The Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing Community (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

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.