In this thesis I examine familial dynamics and relations between Kenyan migrants in London and their non-migrant kin remaining in Kenya. Two transnational family configurations predominate: younger migrants and their non-migrant parents and siblings, and older transnational couples (migrant wives and non-migrant husbands). If migration is understood as a morally-laden social process, then how migrant and non-migrant kin engage with the distance(s) between them become the grounds on which what it means to be related is expressed and negotiated. Distance emerges not only as geographic and physical, but also as socially generated by the actions and inactions of kin. I argue that the emplacement of kin in different contexts post-migration, particularly younger migrants within a nascent Pentecostal community in London, mediates transnational kin relations. The thesis challenges a predominant strand of research on transnational families, which contends that migration disrupts kin relations and contributes to the commodification of love and care. Moreover, the focus on transnational Kenyan families fills a gap in African diaspora research that has largely focused on migrants from West Africa and issues of identity, diaspora politics, and development, while also addressing themes in African anthropology, such as, intergenerational reciprocity, social reproduction, and change.

Le contexte social dans lequel s’inscrivent le désir d’enfant et la procréation en Occident s’est profondément transformé au cours des dernières décennies. Après l’introduction de la contraception et l’augmentation du nombre d’enfants nés hors mariage, le développement des nouvelles techniques reproductives et de l’adoption, notamment l’adoption internationale, ont à leur tour contribué à la transformation des cadres dans lesquels s’inscrivent les relations de parenté et la formation des familles. À partir de l’étude de témoignages de couples québécois dont les échecs successifs en procréation médicalement assistée (PMA) ont mené à la décision d’adopter, cette thèse interroge les multiples dimensions qu’implique un tel type de trajectoire. Sur le plan social, tant la procréation médicalement assistée que l’adoption nécessitent l’intervention d’une tierce partie pour concrétiser et faire reconnaître l’établissement du lien filiatif, soit la médecine dans le cas de la PMA et celle des autorités juridiques et gouvernementales dans le cas de l’adoption. Les deux phénomènes mettent également en scène des situations et des enjeux hautement révélateurs des valeurs et des représentations collectives en matière de parenté et de famille. D’un premier abord, le type de parcours étudié semble illustrer le passage entre deux sphères complètement distinctes: celle de la nature et du biologique incarnée par la PMA et celle de la culture et du lien social incarnée par l’adoption. Or, l’étude des trajectoires des participants donne à voir une situation beaucoup plus complexe où s’entremêlent un ensemble d’explications et de facteurs relatifs au désir d’enfant, à la famille, à la parentalité qui ne font sens qu’une fois replacés dans le contexte des grandes tendances sociales et idéologiques qui traversent notre société. Plus globalement, les analyses proposées dans cette thèse participent au développement d’une anthropologie de la parenté qui tienne compte des dynamiques et des tensions qui touchent la famille moderne. / The social context surrounding reproduction and the desire for children in the West has undergone a profound transformation in recent decades. Following the introduction of contraception and the increase in the number of children born out of wedlock, the development of new reproductive technologies and adoption, particularly international adoption, has in turn contributed to transforming the frameworks surrounding kinship and the formation of families. Based on the testimonials of Québec couples whose successive failures in medically assisted procreation (MAP) have led them to the decision to adopt, this thesis examines the multiple dimensions involved in this type of trajectory. Socially, both AR and adoption require the intervention of a third party to establish and legitimize filiation: the medical profession in the case of AR, and legal and government authorities in the case of adoption. Both phenomena also put into play situations and issues that are highly revealing of values and collective representations regarding kinship and the family. At first glance, the type of path studied seems to illustrate a transition between two completely separate spheres: that of nature and biology embodied by AR, and that of culture and social relations embodied by adoption. However, the study of the participants’ trajectories reveals a much more complex situation in which a set of explanations and factors related to the desire for children, the family, and parenthood intertwine and make sense only when viewed in the context of the major social and ideological trends that our society is undergoing. More generally, the analyses proposed in this thesis contribute to the development of an anthropology of kinship that accounts for the dynamics and tensions that affect the modern family.

Le contexte social dans lequel s’inscrivent le désir d’enfant et la procréation en Occident s’est profondément transformé au cours des dernières décennies. Après l’introduction de la contraception et l’augmentation du nombre d’enfants nés hors mariage, le développement des nouvelles techniques reproductives et de l’adoption, notamment l’adoption internationale, ont à leur tour contribué à la transformation des cadres dans lesquels s’inscrivent les relations de parenté et la formation des familles. À partir de l’étude de témoignages de couples québécois dont les échecs successifs en procréation médicalement assistée (PMA) ont mené à la décision d’adopter, cette thèse interroge les multiples dimensions qu’implique un tel type de trajectoire. Sur le plan social, tant la procréation médicalement assistée que l’adoption nécessitent l’intervention d’une tierce partie pour concrétiser et faire reconnaître l’établissement du lien filiatif, soit la médecine dans le cas de la PMA et celle des autorités juridiques et gouvernementales dans le cas de l’adoption. Les deux phénomènes mettent également en scène des situations et des enjeux hautement révélateurs des valeurs et des représentations collectives en matière de parenté et de famille. D’un premier abord, le type de parcours étudié semble illustrer le passage entre deux sphères complètement distinctes: celle de la nature et du biologique incarnée par la PMA et celle de la culture et du lien social incarnée par l’adoption. Or, l’étude des trajectoires des participants donne à voir une situation beaucoup plus complexe où s’entremêlent un ensemble d’explications et de facteurs relatifs au désir d’enfant, à la famille, à la parentalité qui ne font sens qu’une fois replacés dans le contexte des grandes tendances sociales et idéologiques qui traversent notre société. Plus globalement, les analyses proposées dans cette thèse participent au développement d’une anthropologie de la parenté qui tienne compte des dynamiques et des tensions qui touchent la famille moderne. / The social context surrounding reproduction and the desire for children in the West has undergone a profound transformation in recent decades. Following the introduction of contraception and the increase in the number of children born out of wedlock, the development of new reproductive technologies and adoption, particularly international adoption, has in turn contributed to transforming the frameworks surrounding kinship and the formation of families. Based on the testimonials of Québec couples whose successive failures in medically assisted procreation (MAP) have led them to the decision to adopt, this thesis examines the multiple dimensions involved in this type of trajectory. Socially, both AR and adoption require the intervention of a third party to establish and legitimize filiation: the medical profession in the case of AR, and legal and government authorities in the case of adoption. Both phenomena also put into play situations and issues that are highly revealing of values and collective representations regarding kinship and the family. At first glance, the type of path studied seems to illustrate a transition between two completely separate spheres: that of nature and biology embodied by AR, and that of culture and social relations embodied by adoption. However, the study of the participants’ trajectories reveals a much more complex situation in which a set of explanations and factors related to the desire for children, the family, and parenthood intertwine and make sense only when viewed in the context of the major social and ideological trends that our society is undergoing. More generally, the analyses proposed in this thesis contribute to the development of an anthropology of kinship that accounts for the dynamics and tensions that affect the modern family.

Submitted by Aelson Maciera (aelsoncm@terra.com.br) on 2017-04-18T17:52:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissIFHLG.pdf: 10702734 bytes, checksum: 3f11ee4ccb548f09f8f86d111f9afc4f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-04-24T14:07:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissIFHLG.pdf: 10702734 bytes, checksum: 3f11ee4ccb548f09f8f86d111f9afc4f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-04-24T14:07:53Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissIFHLG.pdf: 10702734 bytes, checksum: 3f11ee4ccb548f09f8f86d111f9afc4f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-24T14:14:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissIFHLG.pdf: 10702734 bytes, checksum: 3f11ee4ccb548f09f8f86d111f9afc4f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-12 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / The object of this investigation is the production of the house in the Basque countryside, the baserri, in the context of the Valley of Araotz (Municipality of Oñati, Guipuzcoa, Basque Country). The study is clearly separated into two parts. On the first one, I deal with the historic formation of the baserri as an object of inquiry and in relation to the genesis of two systems of knowledge that produced, through a complex conceptual and theoretical machinery, its own defining outlines: the family-baserri and the architecture-baserri. On the second part, I try to analyze the particular assemblages which mediated, produced and/or built certain houses in the Valley of Araotz during the period of my fieldwork. This way, the aim consists on describing a particular oikogenesis without structuring it from the classifying outlines introduced by the disciplinary logical sets analyzed on the first part, and at the same time having the possibility to find these same classifiers at work and being able to deal with them as proper ethnographic data. Thus, I describe how the production of houses in Araotz is not limited to a definite series of categories anticipated by an efficient cause and that works as an analytical explanation; on the contrary, the singular acts that make baserri are interdependent and contemporary to the production of a diverse series of aspects, such as family, neighborhood, names, heritage, form and materiality of constructions, landscape and territory, animal husbandry, etc. In addition, it is necessary to state that the “pure” delimitation of these aspects is a mere abstraction and that in Araotz not a few times are these found intertwined to the architectural typologies, the anthropological family types, the valuation of material heritage or simply to the nation-state. In Araotz, not only the family is created through the construction of the house, but even the architecture and the anthropology of kinship are inferred and recreated while house and family are made. / Esta pesquisa tem por objeto a produção da casa do meio rural basco, o baserri, no âmbito do Vale de Araotz (Município de Oñati, Guipúscoa, País Basco). O estudo está claramente dividido em duas partes. Na primeira parte trato da formação histórica do baserri enquanto objeto de conhecimento e em relação à gênese de dois sistemas de saber que produziram, mediante uma complexa bricolagem conceitual e teórica, seus próprios recortes definitórios da suposta natureza do fenômeno: o baserri-família e o baserri-arquitetura. Na segunda parte procuro analisar os agenciamentos particulares que mediaram, produziram e construíram determinadas casas do Vale de Araotz no período do meu trabalho de campo. Assim, o objetivo consiste em descrever uma oicogênese particular sem estrutura-la desde os cortes classificatórios introduzidos pelos pacotes lógicos disciplinares analisados na primeira parte, e simultaneamente ter a possibilidade de encontrar esses mesmos classificadores em pleno exercício para poder tratá-los como dados propriamente etnográficos. Desse modo, descrevo como a produção das casas em Araotz não se limita a uma série definida de instâncias previstas por uma causa eficiente que faz as vezes de explicação analítica; ao contrário, os atos singulares que fazem baserri são interdependentes e contemporâneos à produção de um heterogeneidade de aspectos, como a família, a vizinhança, os nomes, a herança, a forma e materialidade das construções, a paisagem e o território, a cria de animais, etc. Cabe dizer que a delimitação “pura” desses aspectos é uma mera abstração, e que em Araotz não são poucas às vezes que eles se encontram emaranhados às tipologias arquitetônicas, aos modelos antropológicos de família, às valorizações do patrimônio cultural ou, simplesmente, ao Estado-nação. Em Araotz, não se trata unicamente de que a família se faz com a construção da casa, mas de que a própria antropologia do parentesco e a arquitetura inferem e se refazem enquanto se faz casa e família. / FAPESP: 2014/19818-6

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of ancient Egyptian kinship in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom (ca 2150–1650 BCE) by exploring how forms of relatedness were displayed in the monumental record. Kinship and marriage are contextually driven sociocultural phenomena that should be approached from the actors' perspective; such an approach can achieve some insight into emic notions of kinship, because monuments were integral to society and contributed to perpetuating and sustaining its fabric. The introduction (chapter 1) presents the theoretical background on which the thesis is based, namely the notion of kinship as process, where relationships can be constructed and reconstructed throughout one’s life. In addition, it provides a working definition of 'kin group', an analytical category that is taken as the primary unit of social analysis that can encompass several ways of being related. Chapter 2 offers a discussion of kinship terminology in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom. The focus is less on basic kinship terms than on the little understood terminology for kin groups and how these were presented in the written record. Chapter 3 treats stelae, which constitute the core corpus of material for the thesis. Stelae present a variety of images of kin groups and, moreover, they should be considered within the larger units of which they were part. Many of these stelae are unprovenanced but have been attributed to Abydos. At this site, memorial chapels have been identified archaeologically, and some stelae have been found in association with them. Thus, the site offers a materialisation of constellations of relationships. Possible reconstructions of such chapels – one from Saqqara and two from Abydos – are presented in chapter 4, and the impact they may have had on the social memory of visitors is assessed. Display, presence, and performance were some of the ways in which the social role of those groups was communicated. Chapter 5 is concerned with how change and time may be represented in apparently static objects. On the basis of the model of the developmental cycle of domestic groups first introduced by Meyer Fortes, the dynamism of the social fabric is explored through three case studies of groups at different stages of their developmental cycle. The strategies of survival can be seen pervasively in the monumental record, allowing for a glimpse into time and change in kin groups. The conclusion (chapter 6) offers a holistic approach to the material presented in the thesis, emphasising the ways in which the different theoretical approaches proposed intertwine with the material.

No description available.