are fundamental to the definition
of kinship. Specific kinship terminology structures to a common kin term space of kinship
relations. The family space is thus derived from these relations by kin terms such as father,
mother, brother, sister, daughter, son, uncle, aunt, and so on. The system of kin terms and
conceptual relations lead to a cultural construction. These kinship relations are based on
culturally identified positions, and together, the kinship relations and terms provide the
framework for the kinship space that invokes the culture of the society. That explains how
kinship is a cultural system as individuals are assigned connections within a family space and in
a consistent manner based on cultural criteria.
As asserted by McKinnon (1997), the ideas of kinship and marriage have developed
parallelly, and so has the idea of kinship as a "natural" relationality, based on configured paternal
and maternal relatedness. The natural base of relatedness is transformed by labor and economics
and has influenced the kinship relatedness as paternal property. The issue here is the kinship
connections and the property shared by those in connections. The image of culture depends on
labor, inheritance, and property but here the female sexuality is sold as a cultural method of
alliance which is managed by fathers and brothers. The female sexuality is distributed for
consumption within the culture and one can claim that patent on kinship can be seen as paternal.