Uncle’s House and Father-In-Law’s House. Methodologies of Anthropology of Kinship in the Basque Country

Abstract

I intend to show how the progressive attention given by the anthropology developed in the Basque Country to etxea, the concept that links home and family in Basque, throughout the 20th century, was not the product of a properly native positive theory, but the result of a reaction to the mainstream debate of the anthropological theory, which was specially involved in the study of kinship terminology during several decades. I shall go through some relevant moments along this path, drawing a parallel with the theoretical strategies that Freeman, Lévi-Strauss and Schneider put forth to deal with problems concerning the inadequacy of theoretical concepts in certain forms of social organization. Thus, considering an epistemological perspective that takes systemically anthropological practice, I will try to indicate the possibilities of a dialogue between methodologies.