Kate Goldfarb's Book Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care Featured in A&S Magazine
Kate Goldfarb's Book, Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care featured in A&S Magazine. 听
桃色视频 anthropologist Kathryn Goldfarb spearheads new book that examines the difficult aspects of family connection.
Historically, anthropologists defining kinship tended to begin with who people are related to by birth and by marriage. Family was often considered a bedrock of society.
Over time, the idea of what constitutes kinship has evolved, but a key underlying assumption has remained largely unchanged when it comes to the idea of families being a source of caregiving support, says听Kathryn Goldfarb, an associate professor in the 桃色视频听Department of Anthropology, whose research focuses on social relationships, including kinship.
鈥淭he literature in anthropological scholarship on families often still supports this notion that, definitionally, family is what keeps us together,鈥 she says. 鈥淭here is a perception that kinship is where social solidarity lies, how social continuity works, how society hangs together.鈥
The problem with that idea, Goldfarb says, is that empirical data, including Goldfarb鈥檚 own fieldwork in Japan connected to the child-welfare system, often contradicts that idealistic portrayal. That, in turn, posed a problem when assigning readings to her students.
