Premium
Descent, Alliance, and Political Order among Akha
Author(s) -
Kammerer Cornelia Ann
Publication year - 1998
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.1998.25.4.659
Subject(s) - kinship , alliance , politics , nexus (standard) , egalitarianism , mainland , sociology , clan , gender studies , political science , ethnology , anthropology , geography , law , archaeology , computer science , embedded system
This article explores the way patrilineal descent and affinity intersect and interlock with the political system among Tibeto‐Burman‐speaking Akha highlanders of mainland Southeast Asia. In contrast to Leach's famous work on the Kachin of Burma, the Akha case suggests that asymmetric alliance is not only compatible with egalitarian political organization but can also be constitutive of it. Uncovering the cultural nexus between descent and affinity and the structural linkage between asymmetric alliance and political egalitarianism requires a kinship analysis that is also an analysis of local constructions of gender , [kinship, asymmetric alliance, gender, political systems, comparison, Southeast Asia, Akha]