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Mosbys and broomsedge: the semantics of class in an Appalachian kinship system
Author(s) -
BATTEAU ALLEN
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1982.9.3.02a00010
Subject(s) - kinship , genealogy , appalachia , ancestor , class (philosophy) , identity (music) , sociology , geography , unit (ring theory) , nexus (standard) , history , anthropology , archaeology , psychology , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , mathematics education , computer science , biology , embedded system , physics , acoustics
The kinship forms of a community in the Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States are examined, with a focus on a kinship unit called the set by the mountain people. This unit, which is a collection of descendants of a common ancestor living in close proximity, is analyzed in terms of its composition, constitution, and use in network formation. It is demonstrated that the set is not simply a kinship group and that its existence is not simply an adaptation to poverty. Rather, it is a codification of the distinctions of kinship, personal identity, and class understood by the mountain people. The nexus of these class relationships lies in usufructuary rights of kin to land, which has been translated into an idiom of identification with named localities. [kinship, class, Appalachia, land]

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