Plain-language explanation.
Kinship is the study of how societies organise relationships based on descent, marriage, and family. Different societies have very different family structures — from nuclear families to extended family compounds to matrilineal clans where descent passes through women. Anthropology reveals that what we take for granted as "natural" family structures are actually cultural inventions.
Core concepts and standard treatment.
Kinship terminologies (Morgan's classification): Hawaiian (lumps relatives of the same generation and sex), Eskimo (distinguishes lineal from collateral kin — Western European pattern), Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese systems — each reflecting different principles of social organisation. Descent systems: patrilineal (through father's line), matrilineal (through mother's line, e.g., Akan, Navajo), bilateral (through both lines — European kinship), and double descent (separate patrilineal and matrilineal clan memberships). Marriage: monogamy, polygyny (one man, multiple wives — permitted in ~80% of known societies), polyandry (one woman, multiple husbands — rare; fraternal polyandry in Tibet and Himalayan regions), and group marriage.
Deeper theory, debates and edge cases.
Alliance theory (Levi-Strauss: marriage as exchange of women between groups — elementary vs. complex structures of alliance; incest taboo as the rule requiring exchange); descent theory (Radcliffe-Brown, Fortes: corporate descent groups as units of social organisation); and critiques of classical kinship theory (Schneider: American kinship as ideology; Gay and lesbian kinship — "families of choice" challenging biological definitions). New kinship: reproductive technologies (IVF, surrogacy, egg and sperm donation) creating new configurations of biological, gestational, and social parenthood that challenge classical kinship categories.
How it is applied in practice.
Kinship in contemporary professional contexts: family business research examines how kinship networks shape business governance, succession planning, trust, and nepotism. Genealogy and DNA testing: 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and GEDMATCH have democratised genetic genealogy — with profound implications for family secrets (donor-conceived individuals finding biological parents, adoptees finding birth families) and new sociological questions about genetic vs. social kinship. Child protection and family law: cross-cultural understanding of family structure, parental roles, and child welfare is essential for practitioners working with diverse families. Migration and transnational families: maintaining kinship ties across borders, remittance economies, and the care chains (Hochschild) involved in global domestic labour migration.