Kinship and Imagined Communities

Kinship & Imagined Communities is written as an introduction for the general public and undergraduate students to some of the basic concepts found in the field of Anthropology. Anthropology very basically has been defined as the study of human cultures. Kinship & Imagined Communities covers the keystone or foundational concepts found in all human societies, that of kinship. A brief review on the origins of the field of Anthropology is given followed by four chapters listed under Part I: Why does Kinship Seem to Be More Important to Some Societies and Who Cares Who You marry Anyway? Part II of the text is entitled Which Flag Should I Fly on the Fourth of July? In this section the chapters deal more so with political relations and institutions and how one finds oneself in multiple of these identities at the same time. Often referred to an "imagined communities", this concept is explored in this section. The general goal of the book is to give the reader a basic foundational knowledge of these anthropological concepts and examples of how they work in the real world and how they have changed and are changing with industrialisation and globalisation.