Australian Aboriginal Kinship

This handbook brings the principles of human kinship in general, and Australian Aboriginal kinship in particular, closer to the reader in an understandable and pedagogic way. Aimed at a large public, including anthropologists, the handbook is divided into four parts: the historical and ethnographic background of important concepts such as 'culture', 'hunter-gatherer societies' etc.; the basic tools and notions needed to understand kinship (terminology, marriage, descent and filiation); an ethnographic analysis of the Australian Western Desert kinship and notions such as 'family', 'household' and 'domestic group'; a presentation of social organisation, in particular generational moieties, patri- and matrimoieties, sections and subsections. The concluding chapter discusses in a critical fashion the concept of kinship itself and elaborates on the idea of relatedness as a meaningful expansion.