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Cultural Relatedness Paper

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Relatedness is the socially recognized ties that connect people in a variety of different ways. It attempts to understand and record the ways in which people in specific ethnographic contexts articulate and engage in the relationships that are important to them in everyday life. Relatedness can take many forms such as friendship, marriage, parenthood, shared links to a common ancestor, workplace association, just to name a few. These forms can be shared via many different means as well. They can be shared physically by a body substance such as blood, semen, genes, or mother’s milk. It can be through spiritual means such as soul, spirit, nurturance, or love. You can also have cases where more than one substance is shared.
2. There are two major strategies humans have used in constructing patterns of descent. The first strategy involves the descent group being formed by people who believe they are related to each other by connection made though their mothers and fathers equally. Essentially they believe that they equally related to their fathers side as they are their mothers side. This is known as bilateral descent (cognatic descent) from this bilateral descent arises two forms of kinship groups. The first being made up of people who believe they are …show more content…

The major elements of kinship are marriage descent and adoption. Kinship developed through relationship is known as marriage, kinship based on birth is termed descent, and kinship based on nurturance alone is known as adoption. These are all selective in different societies. Marriage/mating can be seen in some societies that may place women as the main role in the bearing of children and giving no attention to the male’s role in the conception process. Birth/descent can be seen in some societies where they trace the connections to a person through the men, which emphasizes the paternal role. Adoption can be seen in societies where members are encouraged to adopt not only children but also adult

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