The Ethnographic Argument

Abstract Chapter 9 critically examines the most influential argument against The Progenerative View of kinship, what I call The Ethnographic Argument. The basic idea of this argument is that the ethnographic record that documents variations in the practice of kinship and that serves as a kind of archive of human cultural diversity cannot be readily accommodated by The Progenerative View. Yet moving from this basic idea to more precisely complete The Ethnographic Argument proves difficult. The core of the chapter works through three prima facie plausible ways to complete that argument, showing that each fails. In addition, The Progenerative View actually makes better sense of the ethnographic record more fully considered than do performativist views of kinship, when construed as alternatives to The Progenerative View.