Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

Previous knowledge of basic issues in socio-cultural anthropology and its historical development will be helpful. However, this is no absolute requirement, primarily because this module is designed to be essentially self-contained and also because of its interdisciplinary character, which will allow previous knowledge in fields other than anthropology to be valorised.

The course aims to provide advanced notions of social anthropology by focusing on certain research themes this discipline shares with sociology, demography and social history, in order to impart students with the ability to work in an interdisciplinary manner on real-world cases.

Students of Cultural anthropology and ethnology will thus broaden and deepen their basic knowledge of topics that are central to this field of inquiry, whereas students of Sociology (and other second-level degree courses) will be offered an anthropological perspective on such issues as the transformations of the family, the relationships between genders and generations, and the interactions between demographic changes, welfare regimes and social rights.

The lectures that open the two parts of the course will enable students to acquire advanced knowledge concerning the anthropological study of kinship and the family and basic demographic knowledge relevant to the issues examined in the lectures.
Lectures will be supplemented by seminars where students will present the results of short bouts of individual or group research, primarily bibliographic but when possible also empirical: besides helping them to detect differences and commonalities between the methods and theoretical options of social anthropology and sociology, this will strengthen the students’ interpretative and communicative skills and will stimulate interaction between teacher and students and among students.

Mainly whole class teaching. However, approximately one third of the time will be reserved to seminars where students (organized in work groups) will present to the class the results of researches carried out on selected topics.

• The exam will be oral. The aim is on the one hand to ascertain that the technical and methodological knowledge provided by the lectures has been successfully acquired and that the texts suggested for the exam have been properly understood, and on the other to gauge the student’s interpretive abilities as applied to specific cases or topics, possibly starting from the student’s experience. The results of individual or group research work will also be evaluated.
• Differential programmes have been devised for students who will attend the course and for those who will be unable to do so.

Title: Family, kinship and demographic transitions.

Topics: This course is aimed at examining, in historical-anthropological perspective, the role of kinship in contemporary societies and the changes undergone by the family in the twentieth century, mainly in relation to the first and second demographic transitions.

Structure of the course and work groups:

- the course will consist for two thirds of lectures and for the remaining third of seminars where students (organized in work groups) will present the results of their researches.

- the course will be subdivided into two parts:
1) a first past consisting of lectures and seminars comprising a total of 36 hours, sufficient for students who need 6 credits;
2) a second part consisting of lectures and seminars for a total of 18 hours (which will focus of the notions of kinship and “relatedness” and on the processes of socio-cultural construction of kinship), required in addition to the first part for students needing 9 credits.

Differential programmes have been devised for students who will attend the course and for those who will be unable to do so.

A) Texts for the exam for the students who will be able to attend the course of lectures
They will have to demonstrate knowledge:
1) of the course content (notes from the lectures).
2) of P.G. Solinas, “L'acqua strangia”. Il declino della parentela nella società complessa, Milan, Angeli, 2004 (chapters 1-4, 6 and 8) or of M. Barbagli, D.I. Kertzer (eds.), Family Life in the Twentieth Century (The History of European Family, vol. 3), New Haven, Yale University Press, 2004 (Introduction and chapters 1,7, 8 and 9).
3) of one volume (for students needing 6 credits) or two volumes (for students needing 9 credits) of their choice selected among the following:
• C. Attias Donfut, M. Segalen (eds.), Il secolo dei nonni. La rivalutazione di un ruolo, Roma, Armando Editore, 2005 [Le siècle des grands-parents. Une génération phare, ici et ailleurs, Paris, Autrement, 2001].
• F.C. Billari, Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna, La rivoluzione nella culla. Il declino che non c’è, Milano, Egea [Università Bocconi Editore], 2008.
• J. Carsten (ed.), Cultures of Relatedness. New Approaches to the Study of Kinship, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• J. Carsten, After Kinship, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• S. Grilli, F. Zanotelli (eds.), Scelte di famiglia. Tendenze della parentela nella società contemporanea, Pisa, Edizioni ETS, 2010.
• S. Mckinnon, F. Cannell (eds.), Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship, Santa Fe, SAR Press, 2013.
• G.A. Micheli, Dietro ragionevoli scelte. Per capire i comportamenti dei giovani, Torino, Edizioni della Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, 2008 [available on line].
• G.A. Micheli, Logiche affettive. Il potere d’interferenza degli stati d’animo nella formazione delle scelte demografiche, Torino, UTET, 2010.
• F. Remotti, Contro natura, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008.
• A. Rosina, P.P. Viazzo (eds.), Oltre le mura domestiche. Famiglia e legami intergenerazionali dall'Unità d'Italia a oggi, Udine, Forum, 2008.
• P.G. Solinas, La famiglia. Un'antropologia delle relazioni primarie, Roma, Carocci, 2010.
• P.G. Solinas, Ancestry. Parentele elettroniche e lignaggi genetici, Firenze, Ed.it, 2015.
• M. Sahlins, What kinship is – and is not, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Reading lists on specific topics will be provided during the course (which will consist of lectures and seminars) and will be made available on line.

B) Texts for the exam for the students who will not be able to attend the course of lectures.
They will have to demonstrate knowledge:
1) of one of the two books listed at point A.2 above;
2) of two volumes (for students needing 6 credits) or three volumes (for students needing 9 credits) of their choice among those listed at point A.3 above.

• This course is intended primarily for students of Cultural anthropology and ethnology and Sociology, but all students from other second-level degree courses are welcome.
• International and Erasmus students may prepare for examinations and take them in English. Specific reading lists consisting of books and articles in English will be made available on request from the teacher.