Households, Families and Kinship Systems in the West Indies

Bibliographic Data

ID2581870
AuthorsSidney Greenfield (0000-0001-6425-7989, corresponding author), Sidney M Greenfield
Year1962
Volume35
Issue3
Pages121
Publication date1962-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-5491 • E-ISSN: 1534-1518
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3316999
OpenAlexW2328519354
LanguageEN
References cited13

During the course of the past few decades the investigation of the social organization of the insular and continental regions of the Caribbean Sea has become of progressively more interest to students of sociology and anthropology. Beginning with the pioneer efforts of Herskovits (1937 and 1941) and Frazier (1939) and developing with the more recent works of Henriques (1953), R. T. Smith (1956), Edith Clarke (1957) and M. G. Smith (1962) the concepts family and household been indispensable tools of analysis for all researchers. In a recent paper, however, Nancie L. Solien (1960) points out few writers have distinguished between family and household on either a theoretical or a descriptive level. She also demonstrates this lack of distinction characterizes most anthropological discussions of social organization: It is my view, she concludes, that some distinction between family and household . . . is not only useful but necessary in dealing with Caribbean She then offers tentative definitions for the terms are intended to add clarity to the analysis of West Indian society. Her efforts represent a long awaited attempt to bring some rigor to the literature on the social organization of this region.2 The present paper is offered as an amplification and extension of Dr. Solien's work. Its specific objective is to provide a theoretical foundation for the apparently heuristic definitions to be found in her paper. In this sense it represents an attempt to add clarity to the study of kinship and social organization in general, as well as being a contribution to West Indian ethnology. 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Central States Anthropological Society, Columbus, Ohio, April 4-6, 1961. 2In her paper Dr. Solien uses the term Afro-america to refer to this geographical region. The term is not used in the present paper because, 1) it assumes the existence of African cultural survivals throughout the area before they are actually demonstrated in all of the units by specific studies in specific places, and 2) it rules out, for purposes of investigation, other cultural traditions might be found in varying parts of the region. Recent investigation has shown this geographical area to be much too diverse racially and culturally to be characterized by any one of the racial groups or cultural traditions found there

Global socioeconomic and cultural dynamics

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