Kinship Between Judith Butler and Anthropology? A Review Essay

Bibliographic Data

ID14146232
AuthorsThomas Strong (0000-0001-5214-432X, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume67
Issue3
Pages401-418
Publication date2002-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0014184022000031220
OpenAlexW1998791723
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited21

This essay critically evaluates Judith Butler’s recent writings on kinship. \nIn this work, Butler challenges the universalist assumptions of psychoanalysis, hoping \nto lay the analytical groundwork for imagining new forms of familial relationship. \nButler examines the way that anthropology and psychoanalysis have constructed \nthe incest taboo as necessitating heteronormative forms of kinship. Butler’s critique \nof kinship, which draws on her theories of subjection, belies her own attachment to \na vision of social life occupied primarily by normative institutions, in particular the \nstate. I suggest that new forms of kinship must be understood on their own terms, \nwhether or not they are accorded legitimacy in law or accepted by psychoanalysis. \nAnthropology’s ethnographic practice can emendate an account of subjection and \nrecognition that obsessively looks to institutions and norms even as it criticizes them.

Epistemology · Ethnography · Fictive kinship · Kinship · Legitimacy · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Taboo · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Sex work and related issues

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