About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond.

Gose, Peter; Carsten, Janet; Hugh‐Jones, Stephen

doi:10.2307/3034400

Cited by 15 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…In Mrkaa, houses are the ritual centre of family life. In contemporary Kri‐land, the stability, cleanliness, and beauty of one's house has also come to be seen as a marker of prestige, social mobility, and sophistication, as is the case in lowland Laos (Zuckerman 2018: 186), where, similar to many other parts of the world, ‘aspirations of progress and prosperity find their expression in striving for good houses’ (Stolz 2021: 815; see also Archambault 2018; Carsten & Hugh‐Jones 1995). In Mrkaa, markers of distinction in houses include things that are costly and hard to obtain: concrete pylons, fresh paint, high‐quality timber beams, ceramic roof tiles, a separate kitchen area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The unbearable heaviness of being Kri: house construction and ethnolinguistic transformation in upland Laos

Zuckerman

Enfield

2022

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Kri people in central Laos traditionally engage in 'heavy' practices, including a stipulation that houses must be relocated and the flooring discarded upon a death in the family. Such 'heavy' practices are considered 'real Kri', and they are not adhered to by those who identify as Kri Phòòngq. This article examines the adoption of more enduring housing construction among the Kri, and the dynamics of ethnic identity implied by the dilemmas raised for individuals and families who must choose between (a) maintaining the heavy life of real Kri, (b) innovating new and less heavy solutions, or (c) changing identity entirely. The heaviness of being KriIn the upland Lao village of Mrkaa, in an ethnolinguistically diverse valley inside the Nakai-Nam-Theun Biodiversity Conservation Area, we are talking with Vòòk Sam, a senior elder of the community of Kri, who today number well under a thousand. Vòòk Sam is a man who embodies and represents the spiritual traditions that define what it means to be Kri Tàn, 'real Kri' , as he puts it, in a rapidly changing world. Atop the veranda of his rickety house made from light timber, palm leaves, and splitbamboo panelling, Vòòk Sam is explaining to us the most important defining feature of being Kri: rììp nnangq, 'heavy traditions' . Kri are known by their many neighbours in the area for their uniquely 'heavy' cultural practices, which put a noticeable burden on people in their daily existence. 1 Nearby Saek, Bru, Lao, and Vietnamese-speaking people often comment upon this when the subject arises. Vòòk Sam gives us some examples of these heavy burdens. Kri should eat only fish, no red meat. Meanwhile, their environment is teeming with wildlife that most other groups in Laos eat. Kri women who are menstruating should not set foot on the floor of their raised homes, instead staying quu qatak, 'on the ground' , resting and sleeping in purpose-built menstruation huts. And in case of a death in the family, Kri households should abandon their homes and relocate. They may reuse old building materials, but the flooring of the old house must be discarded for good. A new floor is made and installed. These are just a few of the 'heavy' injunctions that define the Kri condition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The unbearable heaviness of being Kri: house construction and ethnolinguistic transformation in upland Laos

Zuckerman

Enfield

2022

Royal Anthropological Inst

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“…Lévi-Strauss' concept of the house is a theory of social organisation: it asks, how do social groups create members (Godelier, 2018;Lévi-Strauss, 1988;1983)? To detect a housesociety, anthropologists contend that one works backwards from native idioms for membership (Gillespie, 2000:23f;Cartsen & Hugh-Jones, 1995). Great Britain's national and Establishment institutions are either figuratively, or literally, houses: from Eton College, where Etonian carries a very specific connotation in social life, to National Trust (NT) properties standing for 'the nation'.…”

Section: Lévi-strauss' 'Concept Of the House'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lévi-Strauss's concept of the house is a theory of social organisation: it asks, how do social groups create members (Godelier, 2018;Lévi-Strauss, 1982? To detect a house-society, anthropologists contend that one works backwards from native idioms for membership (Cartsen & Hugh-Jones, 1995;Gillespie, 2000, pp. 23ff.).…”

Section: Lévi-strauss's 'Concept Of the House'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking elites in British sociology: Great Britain as a house-society

Smith

2023

The Sociological Review

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This article outlines a novel conceptual framework to examine English society’s ruling institutions. Usually called ‘The Establishment’, the term has been a thorn in the side of analyses of class, status and power in British sociology as it stands between polemic and an explanation for England’s peculiar exaggeration of status over class. Drawing upon Lévi-Strauss’s concept of a ‘house-society’, the article rethinks how England’s ruling institutions are called upon to do two things at once: disguise political-economic interests through the language of kinship and naturalise status and belonging. English society’s ruling institutions are overdetermined in the call to create legitimate and exclusive membership to something, perhaps anachronistically, called ‘ Great Britain’. Tracing this to the origins of English class nomenclature in early modern political thought, the article applies this framework to a discussion of Eton College and the Etonians’ relationship to our present political crisis.

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“…Cross-culturally, such corporate affiliations were often expressed by households with valued landholdings and customary patterns of marriage alliance. Conversely, nonlandholding households on community margins showed both shifting affiliations between individual nuclear families and relatively informal settlement structure (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995;Joyce and Gillespie 2000). Such systems could account for the variable organization within Early Cienega sites where house groups occur, but not all households belong to these groups.…”

Section: Lineage and Household Groupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Parallel patterns typically occur in cemeteries within or adjacent to residences, which provide a tangible connection between land, house, and domestic group. Although these patterns are most marked in sedentary groups with ranked hierarchies, various degrees of differentiation between ordinary residences and houses that have "hardened" into significant locales are made by mobile farmer/foragers in short-lived settlements with flexible hierarchies (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995;Joyce and Gillespie 2000).…”

Section: Lineage and Household Groupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobility, Lineage, and Land Tenure: Interpreting House Groups at Early Agricultural Settlements in the Tucson Basin, Southern Arizona

Gruner

2023

Am. Antiq.

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During the Early Agricultural period (2100 BC–AD 50), preceramic farmers in the Sonoran Desert invested considerable labor in canal-irrigated field systems while remaining very residentially mobile. The degree to which they exercised formal systems of land tenure, or organized their communities above the household level, remains contested. This article discusses the spatial and social organization of Early Cienega–phase settlements in the Los Pozos site group, an Early Agricultural site complex located along the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona. At Los Pozos, the formal spatial organization of seasonal farmsteads suggests that despite continued residential mobility, multihousehold lineages maintained distinct territories. Enduring “house groups”—likely lineal groups—are associated with disproportionately large cemeteries, suggesting the revisitation of ancestral territory through occupational hiatuses. However, variability in the formality and permanence of Early Cienega–phase settlements throughout the region indicates a flexible continuum of occupational mobility. These higher-order affiliations were only expressed in persistent settlements near highly productive farmland, where the relative priority of households over improved land might be contested.

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About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond.

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

The unbearable heaviness of being Kri: house construction and ethnolinguistic transformation in upland Laos

The unbearable heaviness of being Kri: house construction and ethnolinguistic transformation in upland Laos

Rethinking elites in British sociology: Great Britain as a house-society

Mobility, Lineage, and Land Tenure: Interpreting House Groups at Early Agricultural Settlements in the Tucson Basin, Southern Arizona

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