Tuesday and Thursday, 2 – 3:15pm
Ruffner 211, building 44 on this map.
Instructor: Allison Alexy
Department of Anthropology, Brooks Hall 207
phone: (434) 982-2997
alexy [at] virginia.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays, 3:30 – 5:00 and by appointment
** The Collab site has the class recordings **
Course Content
This course begins with attention to a pattern: many contemporary nation-states organize citizenship regulations around family membership. Belonging to a nation is constructed as belonging to a family; conversely, belonging to a specific family can bring new citizenship. To an anthropologist, such a pattern demands questions about the relationship between kinship and citizenship as they are variously constructed in multiple cultures. This course investigates how kinship and citizenship intersect, to examine the implications for nations, families, communities, and individuals. Specifically, the course will be organized around the following questions:
Why, where, how, and with what effects are kinship and citizenship linked?
How has citizenship been theorized? When and how does kinship enter these theories? When should it?
What are the gaps between theoretical or figurative kinship and literal family membership? How do these gaps impact constructions of citizenship?