Duchy Baloma i nie tylko: pokrewieństwo biologiczne, społeczne i kulturowe
Spirits of Baloma and Not Only; on Social, Cultural and Spiritual Kinship

Author(s): Jacek Maria Kurczewski
Subject(s): Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: kinship; ghosts; spirituality; copulation; procreation
Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the social constructing of kinship in the context of the new monography of Trobriand theory of kinship and magic (Mosko 2017). In essence, Mosko does not contradict Malinowski’s narrative but enriches it with new data and new theory reformulating the old Lucien Lévy-Bruhl theory of participation. As a result, three important changes are introduced: (1) instead of negation of physiological fatherhood the physiological (but different than in the commonly assumed) cooperation of father in procreation by mother is acknowledged; (2) the body is permeated with spirit instead of opposition; (3) masculinity and feminity are intermixing in both mother and father. The Trobriand theory is then compared with the Christian theory of procreation that includes not only the parthenogenesis but also the spiritual fatherhood of Joseph as well as divine fatherhood, and allows for the development of spiritual and divine kinship. The fatherhood independent of the physiology of procreation and genetics is the social fact as is the motherhood and kinship in general. This is overlooked by critics of the gender theory who, defending the naturalist concept of kinship, undermine its metaphysics.

• Details
• Contents