Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kobes, Tomáš

Titel

Fajta and the Nature of Kinship among the Inhabitants of Roma Settlements in Eastern Slovakia

Ist Teil von

• Sociologický časopis, 2010-01, Vol.46 (2), p.235-256

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• European kinship is usually conceptualized as one of the elements that forms the boundary between nature & culture. However, this implicitly assumed biogenetic basis of membership in a particular descent group is not evident in the case of kinship among inhabitants of a Roma settlement. The nature of their kinship can be described as the incorporative process of women & pristasis into descent groups. The fundamental criterion for an expectant partner in marriage is to be 'lache' (good, proper, appropriate). The division of people in a Roma settlement into two basic groups (lache versus degess) does not mean that these people form endogamous groups defined by procreation. It is rather a matter of moral ideas about what makes people good or bad. Two complementary principles play an important role in these ideas. The first principle relates to the natural base, the second to the process of socialization. In this respect, fajta<RF. does not just refer to a cognatic descent group, but also has another dimension, which cannot simply be defined in terms of procreation & which indicates a shift towards a common basis. This can be demonstrated in the example of pristasis, which is a long-term process of incorporation in which fajta, as the domain of nature, shifts to the frame of culture. Despite of the difficulty of determining whether people were born or socialized into a particular fajta<RF., kinship in a Roma settlement should be studied within the wider organizational complex that on the one hand makes some people related & homogenous & on the other hand excludes other people from this relatedness. Adapted from the source document.