Janet Carsten offers an original and very personal investigation of the nature of kinship in Malaysia, based upon her own experience as a foster daughter in a family on the island of Langkawi. She shows that Malay kinship is a process, not a state: it is determined partly by birth, but also throughout life by living together and sharing food. Carsten gives the reader a fascinating "anthropology of everyday life," including a compelling view of gender relations; she urges reassessment of recent anthropological work on gender, and a new approach to the study of kinship.

The domestic unit is inseparable from its homestead, and the "house," at once a physical place and a social unit, is often also a unit of production and consumption, a cult group, and even a political faction. Inspired by Levi-Strauss' suggestion that the multi-functional noble houses of Medieval Europe were simply the best-known examples of a widespread social institution, the contributors to this collection analyze "house" systems in Southeast Asia and South America, exploring the interrelationships among buildings, people, and ideas. They reveal some of the ways in which houses can stand...

Our understanding of what makes a person a relative has been transformed by radical changes in marriage arrangements and gender relations, and by new reproductive technologies. We can no longer take it for granted that our most fundamental social relationships are grounded in "biology" or "nature." Examining the idioms of relatedness in other societies, and ways in which relationship is symbolized and interpreted in our own society, this book challenges established analytic categories of anthropology, and brings into question the received wisdom at the heart of the study of kinship.

Our understanding of what makes a person a relative has been transformed by radical changes in marriage arrangements and gender relations, and by new reproductive technologies. We can no longer take it for granted that our most fundamental social relationships are grounded in "biology" or "nature." Examining the idioms of relatedness in other societies, and ways in which relationship is symbolized and interpreted in our own society, this book challenges established analytic categories of anthropology, and brings into question the received wisdom at the heart of the study of kinship.

Ghosts of Memory provides an overview of literature on relatedness and memory and then moves beyond traditional approaches to the subject, exploring the subtle and complex intersections between everyday forms of relatedness in the present and memories of the past.

• Explores how various subjects are located in personal and familial histories that connect to the wider political formations of which they are a part
  
• Closely examines diverse and intriguing case studies, e.g. Catholic residents of a decayed railway colony in Bengal, and sex workers...

Ghosts of Memory provides an overview of literature on relatedness and memory and then moves beyond traditional approaches to the subject, exploring the subtle and complex intersections between everyday forms of relatedness in the present and memories of the past.

• Explores how various subjects are located in personal and familial histories that connect to the wider political formations of which they are a part
  
• Closely examines diverse and intriguing case studies, e.g. Catholic residents of a decayed railway colony in Bengal, and sex workers...

British Academy lectures have previously been published in the Proceedings of the British Academy. Lectures are now made available in the new open access Journal of the British Academy. But they will also be printed in an annual volume. This volume publishes xx lectures from the 2012 and 2013 programmes, which were posted to the Journal in 2013.
The subjects covered include early 20th-century ethnographic research among the Andaman Islanders and Polar Eskimos, the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947, Edward Lear's nonsense poetry, university authors' rights and the end of the British...

This volume publishes texts from the British Academy's 2014 and 2015 lecture programmes, which were posted to the online Journal of the British Academy in 2015.
The subjects covered include: Europe's rebuilding after the Second World War by Ian Kershaw; Scotland's emergence as a nation by Dauvit Broun; poverty and statistics by Ruth Lister; time-keeping in Shakespeare's plays by Tiffany Stern; the novel as therapy by Patricia Waugh.
The editors are Professors Janet Carsten and Simon Frith, who are both Fellows of the British Academy. The authors are all recognised experts in their...

For over 100 years, the British Academy's public lectures have communicated the best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to both specialists and general audiences. This volume publishes lectures from the 2016 and 2017 programmes. The lectures are also made available in the open access Journal of the British Academy.