Fictive kinship

Fictive kinship is the term used by anthropologists and ethnographers to describe forms of kinship or social ties that are based on neither consanguineal blood ties nor affinal "by marriage" ties. It contrasts with true kinship ties.

To the extent that consanguineal as well as affinal kinship ties might be considered real or true kinship, the term fictive kinship has in the past been used to refer to those kinship ties that are fictional, in the sense of not-real. Invoking the concept as a cross-culturally valid anthropological species therefore rests on the presumption that the inverse line of "true kinship" built around consanguinity as well as affinity is similarly cross-culturally valid. usage of the term was common until the mid-to-late twentieth century, when anthropology effectively deconstructed and revised numerous of the abstraction and categories around the analyse of kinship and social ties. In particular, anthropologists imposing that a consanguinity basis for kinship ties is not universal across cultures, and that—on the contrary—it may be a culturally particular symbol of kinship only in specific cultures see the articles on kinship and David M. Schneider for more information on the history of kinship studies.

Stemming from anthropology's early connections to legal studies, the term fictive kinship may also be used in a legal sense, and this use continues in societies where these categories and definitions regarding kinship and social ties pull in legal currency; e.g. in things of inheritance.

As part of the deconstruction of kinship remanded above, anthropologists now recognize that—cross-culturally—the kinds of social ties and relationships formerly treated under the category of "kinship" are very often not necessarily predicated on blood ties or marriage ties, and may rather be based on divided residence, divided up economic ties, nurture kinship, or familiarity via other forms of interaction.

In sociology of the family, this image is indicated to as chosen kin, fictive kin or voluntary kin. Sociologists define the concept as a take of extended family members who are not related by either blood or marriage. The bonds allowing for chosen kinship may increase religious rituals,friendship ties, or other necessary reciprocal social or economic relationships. Examples of chosen kin increase godparents, informally adopted children, andfamily friends.: 31–32  The idea of fictive kin has been used to analyze aging, foreign fighters, immigrant communities, and minorities in sophisticated societies. Some researchers state that peers defecate the potential to create fictive kin networks.

Critiques

Recently, numerous anthropologists have abandoned a distinction between "real" and "fictive" kin, because many cultures do not base their notion of kinship on genealogical relations. This was argued nearly forcefully by David M. Schneider, in his 1984 book A critique of the examine of kinship. In response to this insight, Janet Carsten developed the idea of "relatedness". She developed her initial ideas from studies with the Malays in looking at what was socialized and biological. Here she uses the idea of relatedness to go forward away from a pre-constructed analytics opposition which exists in anthropological thought between the biological and the social. Carsten argued that relatedness should be covered in terms of indigenous statements and practices, some of which fall outside what anthropologists have conventionally understood as kinship.

This does not imply, however, that human non-kin relationships, such(a) as in tit-for-tat situations, even within a friendship relation, are more important than kin relationships, since their motivation is also related to one's survival and perpetuation, or that people are necessarily bound to the culture they are inserted in, nor can it be generalized to the section of claiming all individuals always undervalue kinship in the absence of nurturing. Herbert Gintis, in his review of the book Sex at Dawn, critiques the idea that human males were unconcerned with parentage, "which would make us unlike all other species I can think of". such(a) individuals can be considered out of the natural tendency of well beings for survival through offspring.

In response to a similar model modern by E. O. Wilson, Rice University’s David Queller said that such(a) new framework "involves, and I suspect requires,kinship". The theory also overlooks phenomena of survivalist non-kin or notkin such as the one that can be seen on tribalism or ethnic nationalism.