The Ways of Friendship: Anthropological Perspectives

摘要

In anthropology, friendship has traditionally been cast as the 'poor relation' of kinship (excuse the pun!). Early ethnographers were often preoccupied with mapping systems of kinship and alliance through which flowed bundles of economic, political and legal rights and obligation. Other relationships that fell outwith the resulting lineages were rendered all but invisible. A couple of important volumes over the last decade or so have sought to redress this imbalance (notably Allan & Allan, 1998; Bell & Coleman, 1999; Spencer & Pahl, 2006). However, the recent rise of the 'new kinship studies' has served to re-direct attention again towards kinship at the expense of friendship or, rather, friendship has been framed within broader constructions of 'relatedness', rather than being an object of study in its own right.