Kinship as a Mechanism for Social Integrating
It is often demonstrated in many anthropological studies that kinship acts as an important means for social integrating in a given society. But is it a fair generalization to say that kinship always functions as a mechanism for social integration?
Kinship refers to the relationships established through marriage or descent groups that has been proven in some societies to lead to social integrating, or the process of interaction with other individuals. When researching the case studies we have explored, I found that two main events that utilized kinship for social integrating were death and marriage.
In the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea, in the northern Kiriwina Island, is where the Trobrianders, studied by Anette Wiener(1988), live. …
