Political theories have predicted decline and demise of kin relations in modern societies, particularly due to advancing bureaucratic state. Meanwhile anthropologists have criticised the concept of kinship as ethnocentric and therefore problematic for analysis. However, concepts such as blood, kin, family, descent, origin have been and remain crucial in the way nation state is conceived and performed. Moreover, development of reproductive and other technologies as well as genetic research challenge prior concepts and practices of relatedness and thus identify new directions in the ways states are performed.

Along the explorations of state-kinship interfaces, the conference invites to scrutinise the concept of the state as a result and a process of performance. The objective of this conference is to bring together researchers to provide a detailed and empirically based understanding of the interplay between relatedness and the way a nation state is “done” or performed.

Programme