Anthropology is a robust, four-field science with kinship studies at its heart. The title Human Kinship is misleading. It should be Kinship Terminology. Reducing kinship to terms and terms to linguistic referents leaves out much of the anthropology of kinship. Kin terms are minimally linguistic phenomena but contain social, cultural, conceptual, cognitive, and algebraic dimensions as well.
Human kinship is broad and multidimensional, encompassing more than selective kin terms from two cultural systems considered as linguistic referents. Jones claims that certain kin term–constraining features based on properties of Optimality Theory act as faithfulness constraints whose sequential order shifts in correspondence with a specific kinship terminology. Kin terms used are consanguineal with some mention of the affinal. Analysis of kinship terminologies, though, must link three universal forms of kinship: consanguinity and affinity and sponsorship, each of which is equally and interdependently significant to understanding human kinship. Consanguinity refers to relations conceived in some cultures as sharing the biological substance of blood, while in others (as in Arab kinship systems), it is metaphorically perceived as a human body with components linked by nerves or a central nervous system. Terms for kin group segmentation among Badawis (Bedouin groups) are corporeal, referring to body parts (limbs, thighs, etc.) forming a whole. The central notion of ‘asabiyya,’ translated in the literature as “solidarity,” introduced as a core concept in the first, still current, organized theory of kinship formulated in the 14th century by the Arab social philosopher Ibn Khaldun (Ibn Khaldun Reference Ibn Khaldun1961), is a term referring to a state of bondness resulting from shared nerves. Only purity of breed is expressed in blood terms. All of this challenges the unsubstantiated generalization that “kinship is normally conceptualized in spatial terms,” which misconstrues the reference from Leaf (2006).
The second class of kinship, affinity, is formed by ties created through marriage. The third, which I expediently refer to as sponsorship, is universal and appears cross-culturally in different forms such as spiritual parenthood (godparenthood), adoption, suckling, blood exchange, and so forth, with evidence of its presence in ancient times. All three forms have kin terms that interestingly may differ, overlap, or supersede each other. A current, exploratory research study on suckling kinship among Qatari Gulf Arabs (El Guindi 2009–2010) suggests interdependence among terms and behaviors in all three kinship domains. The present study prebiases conclusions by only nominally utilizing in its set of features affinal terms and altogether leaving out (perhaps due to deficiency in existing data records) the third form.
Other concerns include the following:
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1. A claimed universality even though application is only demonstrated for two partial kin terminologies, English and Seneca. For instance, Faithfulness Constraint of Sex is based on a proposed Male-Female polarity. Can the devised system accommodate the many ethnographic cases of a “third sex” (Wikan Reference Wikan1978, among other studies)? However, the other polarity of bond-boundary has positive potential if developed further.
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2. An asserted homology between kin terminologies (considered a linguistic domain) and other domains, such as spatial structure. A homologous conceptual structure enters analysis at a different level, and hence seems superfluous to the main goal of describing the differences among kinship terminologies.
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3. The social and the mental dimensions are assumed to be at the same level of abstraction. Figure 1 in the target article mentions social organization and social cognition. We know that social organization exists at the level of society. But what is social cognition? Is it being claimed that cognition, too, exists at the level of society? Is it cognition of the social? Is cognition social? Or is it a Durkheimian-style, societally derived or determined cognition?
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4. Ambiguity in the use of the notion of shape: “[shape] is about the structure, rather than content, of kin terms” (sect. 1). Is shape the same as form? Is form structure? If so, then conceptual structure as presented is at a low level of abstraction, quite distant from cognitive structure.
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5. Producing an “account of why kin terminologies have the shapes they have” (sect. 1; emphasis added) becomes a partial description of the physical features of a particular set of data from Seneca and English kinship terminologies. A selective data pool is insufficient for conclusive generalizations and analysis of partial data does not automatically lead to understanding the whole. Nor should the whole be assumed.
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6. The author generously borrows [Optimality theory (OT)] and [Utility theory (UT)] from other fields (linguistic, economics, etc.), and vocabulary such as time, space, cognition, social organization, OT, UT, kin terms, shape, conceptual structure, semantic contrasts, constraints ranking, language, markedness theory, open-class, closed-class, faithfulness constraints, markedness scales. These vocabulary borrowings are neither convincingly motivated nor coherently linked. They might serve interdisciplinarity, but do not serve science.
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7. The stated goal that “constraint ranking defines the grammar of each language, establishing a shared code among speakers and listeners” (sect. 1.2; emphasis added) presumes, but does not take us onto, a road to cognition.
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8. Jones claims that “In language after language, time is treated as a more abstract version of space” (sect. 1), which is substantiated by neither ethnography nor theory (see Hubert Reference Hubert1905). Having recently completed an ethnographically grounded monograph on the notion of time and space, I disagree (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008). Time and space are equally abstract notions variably manifested in different forms. Time has been theoretically dealt with in isolation from space by nonanthropologists and anthropologists alike, until the French tradition called L'Année Sociologique (later Annales Sociologiques), both school of thought and journal, linked the two. It was Henri Hubert who lifted both to the appropriate level of abstraction (see El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008, pp. 32–35, for full discussion of this development). His ideas formed the foundation for my building a new theory of Islam (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008) based on the concept of rhythm as it penetrates time and space.
Human systems are complexly integrated. It is difficult to see how deploying OT by identifying a sequential list of features reordered to describe kin terms of two cultural systems will lead to understanding human cognition. To advance understanding kinship terminologies, we cannot lose sight of anthropology's holism. I argue that analysis of any sociocultural domain using an abstract conceptual structure with generative, processual properties embedded in cultural knowledge will lead more productively to a cognitive path (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2006).
Anthropology is a robust, four-field science with kinship studies at its heart. The title Human Kinship is misleading. It should be Kinship Terminology. Reducing kinship to terms and terms to linguistic referents leaves out much of the anthropology of kinship. Kin terms are minimally linguistic phenomena but contain social, cultural, conceptual, cognitive, and algebraic dimensions as well.
Human kinship is broad and multidimensional, encompassing more than selective kin terms from two cultural systems considered as linguistic referents. Jones claims that certain kin term–constraining features based on properties of Optimality Theory act as faithfulness constraints whose sequential order shifts in correspondence with a specific kinship terminology. Kin terms used are consanguineal with some mention of the affinal. Analysis of kinship terminologies, though, must link three universal forms of kinship: consanguinity and affinity and sponsorship, each of which is equally and interdependently significant to understanding human kinship. Consanguinity refers to relations conceived in some cultures as sharing the biological substance of blood, while in others (as in Arab kinship systems), it is metaphorically perceived as a human body with components linked by nerves or a central nervous system. Terms for kin group segmentation among Badawis (Bedouin groups) are corporeal, referring to body parts (limbs, thighs, etc.) forming a whole. The central notion of ‘asabiyya,’ translated in the literature as “solidarity,” introduced as a core concept in the first, still current, organized theory of kinship formulated in the 14th century by the Arab social philosopher Ibn Khaldun (Ibn Khaldun Reference Ibn Khaldun1961), is a term referring to a state of bondness resulting from shared nerves. Only purity of breed is expressed in blood terms. All of this challenges the unsubstantiated generalization that “kinship is normally conceptualized in spatial terms,” which misconstrues the reference from Leaf (2006).
The second class of kinship, affinity, is formed by ties created through marriage. The third, which I expediently refer to as sponsorship, is universal and appears cross-culturally in different forms such as spiritual parenthood (godparenthood), adoption, suckling, blood exchange, and so forth, with evidence of its presence in ancient times. All three forms have kin terms that interestingly may differ, overlap, or supersede each other. A current, exploratory research study on suckling kinship among Qatari Gulf Arabs (El Guindi 2009–2010) suggests interdependence among terms and behaviors in all three kinship domains. The present study prebiases conclusions by only nominally utilizing in its set of features affinal terms and altogether leaving out (perhaps due to deficiency in existing data records) the third form.
Other concerns include the following:
1. A claimed universality even though application is only demonstrated for two partial kin terminologies, English and Seneca. For instance, Faithfulness Constraint of Sex is based on a proposed Male-Female polarity. Can the devised system accommodate the many ethnographic cases of a “third sex” (Wikan Reference Wikan1978, among other studies)? However, the other polarity of bond-boundary has positive potential if developed further.
2. An asserted homology between kin terminologies (considered a linguistic domain) and other domains, such as spatial structure. A homologous conceptual structure enters analysis at a different level, and hence seems superfluous to the main goal of describing the differences among kinship terminologies.
3. The social and the mental dimensions are assumed to be at the same level of abstraction. Figure 1 in the target article mentions social organization and social cognition. We know that social organization exists at the level of society. But what is social cognition? Is it being claimed that cognition, too, exists at the level of society? Is it cognition of the social? Is cognition social? Or is it a Durkheimian-style, societally derived or determined cognition?
4. Ambiguity in the use of the notion of shape: “[shape] is about the structure, rather than content, of kin terms” (sect. 1). Is shape the same as form? Is form structure? If so, then conceptual structure as presented is at a low level of abstraction, quite distant from cognitive structure.
5. Producing an “account of why kin terminologies have the shapes they have” (sect. 1; emphasis added) becomes a partial description of the physical features of a particular set of data from Seneca and English kinship terminologies. A selective data pool is insufficient for conclusive generalizations and analysis of partial data does not automatically lead to understanding the whole. Nor should the whole be assumed.
6. The author generously borrows [Optimality theory (OT)] and [Utility theory (UT)] from other fields (linguistic, economics, etc.), and vocabulary such as time, space, cognition, social organization, OT, UT, kin terms, shape, conceptual structure, semantic contrasts, constraints ranking, language, markedness theory, open-class, closed-class, faithfulness constraints, markedness scales. These vocabulary borrowings are neither convincingly motivated nor coherently linked. They might serve interdisciplinarity, but do not serve science.
7. The stated goal that “constraint ranking defines the grammar of each language, establishing a shared code among speakers and listeners” (sect. 1.2; emphasis added) presumes, but does not take us onto, a road to cognition.
8. Jones claims that “In language after language, time is treated as a more abstract version of space” (sect. 1), which is substantiated by neither ethnography nor theory (see Hubert Reference Hubert1905). Having recently completed an ethnographically grounded monograph on the notion of time and space, I disagree (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008). Time and space are equally abstract notions variably manifested in different forms. Time has been theoretically dealt with in isolation from space by nonanthropologists and anthropologists alike, until the French tradition called L'Année Sociologique (later Annales Sociologiques), both school of thought and journal, linked the two. It was Henri Hubert who lifted both to the appropriate level of abstraction (see El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008, pp. 32–35, for full discussion of this development). His ideas formed the foundation for my building a new theory of Islam (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2008) based on the concept of rhythm as it penetrates time and space.
Human systems are complexly integrated. It is difficult to see how deploying OT by identifying a sequential list of features reordered to describe kin terms of two cultural systems will lead to understanding human cognition. To advance understanding kinship terminologies, we cannot lose sight of anthropology's holism. I argue that analysis of any sociocultural domain using an abstract conceptual structure with generative, processual properties embedded in cultural knowledge will lead more productively to a cognitive path (El Guindi Reference El Guindi2006).