Commentary: Afterword

Abstract

This ‘afterword’ offers a critical reflection on the theme of ‘kinship trouble’ which runs through the papers in this special collection. Central to all of them are the questions of what it takes for individuals to be ‘biologically’ related, of what—if anything—this has to do with genetic connection, and of whether anything can be deduced about the kinship of individuals from the prehistoric past by way of the biomolecular analysis of their remains. It is shown that much of the trouble with kinship comes from the confusion between two understandings of the gene: as an information-bearing particle in a system of inheritance, and as a segment of the molecular genome. Starting from one or the other gives rise to markedly different accounts of kinship, founded respectively on inheritance and begetting. This also underpins the different ways we understand connections with other-than-human kin, whether in terms of evolutionary phylogenesis or ecologies of coexistence. The latter, better regarded as ‘kinning’ than ‘kinship’, lies not in a mix of genetic and cultural inheritance, but in the milieu of an intergenerational life process.