7 Kinship and Family Structures

Written by Ysabelle Salazar, Brandon Cho, Corey Blatz, Mary Eberle, Megan Diane, Jessica Proctor, and Amanda Zunner-Keating

Audio recording for Chapter 7 is available on Soundcloud.

7. 1 Cultural anthropology and kinship 

Anthropologists closely examine modern and ancient human family structures, compare familial structures to those of our living primate relatives, and strive to understand pre-human familial structures based on the fossil record.

Modern family structures vary across cultures and across time indicating the variety of ways that a human society can be constructed. Cultural anthropologists are particularly interested in this variation and seek to better understand the diverse ways that families exist because it is within the family that we are first exposed to cultural norms and beliefs. Humans are enculturated by our families: we learn our religions, race, traditions, gender roles, etc. within our family units and then we bring these beliefs and traditions into our societies.

If you look at a society – consider the United States, as an example – you might say that the U.S. is one culture. But each state also has its own culture within the larger culture. Then, each city has its own, unique culture within that state’s culture, and each neighborhood also has its own specific culture. Then, within each neighborhood, each family has its own, unique traditions, beliefs, and practices. So, from this perspective, you can understand that the family unit is the smallest building block of our overall cultural system. No two families have identical beliefs, histories, or worldviews and we can understand how cultural conflict arises when we are able to examine the diverse cultural beliefs of each family group that still live side-by-side within a larger cultural context.

For many, our first childhood slumber party was a sort of anthropological fieldwork. Your first sleepover was the first time you realized that different people have different cultures and practices than you do. Other families may go to bed at a different time, they may have different rules about snacks or watching cartoons, other families may share chores in a way that is different from your own family, etc. These encounters can be the first instances that we are meaningfully introduced to cultural diversity and – in a way – participant observation. This is why anthropologists like to study family structures: closely examining family structures creates an opportunity to understand the basic building blocks of human nature, biological evolution, cultural norms, and cultural differences.

Cultural anthropologists call this the study of kinship. Kinship is a system of meaning and power that we create in order to determine who is responsible for whom (Guest). Each culture constructs familial responsibility differently. For example, some cultural groups believe that parents are responsible for children when they are young while children are then responsible for their parents later in life. Some cultures do not believe that children must care for aging parents and still each culture varies in the extent to which parents are expected to care for children (Ex: Should both parents raise the children? Should both parents earn money for the children? When should the children start earning money for the family – if at all? etc.)

At the same time, each culture constructs relatedness differently: Some cultures incorporate exclusively blood relatives, others believe that you can have family members who are not blood related to you. Some cultures believe that cousins and grandparents are part of the same household while, in other cultures, parents can live in entirely separate households. Each tradition varies from place to place, culture to culture, and generation to generation, and there is no one, universal idea of what kinship (or family) is nor is there one universal idea of what kinship (or family) should achieve.

While it’s difficult to come up with one clear definition of kinship, cultRAL anthropologists typically point to a variety of shared characteristics that we commonly see in kinship structures. Typically, kinship serves the following functions (FROM GUEST):

• Families provide support and they nurture
• Families ensure reproduction
• Families protect group assets
• Families influence, social, economic, and political systems

To summarize, anthropologists closely examine family structures because:

• Basic social structures frequently follow family structures
• The family is where humans learn behavior
• Family identity is intertwined with age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality
• It’s within our families that we learn gender roles, division of labor, religion, warfare, politics, migration, nationalism, etc.
• We create families in order to maintain cultural continuity

7. 2 Biological anthropology and kinship

Written by Jessica Proctor. 

Biological anthropologists examine family structures, marriage patterns, and child-rearing strategies to further understand how this enhanced reproductive success for our ancestors as well as modern humans. Environmental factors influence the type of subsistence strategies and even reproductive strategies that enhance reproductive success.

Our hominin ancestors, prior to the adoption of a more sedentary lifestyle with the adoption of agriculture 10,000 years ago, likely existed in smaller bands of hunter-gatherers with polygynous mating strategies. It is likely that all members of the group participated in both gathering and hunting equally.

Ethnographic studies of modern nomadic hunter-gatherer populations suggest that the idea of “man the hunter, woman the gatherer” is a myth that had likely been perpetuated by modern conceptions of gender roles.

For our ancestors, it is likely that all members of the group somewhat equally contributed to food provisioning. However, since females are often consumed with raising children, practicing on-demand breastfeeding, etc. it is certainly possible that the selective advantage of successful male food provisioning became a driving force of natural selection at some point in our ancestry.

Additionally, lower levels of sexual dimorphism seen in members of genus Homo (in comparison to the australopithecines) suggest that cooperation amongst the group was selected for in our evolutionary past.

7.3 How do we decide who is related in a modern world?

People might culturally construct their families in any variety of ways. In some cases, our families might be strictly prescribed to us through legal systems, religious doctrine, or cultural traditions. We may not feel like we have any ability to decide who is related to us. Or, in other cases, we might feel like we build our families freely; you may even consider your closest friends to be your true family. All of these are valid ways to understand family, relatedness, and community.

Anthropologists use a few terms to describe different types of family structures. We’ll discuss just a few.

In cultural anthropology, we use the term descent groups to refer to cultural identities that are based upon the idea that everyone belongs to a long chain of familial connections. In these cases, each group understands themselves as coming from many generations of parents to children that relate back to a common ancestor that ties them together. There are two different kinds of descent groups:

• Clans: A descent group that points to one, shared ancestor
• Lineages: A descent group that can be traced genealogically, pointing to a few shared ancestors across generations

There are a few different types of descent structures. A unilineal descent structure is a tradition that traces relatedness through either the mothers or fathers (consistently). There are two types of unilineal descent structures:

• Patrilineal: Traces lineage through a father/fathers
• Matrilineal: Traces lineage through a mother/mothers

An ambilineal descent structure traces a person’s relatedness through both mothers and fathers. In the United States, it is not uncommon to find an ambilineal descent structure.

7.4 Types of relatives

Anthropologists use the term consanguineal relatives to refer to anyone who is related by blood. This includes mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, and grandchildren. It also includes uncles and aunts who are siblings to the parent (it does not include aunts and uncles who marry into the family).

We also use the term affinal relative to refer to anyone who is related through marriage. Affinal relationships create a relationship between two people’s kinship groups.

7.5 What is marriage?

Like the other concepts presented in this chapter, marriage exists with such great diversity that it can be difficult to define. In some cultures, marriage is for life while, in other cultures, marriage may only be during the period of child-rearing. In some cultures, marriage can be between any genders while, in others, it’s required to be between members of opposite genders. In some cultures, marriage can be between multiple people while, in others, it can only be between two people.

When examining marriage, anthropologists can point to a collection of common characteristics that exist across many marriage-like social relationships. Typically, a marriage achieves:

• physical and emotional intimacy
• sexual pleasure
• reproduction and raising of children
• mutual support and companionship
• legal rights to property and inheritance
• alliances between groups

An arranged marriage is a marriage that is matched by the families involved. Cultures that utilize arranged marriages typically:

• Hold the worldview that the family is the backbone of society and that the wellbeing of the community-at-large is more important than an individual’s particular interests (in other words: the community is more collective than individualistic).
• Hold the worldview that entering an arranged marriage is a symbol of commitment to the wellbeing of the families and the larger community.
• Hold the belief that a community’s support is important to keep a marriage and family together.

A companionate marriage is a marriage that is initiated by romantic love. Companionate marriages are more common in societies:

• That prioritizes the interests of the individual over the interests of the larger community.
• That hold the worldview that “love conquers all” and that that romantic love and affection is what is necessary to keep a family together.

In most cases, even a person whose society allows companionate marriage will still feel some pressure to marry a certain type of person; it’s rare to find a situation where a person will feel complete freedom to marry anyone. We may feel societal pressure to marry only people of a different gender, or only people within a certain age group, or of the same religion, race, or nationality as us. So, in reality, we don’t live in either arranged marriage or companionate societies but rather, we all operate somewhere on a cultural spectrum that gives us a certain amount of freedom and a certain amount of restriction when selecting a life partner.

7.6 Plural marriage

While monogamy is the practice of only two people being married to each other, it is not the only form of marriage that exists. Anthropologists use the term polygamy to refer to the practice of a person having more than one spouse and group marriage to refer to the practice of multiple people all being married to one another. The two major types of polygamy are:

• Polygyny: the practice of a man having multiple wives.
• Polyandry: The practice of a woman having multiple husbands.

Polygyny is typically practiced in societies that highly value the production of children because, when there are multiple women who are prepared to bear children, multiple pregnancies can take place at the same time. Polyandry is practiced in societies that utilize the family unit to support children by maintaining the property. For example, in Tibetan tradition, all brothers from one family will marry the same woman. As a result, the family will only have one pregnancy at a time, but they will also be able to maintain their family’s property and inheritance – and  – the family will have many adults working to support the family and children. Read Melvyn Goldstein’s “Fraternal Polyandry: When Brothers Take A Wife” for more on this practice.

7.7 Sang-He Lee Considers the role of motherhood and childbirth in human evolution

Written by Brandon Cho and Jessica Proctor. Edited by Jaenelle Uy and Amanda Zunner-Keating. 

Anthropologist Sang-He Lee, leads innovative research into human lifespans in order to define longevity more effectively. Lee engages with The Grandmothering Hypothesis which argues that the postmenopausal survival rate is high in humans because grandmothers will enhance the reproductive success of their children by assisting in the upbringing of their grandchildren.  Human offspring have long developmental periods and require high levels of parental investment.  Grandmothers can reduce some of this burden and enhance the survival rates of their grandchildren and in turn, enhance the reproductive success of their children.

By defining longevity as a ratio of Old Adults relative to Young Adults, Sang- He Lee not only allowed research to demonstrate an increase in longevity with statistical significance, she detailed precisely how we evolved to crave the presence of elders in our groups and in our lives today, writing that, “The results imply a selective advantage in having older adults in a society, in forms of information transmission from generation to generation,” (Lee).

Lee’s publication titled, “Big-Brained Babies Give Moms Big Grief,” uses paleontology to examine the differences between human and nonhuman childbirth. She theorizes that the “social” aspect of childbirth, being surrounded by nurses or family, began because newborns had evolved with larger heads before females evolved to have wider pelvises, necessitating a greater support system to cope with the immense– and often lethal– pain. She goes further to say, “The big brain of humans is the true hallmark of humanity, not because it signifies high intelligence, but because it made extreme sociality a prerequisite just to be born,” (Lee, 2018).

7.8 Rachel Chapman examines the tendency to hide pregnancy in Mozambique

Written by Megan Diane. Edited by Amanda Zunner-Keating Heather McIlvaine-Newsad.

Medical anthropologists examine the way that health and healthcare are influenced by social factors. Anthropologists study the way that laws, infrastructure, wealth distribution, access to education, gender disparity, and racism can either connect or separate a person from necessary healthcare. By embracing both the science of human biology and the cultural realities of our societies, this type of anthropological research produces the breakthroughs necessary to better understand the complete human experience.

We can consider the research of feminist, anti-racist anthropologist Rachel R. Chapman as an example of this type of research. Chapman closely examines the lack of quality healthcare that is available to Black women across the world. In some cases, the lack of healthcare is due to social pressures or obligations and, in other cases, the problem is due to a lack of resources. Chapman aptly situates these social factors within the historical framework of colonial exploitation in order to demonstrate the way that power impacts human health.

Specifically, Chapman focuses on the cost and accessibility – both financial and social – of healthcare for the African and African Diasporic communities. Chapman’s work centers on the inequalities between colonial forces and communities of color.

Dr. Chapman’s 2010 book, “Family Secrets,” opens with her being implored to help a laboring mother in Mozambique. She is taken to a house where the mother and two attending women are in distress. Not being a medical professional, she tries to convince nurses from the nearby clinic to come help. They refuse, saying they can only help those who “aren’t lazy” (Chapman 7) and are willing to come into the clinic. Chapman manages to convince the mother to travel to the clinic. Chapman wonders why it was so hard to help this woman which leads her to develop an explanation of the economic and social factors that separate these impoverished and marginalized indigenous women from the mostly poorly equipped but accessible health centers provided by government authorities.

Chapman’s research was conducted in Mozambique where international organizations and NGOs have operated for generations but – Chapman finds – these organizations have missed a crucial factor about Mozambican culture: the social vulnerability of being pregnant. In the early stages of her research she would knock on doors to find interview candidates. In this work, she met visibly pregnant women who would flatly deny the pregnancy. Chapman was very intrigued by this cultural tradition of hiding and denying a pregnancy because she believed that this practice of denial must impact the way that pregnant women do not receive necessary healthcare. During Chapman’s time in Mozambique, she happened to become pregnant and give birth. This allowed her to access cultural knowledge from other mothers and older women who took pity on her being so far from home and away from her own mother. Experiencing the phenomena she was researching alongside her research subjects allowed for barriers to be broken and empathy shared between researcher and subject. This is a very different kind of anthropology than the white male Euro-centered origins of the discipline and it offers a richer and more sensitive understanding of the culture being studied.

From her research, we can understand how international aid groups and the plural medical system have impacted women of reproductive age in Mozambique. Chapman dug deeper and conducted interviews with women of Mozambique and looked at the social, political, and economic factors that influence their lives. In her research, Chapman learned that the knowledge of pregnancies are “segredos de casa” or “family secrets” that are traditionally protected in Mozambique. In this culture, exposing a pregnancy creates vulnerabilities that modern medicine can’t handle. They are rooted in social causes that physicians don’t address (125). For example, “feitiço,” the term for witchcraft or sorcery, can be used to cause harm to a woman’s reproductive health. A pregnancy may elicit jealousy, resentment, or rivalry in other women (59) that leads them to seek the help of a sorcerer (63) to harm the pregnant woman. Angered or disrespected ancestor spirits (65) or disruptions within the family could cause harm to the most vulnerable member, the pregnant woman (66). Visiting the prenatal clinic announces their condition to the community, so women avoid it as long as possible if not entirely. And whether they go to a clinic or not, indigenous healers are also used to increase chances of a positive outcome. These healers have a wide array of specialties and vastly outnumber physicians (126). Women also self-medicate with both folk remedies and modern drugs, or visit Christian churches and healers (29). The plurality of these medical systems help explain why women aren’t coming to prenatal clinics; they are seeking treatment elsewhere.

Local and international political motivations stoked the wars of independence and destabilization, austerity measures levied by aid organizations weakened the nation’s ability to provide social services, and subpar clinical data all create a climate of insufficient healthcare for pregnant women and the social climate encourages women to hide their pregnancies from the public and from healthcare professionals.

7.9 Walter R Allen emphasizes diversity across families

Written by Corey Blatz. Edited by Amanda Zunner-Keating, Heather McIlvaine Newsad, and Travis DuBry. 

Walter R. Allen’s pedagogical background centers in sociology and his research provides critical frameworks useful for the realm of anthropology and other fields within the sphere of social sciences. Over the years Allen has served as a professor of Sociology and African American Studies at both the University of Michigan and UCLA.

Allen’s publication, “African American Family Life in Societal Context: Crisis and Hope” seeks to uncover the truthful realities of Black American families and individuals. In this work, Allen highlights how the notorious stereotyping of Black households reinforces harmful and racist assumptions about the community. The majority of research that has been conducted on Black American families within contemporary contexts comes from biased standpoints that blur the lines between within-group differences. Failing to consider the role that variables such as class, religion, income, and life-cycle stages that are present within Black communities has led to a problematic understanding that all Black families are the same (Allen 570).

Providing frameworks in which to model a better understanding of Black American families, Allen underlines how their history has always been marked by change. While slavery eradicated cultural traditions brought from Africa and thus created the othered “African American”, crucial moments in Black history, such as emancipation and desegregation, further stress the disadvantages Black Americans systematically face under the guise of democracy. Furthermore, Black families showcase much diversity in morality, behaviors, goals, and values. This leads Allen to suggest that in order to properly assess the Black American family, we must also examine them in relation to their environments.

Alongside all these considerations, the overall model Allen uses to assess Black families stresses sociological contexts and the dynamic nature of Black family experiences (Allen 573–79). In order to fully understand the Black American family, it is important to regard the junctions in which these groups actively cross with poverty, health and child care, education, and the media, for the intrinsic relations shared between them help divulge a clearer perspective that counters commonly held stereotypes.

7.10 Mary Racelis examines the societal needs of children

Written by Ysabelle Salazar. Edited by Amanda Zunner-Keating and Lindsay Donaldson.

What does a child need to thrive and how can society deliver necessities to children? These are central questions in anthropology and the answers vary across generation and place. Knowledge, skills, and cultural traditions are passed down from adult to child which makes childhood an essential space where culture is formed and maintained. And, while some cultural groups view child-rearing as an individual or gender-specific endeavor, others view childcare as universal and/or communal. All of these variations make childhood a fascinating area of study for anthropologists.

Anthropologist Mary Racelis examines childhood in the Philippines with a specific focus on the rights and needs of children. Racelis’ work advocates for the rights of children in a culturally-specific lens as she directly asks children how they view society’s role in their safety and upbringing. One of Racelis’ informants explains what she believes her country’s president should provide to children, “she should rehabilitate children who use rugby and punish people who sell them drugs, who rape children and make them prostitutes. […] She should also put up a hospital, give us free groceries, […] collect the garbage more regularly, and install roving guards at night (UNICEF).” This reflection from Racelis’ child informant reflects the myriad of issues facing children in the Philippines.

Racelis uses these children interviews to stress the urgent need to improve these children’s lives and wellbeing. The study highlights the reality that a child’s  healthy development and participation in society is required for both their individual betterment and for the nation’s long-term development. In this view, we can see that children are viewed as active participants in cultural advancement and preservation. And, we can understand that this community views government participation as essential for economic development.

In Racelis’ view, children must have a set of protected rights that ensure their general wellbeing.  therefore, Racelis endorses how it is the responsibility of these organizations to help in giving them a voice when the institution of government decisions comes into play.

One of Racelis’ major publications, “Making Philippine Cities Child Friendly: Voices of Children in Poor Communities” (2005) was written alongside Angela Desiree M. Aguirre. The study illustrates the Philippines’ Child-Friendly Movement, which emphasized the importance of giving rights to the poorest of children across the nation’s poverty-stricken communities. UNICEF, NGOs, civil society organizations, and local Philippine governments were most notably involved in the cause.

The study is formatted in a way that gives readers insight into the lives of children who inhabit the notorious city slums of Metro Manila, Davao City, and Cebu City, with direct translations of their concerns, needs, and desires. They describe the squalid conditions of “1.4 million families, or 8.4 million people,” who live in the “informal (“squatter”) settlements” in these regions.

Mary Racelis is best known for addressing the socio-cultural and economic issues surrounding the Philippines. Racelis considers herself to be a self-identified “engaged anthropologist” or an anthropologist whose work should be applied to impact policy and social change (University of the Philippines Dilman ). Racelis has advocated in support of giving Filipino citizens a voice in fighting for their rights. Racelis has had special contributions to research in urban poverty, children, civil society, gender, community organizing, and social policy.

7.11 Division of Labor

Written by Amanda Zunner-Keating. 

Anthropologists often examine the division of labor within a society. We define “division of labor” as the way that communities determine which groups of people will complete certain tasks for the benefit of the group at large (for example: in a family unit, one member might be responsible for the laundry while the other might be responsible for the dishes). It is not uncommon for labor to be divided along gender lines (and often, along racial or class lines, too).

The idea that all women need to manage the homemaking labor while their husbands manage the breadwinning might seem like an old fashioned idea to many, and heteronormativity has a strong hold over many people’s ideas of family structures, and gender roles. Anthropologists know that these roles are not biological and they are not based in nature but that, in reality, claims of biology and nature have been used to reinforce these cultural value systems in the past.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union encouraged (and often required) all citizens to work outside of the home and women were included (Brown 1075). Within this context, Americans started to construct their identities in direct opposition to their political enemies: the communists. For example: you may already know that religion was outlawed in the Soviet Union and that, in response to this, the United States:

1. Added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance
2. Added “in God we trust” to our currency

By adding religious language to our traditions and legal structure, we were able to construct ourselves as the exact antithesis of the Soviets. Similarly, the American government and corporations strove to construct the American woman in direct opposition to their perception of the Soviet woman. Whereas women in the USSR worked outside of the home, women in the United States were increasingly pressured to behave in the exact opposite manner (Mascia-Lees 36-37). In order to encourage women to remain in the home, corporations produced a seemingly endless line of appliances designed to change the nature of housework. Often, these appliances were sold under the false pretense of “lightening a woman’s workload in the home” while actually increasing her workload by generating higher, often unachievable, expectations of cleanliness (Gershon). American women were told that they were serving their nation by staying home, managing the household, and remaining subservient to the male heads of the house. The worldview at the time embraced the idea that women would break apart the fabric of our nation if they were to leave their homes and children to venture into the working world (Mascia-Lees 36-37). This value system, which largely pervades our construction of womanhood today, was largely developed within quite recent memory.

7.12 Aihwa Ong and the Division of Labor

Written by Amanda Zunner-Keating.

Anthropologist Aihwa Ong studies gender, identity and globalization across the world with a specific focus on the Pacific Rim. In her publication “The Production of Possession: Spirits and Multinational Corporation in Malaysia” explores a phenomena whereby Malaysian women’s gender identity becomes threatened in the face of the increasing, global capitalist markets. Ong’s research focused on Malaysian women working in factories who found themselves becoming possessed by spirits (particularly when under extreme pressure).  These women’s identity as “feminine” was challenged by the extreme working conditions of international factories causing them to express their distress in the culturally-accepted form of spirit possession.

In this case, we can understand that the division of labor in traditional Malaysian society separated types of work based on gender identity. But, when globalization changed the economic circumstances in Malaysia, young women forced to work on factory floors found themselves rapidly grappling with a new identity and a new social structure.

7.13 Niara Sudarkasa on the division of labor

Written by Mary Eberle. Edited by Amanda Zunner-Keating, Lindsay Donaldson, and Lara Braff.

In her fieldwork, anthropologist Niara Sudarkasa focused her research on gender roles in African families across the continent, as well as migration and development studies. During her research, Sudarkasa was fascinated with Yoruba women traders of the Yoruba region (located in West Africa). Sudarkasa’s 1973 book titled, “Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (1973). Sudarkasa argues that these women were able to both have a “career” and be mothers due to the cultural expectation that all women would have a professional occupation. Therefore, mothers were not expected to be the sole caregiver to children; other women would help teach young children (who were not their own) to be self-sufficient.

In her later published works, Sudarkasa similarly focused on the cultural and familial traditions present in African American families that point to an African heritage. Her 1996 book titled, The Strength of Our Mothers: African American Women and Families closely examined the division of labor and gender roles. Sudarkasa similarly emphasized the importance of seniority in relationships and interpersonal relations within these families. And, she worked to overcome the reader’s cultural bias against polygyny in order to develop a more culturally relative understanding of plural relationships within this cultural heritage and tradition.

Her contributions to feminist anthropology focused on the status of women across African cultures, and how woman’s cultural function was not subordinate to men but complimentary. In her article, “Sex Roles, Education, and Development in Africa”, Sudarkasa states that couples in some African communities often worked in the same occupation, such as farmers or traders, with the labor divided based on sex. There was no superior or inferior type of task assigned, only tasks that were culturally deemed “appropriate” and “inappropriate”. Sudarkasa continues to discuss indigenous Africa’s traditions of education, pointing out widely-held beliefs that it was little to nonexistent, which is untrue. She also comments on the struggle that colonialism introduced to African cultures by taking away locally relevant jobs and leaving them without the social or economic structures necessary to compete in a globalized world (Sudarkasa 1982).

Chapter 7 Bibliography

• “About Us – Overview.” Hedgebrook.Org, 2020, www.hedgebrook.org/about-us-overview.
• Allen, Walter R. “African American Family Life in Societal Context: Crisis and Hope.” Sociological Forum, vol. 10, no. 4, 1995, pp. 569–592. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/684772.
• “Anthropology for the 21st Century.” Essentials of Cultural Anthropology: a Toolkit for a Global Age, by Kenneth J. Guest, W. W. Norton and Company, 2020, pp. 9–69.
• Babers, M. (2019, December 11) Niara Sudarkasa (1938–2019). Retrieved from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/niara-sudarkasa-1938-2019/
• Chapman, Rachel. Family Secrets: Risking Reproduction in Central Mozambique. 11/15/10 ed., Vanderbilt University Press, 2010.
• Dalisay, S. N. M. (2013). Mary Racelis: Engaged Anthropologist. Mary Racelis: Engaged anthropologist. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://anthro.upd.edu.ph/centennial/100-anthropologists/41-mary-racelis-engaged-anthropologist.
• David, R. (2015). Mary Racelis, Research Scientist. Mary Racelis | Institute of Philippine Culture. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.ipc-ateneo.org/content/staff/mary-racelis.
• Department of Sociology & Anthropology. (2018, October 26). Mary Racelis. Ateneo de Manila University. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.ateneo.edu/ls/soss/socio-anthro/faculty/racelis-mary.
• “Niara Sudarkasa Biography.” The HistoryMakers, 13 Jan. 2005, web.archive.org/web/20070929102655/www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=958.
• PRRM. (2017). Mary Racelis. The Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from http://www.prrm.org/mary-racelis.html.
• Racelis, M., & Aguirre, A. D. M. (2005). Making Philippine Cities Child Friendly … – unicef-irc.org. UNICEF-IRC. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/philinsight.pdf.
• Ong, Aihwa. “The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia.” The Anthropology of Organisations, 2017, pp. 107–121., https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315241371-11.
• Sudarkasa, N. (1982). Sex Roles, Education, and Development in Africa. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 13(3), 279–289. Retrieved March 20, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3216639
• Williams, Erica Lorraine. “Remembering Niara Sudarkasa.” Illinois Press Blog, Illinoise Press, 19 June 2019, www.press.uillinois.edu/wordpress/remembering-niara-sudarkasa/.