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7 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is Alliance Theory?
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> Structural method of studying kinship relations.
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Who was the precursor of Alliance Theory?
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CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
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What is Alliance theory in contrast to?
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Descent theory
> While British social anthropologists were focused on the existence of social rules and the ways in which members of different societies acted within a given framework of ideas and categories (descent theory/lineage theory), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss had a very different starting point. His work was motivated by the question of how arbitrary social categories (such as those within kinship, race, or class) had originated. He was also concerned with explaining their apparent compulsory quality, or presence within the “natural order,” in societies. |
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What is the hypothesis of a "marriage-alliance"?
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The hypothesis of a "marriage-alliance" points towards the necessary interdependence of various families and lineages. Weddings themselves are thus seen as a form of communication, which anthropologists such as Lévi-Strauss described. Alliance theory hence tries to understand the basic questions about inter-individual relations, or what constitutes society.
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What major theory of Levi Strauss's is alliance theory intertwined with?
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THE INCEST TABOO!
Only this universal prohibition of incest pushes human groups towards exogamy. Thus, inside a given society, certain categories of kin are forbidden to inter-marry. The incest taboo is thus a negative prescription; without it, nothing would push men to go searching for women outside of their inner kinship circle, or vice versa. |
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How are the Incest Taboo, Alliance Theory and the exchange of women linked?
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The incest taboo of alliance theory, in which one's daughter or sister is offered to someone outside a family circle, starts a circle of exchange of women: in return, the giver is entitled to a woman from the other's intimate kinship group. The idea of the alliance theory is thus of a reciprocal or a generalized exchange which founds affinity. This global phenomena takes the form of a "circulation of women" which links together the various social groups in one whole: society.
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According to Lévi-Strauss's alliance theory, what are two different structural "models" of marriage exchange?
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> The women of ego's group are offered to another group "explicitly defined" by social institutions: these are the "elementary structures of kinship".
> Or the group of possible spouses for the women in ego's group is "indetermined and always open", to the exclusion, however, of certain kin-people (nuclear family, aunts, uncles...) --> "complex structures of kinship". |
