Siblings In South Asia (Culture and Human Development) - Hardcover

"It is just about the right time for anthropology to return to the study of kinship. The study of kinship disappeared from anthropology about twenty years ago, exhausted by pallid formal models of kinship semantics and endless sophistical debates over definitions. Siblings in South Asia: Brothers and Sisters in Cultural Context will go a long way to renewing anthropological interest in the comparative study of kinship. The book connects the study of kinship to recent developments in cultural psychology and person-centered ethnography. The focus of the book is on South Asian Hindu and Muslim cultural representations of the sibling relationship over the life course, the family socialization of dependency, rivalry, cooperation, intimacy and avoidance, hierarchy and equality among brothers and sisters and the relationship of those attitudes and values to local regional norms for marriage, descent and residence. The book contains analyses of articulated norms, mythical representations and observed practices. A central question for an anthropology or cultural psychology of human development is whether there are plural norms for what counts as a successful or well-developed relationship between brothers and sisters across the life course. Siblings in South Asia reinvigorates kinship studies by addressing that fundamental question." --Richard Shweder, Ph.D., University of Chicago "A fine example of how collaborative and controlled comparative work can be done. Focusing on the sibling relation in South Asia, the papers enhance each other, providing a perspective in which both common themes as well as regional and individual differences are given their due. Cultural meaning, material constraint, individual motivation, and enduring social structural form are all taken into account." --Robert A. Paul, Ph.D., Charles Howard Candler Professor of Anthropology, Emory University, Editor of Ethos: The Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology "Clinicians and researchers interested in family relationships should read Siblings in South Asia ." -- Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review "The importance of sibling relationships to development and the great significance of culture in these relationships make this book relevant for mental health professionals...The content is fascinating, broadening traditional views of sibling relationships, and providing a shift away from the usual focus on sibling conflict....Its anthropological perspectives succeed in providing some valuable insights on development." -- Readings "Clinicians and researchers interested in family relationships should read "Siblings in South Asia,"" --"Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review" "The importance of sibling relationships to development and the great significance of culture in these relationships make this book relevant for mental health professionals...The content is fascinating, broadening traditional views of sibling relationships, and providing a shift away from the usual focus on sibling conflict....Its anthropological perspectives succeed in providing some valuable insights on development." --"Readings "

Do different types of households and family structures affect the development of sibling relationships? Are cultural concepts of personhood expressed in siblingship? How do brothers and sisters respond to the expectation that they should get along? Despite the obvious importance of sibling relationships in human development, questions such as these are not readily answerable for a number of reasons: To date, psychologists have not adequately considered the impact of culture on sibling relationships; anthropologists generally have not studied cultural processes as they unfold in individual development; and, perhaps most important, few studies of siblings outside the United States and Britain currently exist. Addressing the issues of greatest concern to psychologists and anthropologists alike, this interdisciplinary volume - including social and structural, developmental psychological, psychoanalytic, and ethnopsychological perspectives - examines the development of sibling relationships in several different regions. The book opens with an overview of sibling similarities and differences around the world and an introduction to the cross-cultural study of sibling relations. The volume is then divided into two parts. The first focuses on the organization of sibling relations in childhood and adulthood. Chapters analyze the organization of sibling relations as they relate to socialization practices, family economics and structure, and customs of marriage and dowry. The second part of the book focuses on the representation of cultural and psychological meanings of sibling relations through mythology, astrology, and life history. Rounding out the volume is a discussion of how this workcontributes to the developmental literature. A groundbreaking work on the roles of brothers and sisters, this volume also constitutes one of the best available regional studies of culture and society. As such, it is invaluable reading for developmental psychologists, anthropologists, an