GEG6146 - Kinship: Geographical Perspectives - 2024/25

Ideas of kinship – of who is related to whom and how – are not just a matter of family relatedness but also part of how other social groupings such as ethnic or national communities are imagined. Ideas of shared ancestry, descent and geographical origins are potent cultural imaginaries through which people define themselves personally and collectively. But kinship is always also a matter of degrees of relatedness and thus as much about differentiation, difference and distinction as commonality, community and connection. This module offers a geographical approach for critically engaging with ideas of genealogical relatedness in relation to understandings of human connection and difference (including ideas of global humanity, nation, ethnicity, race). It explores the cultures and science of genealogy, including family history, genetic genealogy and genetic accounts of the histories of national or ethnic groups, and addresses efforts to reconsider how kinship can be understood and practiced, including interspecies kinship.