ANTHR 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Surrogacy, Egg Cell, Compadre
Anthr 102
Cultural Anthropology
Summer 2018
Patterns of Descent
● Bilateral Descent:
■ People who think of themselves as related to both of their parent’s
kinships at the same time.
○ Unilineal Descent
■ Matrilineal: Inheriting descent through the female line
■ Patrilineal: Inheriting descent through the male line.
○ NOTE: males often still have greater access to wealth, power and status.
● Relatedness beyond biology
○ Compadrazgo (ritual co-parenthood)
○ Such as: marriage and baptism, graduation, baby’s first haircut, first communion.
○ Compadres are also treated as kinships.
● Reproductive Technologies
○ In Vitro Fertilization: a specialized technique by which an ovum, especially a human one,
is fertilized by sperm outside the human body, with the resulting embryo later implanted
in the uterus for gestation.
○ Surrogate motherhood: surrogacy separates motherhood from pregnancy, hence creating
3 categories of motherhood:
■ Biological mother who contributes the ovum
■ Gestational mother who donates her embryo, but shares no genetic
relationship to the child
■ Social mother who cares for and nurtures child.
● Sodalities: more formal organization of non-kin bonds. Sodalities usually have special
purposes/interests. Like a brotherhood
● Age-sets: non-kin social groups are based on age. For example, in South-Western
Ethiopia, a group called the Suri tribe, they are divided by age sets: children, young men,
junior elders and senior elders. And to move into the next age-set, for example from
young men to junior elders, you go through an initiation ceremony.
● Subsistence, Distribution, and Exchange
● Subsistence Strategies
○ This is how people obtain food and meet their survival needs
● Food Collectors: they collect food depending on the availability of resource in their
environments
● Food Producers: they produce food depending on the domesticated plants and/or animals
● Farming:
○ Extensive Agriculture: System of crop cultivation using simple tools, small amounts of
labour (Human muscle power) and capital in relation to area of land being farmed.
○ Intensive Agriculture: System of cultivation using large amounts of labour and capital
relative to land area. More complex tools are used like plows, draft animals, irrigation,
fertilizer, etc.
○ Mechanized Industrial Agriculture: Large-Scale Farming. Factory farming of animals.
Document Summary
People who think of themselves as related to both of their parent"s. Unilineal descent kinships at the same time. Matrilineal: inheriting descent through the female line. Patrilineal: inheriting descent through the male line. Note: males often still have greater access to wealth, power and status. Such as: marriage and baptism, graduation, baby"s first haircut, first communion. In vitro fertilization: a specialized technique by which an ovum, especially a human one, is fertilized by sperm outside the human body, with the resulting embryo later implanted in the uterus for gestation. Surrogate motherhood: surrogacy separates motherhood from pregnancy, hence creating. Gestational mother who donates her embryo, but shares no genetic relationship to the child. Social mother who cares for and nurtures child. Sodalities: more formal organization of non-kin bonds. Age-sets: non-kin social groups are based on age. Ethiopia, a group called the suri tribe, they are divided by age sets: children, young men, junior elders and senior elders.
