IGNOU BOOK | Sociology of Kinship[ English medium] BSOC-109

Product Overview & Details

Sociology of Kinship is a course that examines the social organization of human relationships based on marriage, descent, blood relations, and other culturally recognized forms of relatedness. It explores how kinship systems shape family structures, social identities, inheritance, residence, authority, and patterns of social interaction across different societies.

The course introduces students to key sociological and anthropological concepts such as kinship, descent, lineage, clan, marriage, family, household, residence, affinity, and inheritance. It examines different systems of descent, including patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral systems, and explores patterns of marriage such as monogamy, polygamy, endogamy, and exogamy.

Particular attention is given to the relationship between kinship, family, gender, property, power, and social organization. The course also examines how kinship systems vary across cultures and how they respond to processes of modernization, urbanization, migration, industrialization, and globalization.

The course further explores changing patterns of marriage and family, including nuclear and extended families, changing household structures, intergenerational relationships, changing gender roles, and contemporary forms of partnership and family life. It encourages students to critically examine how traditional kinship relations are being transformed in contemporary societies.

The course aims to develop students' ability to analyse kinship as an important social institution and to understand its relationship with wider social structures and cultural practices.

Overall, Sociology of Kinship provides a comprehensive understanding of how societies organize relationships through kinship, marriage, descent, and family, while examining the changing nature of these relationships in contemporary social life.