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Kinship, Blood and Alliances

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Abstract

In classical anthropology, biological motherhood is given, and the genetic tie between parents and child is unbreakable. Heterosexual intercourse is thought to develop close bonds based on love. Feminist scholars have long debunked descent and alliance theory, traceable to the nineteenth-century Victorian period. But these continue to influence practices, social norms, law, policy and healthcare. How “old” kinship ideologies emerge are explored through: (1) the enforcement of heteronormative marriage, (2) the violence implicit in “amorous thought” and (3) how the quest for biological motherhood underlies an obsession to use new reproductive technologies. Those who do not fit confined models of kinship are excluded from social and legal benefits granted by marriage and motherhood. Their sexualities and alternative kin arrangements are marginalised and criminalised.

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    Ana Porroche-Escudero

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Porroche-Escudero, A. (2017). Kinship, Blood and Alliances. In: Health, Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60786-3_5

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