Anthropos: Anthropos, 99.2004

Anthropos, 99.2004

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Zeitschrift

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510222436589

Titel:: Anthropos, 99.2004

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2004

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenheft

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 99, 2004, Heft 1

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Anthropos 99.2004: 3-13 “Marriage is Trouble” An Analysis of Kinship, Gender Identity, and Sociocultural Change in Rural Tanzania Karen A. Porter Abstract. - The structurally equivalent and theoretically non competitive brother-sister relationship is a critical site of potential conflict under conditions of socioeconomic change. In Pare society, women have enduring identities and moral and material rights and responsibilities as members of natal patrilineages. When combined with changes engendered by formal codes of law, education, and Christianity, women can “opt out” of marriage but still bear children who gain social identity through matrifiliation. Women rework the logic of the patrilineal lineage system. Moral evaluations derive from factors of wealth, education, and the extent to which women can fulfil jural obligations to men in new ways. [East Africa, Pare, kinship, identity, gender, sociocultural change] Karen A. Porter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Comparative Sociology at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma (WA, USA). She earned her B. A. at the University of Washington, and M. A. and Ph. D. at the University of Rochester. She has conducted ethnographic field research in Tanzania, Israel, and upstate New York, as well as anthropological consulting research with USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and Chief Leschi Schools of the Puyallup Tribe, Washington. She served as General Editor of the Anthropology of Work Review from 1997 -2001 and has published in African Studies Review, Africa Today, The Encyclopedia of Community, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Practicing Anthropology. Maisha akwe kibaha ni ndughu 1 (The greatest thing in life is kin) Introduction Premarital births are on the rise in the rural communities of South Pare, Tanzania, and some women are even opting out of marriage altogether. The stringent customary prohibitions on such behavior, and the centrality of women to the reproduction of the patrilineal system make these developments surprising. Just as interesting is why such women are evaluated differently in moral terms by the wider community and not just labelled and ostracized as “wicked.” I aim to show how these developments “make sense” in terms of Pare social theory and practice by focusing on the brother-sister relationship and its social, jural, and material elements. I suggest that in this agricultural society, altered through interaction with capitalist economy, Western education, and Christianity, women activate their enduring gender identities as members of their natal patrilineages to create new possibilities for economic support and access to resources. So doing enables them to gain an “edge” in, defer, or sidestep marriage altogether and set up their own households. I link the different moral assessments given to women who bear children outside of marriage to the extent to which they are able to fulfill their jural obligations to brothers (and fathers), which is in turn, shaped by a woman’s socioeconomic status, level of education, income earning abilities, and culturally shared understandings of lineage reputation. Women who can uphold lineage responsibilities, act as “male daughters” (Amadiume 1987), and perpetuate the 1 1 Italicized words are Chasu, the Pare language, except where indicated. KiSwahili words are designated [Sw.] in the text.

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