The Politics of Making Kinship

Leading us beyond current narratives on the decline of kinship which assume kinship’s existence since the dawn of civilization, The Politics of Making Kinship interrogates kinship’s geneses, constructions, elaborations, implementations, and enforcing agents across a long view of European history, and demonstrates how kinship is woven through modern societies.

Erdmute Alber is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. She co-led the research group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. Her books include Transfers of Belonging (Brill 2018) and (with Tatjana Thelen) Re-connecting State and Kinship (2017).

David Warren Sabean is Henry J. Bruman Endowed Professor of German history Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He co-led the research group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. His books include Kinship in Neckarhausen (1998).

Simon Teuscher is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Zurich. He co-led the group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. His books include Lords’ Rights and Peasants’ Answers (2012) and (with David Sabean and Jon Mathieu) Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Developments (1300-1900) (2007).

Tatjana Thelen is Professor at the department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna. She co-led the group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. She co-edited Reconnecting State and Kinship (2017) and Stategraphy: Toward a Relational Anthropology of the State (2017).

Erdmute Alber is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. She co-led the research group on Kinship and Politics at ZIF in Bielefeld. Her books include Transfers of Belonging (Brill 2018) and (with Tatjana Thelen) Re-connecting State and Kinship (2017).

“This is a powerful volume that argues for kinship and politics to be studied and analyzed in conjunction and not separately, as is still common within the social and political sciences. …What makes the volume particularly strong is that it combines discussions of semantic shifts, political contestations, and philosophy and theory of house(hold), kin, and family relations.”
 • Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology