On kinship studies in the final decades of the 20th century

Abstract

As a classical field of anthropological studies, kinship studies have not remained outside the process of critical considerations and deconstruction of the theoretical and analytical categories and values of the discipline, characteriying the contemporary anthropological theory. As in the case of changes in the general theory and practice of anthropology, the reasons leading to the transformations in kinship studies are the result of theoretical arguments and controversies within the discipline, but as well, and to a significant degree, from the factors which are exterior in relation to the anthropology as a discipline. The paper emphsizes the contradictory character of the current state in kinship studies, suggesting an answer to the question what the phrase "kinship crisis" denotes – whether this crisis signified the general trait of anthropological studies of the period. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the criticism of the formalism of the classical kinship theories and to the perspectives aimed to prove that " kinship does not exist".