Kinship
1. Anthropological: Study Socialization of human
Affinity / Consanguinity ; Family / marriage; Fictive kinship
Entity (border definition): cultural / Ontological origin / historical / social connections and shared characteristics (same-sex parenting / religious / godparents )
Biology: Coefficient relationship/consanguinity or genealogy.
“consanguinity basis for kinship ties is not universal across cultures， it may be a culturally specific symbol of kinship only in particular cultures”
2. Kinship across species/ Primates
domestication & loving kinship with other species
anthropocentric, anthropomorphic perspective of kinships
Human exceptionalism: “What we see in other species, then, becomes a reflection not of their own ways of being in the world per se, but rather a claim to human exceptionalism.” (Riggs, Damien W., and Elizabeth Peel. Critical Kinship Studies: An Introduction to the Field, 2016. )
3. Post-humanist kinship VS western human kinship
Grafting (Science and technology)
Definition by Wikipedia, “graft” or “grafting” may refer to definitions within different contexts. The word may refer to 1. a form of political corruption 2. clinical term of a surgical procedure 3. A process to improve decision trees commonly used in computer science 4. A horticultural technique, etc.
My research is mainly oriented toward its definition’s horticultural and botanical side.
Board aspect: Grafting (inosculation) is the joining of plant tissues
– Tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together.
Natural & Artificial
- natural grafting: roots/branches of the same species will sometimes naturally graft
Advantageous: fire resistance / regeneration / protect from wind damages
Problems: plant parasitism/transmission of pathogens - artificial grafting
Advantageous: disease-resistant / domesticate plants
commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants
Graft chimera
“Such a plant can produce flowers and foliage of both plants as well as shoots intermediate between the two.” ( +Laburnocytisus ‘Adamii’)
– Grafting can potentially make a new species, a form of natural genetic engineering.
domestication of plants
To achieve desired quality (long-live, harvest, etc )
(Some of the examples that I found from Wikipedia)
“By 500 BCE grafting was well established and practiced in the region as the Mishna describes grafting as a commonplace technique used to grow grapevines.[24]” – Fertile Crescent history
“Evidence for grafting in China is found in Jia Sixie’s 6th century CE agricultural treatise Qimin Yaoshu ” – China 2000 BC
“influx of foreign ornamentals to decorate these gardens, grafting was used much during this period.” – Arabic regions
“French Wine Pandemic”, a grafting history of American and French grapevine
progress
Going into branches of these two keywords, I found the concept of “domestication” appears in both and may further lead the research.
– “Domestication of animals” and building kinship with other species
– “Domestication of plants” to achieve better qualities for human usage
I am intrigued by your mention of “post-human kinship vs Western kinship.” What distinction do you make between the two? Additionally, how might post-humanism overlay onto grafting in that way as well as interspecies grafting/kinship?
Super interesting that you came across the term “Graft chimera”; in my research about colonial organims, I found something called a “chimaera colony”! I think that those may be different spellings of the same word based on the greek myth of a monster made up from parts of different animals. I came into this thinking that kinship was about sameness, but the fact that we’ve both found references to chimera makes me think there’s something to explore about differentness in kinship too!
From the article about colonial organisms I read: “… they form a so-called chimaera colony, which consists of closely related, but not genetically identical zooids.” (https://ecologyforthemasses.com/2021/11/09/the-fascinating-lives-of-colonial-animals/)
Grafting is quite a big topic. Personally I think domestication is a very interesting sub-topic to focus on. This week, metaphor was mentioned in conceptual system. I am curious to know if you will use metaphor and what it will be.