Whose Blood Is Thicker Than Salt Water?
I just got back from a lunch lecture at Harvard titled, “Is Salt Water Thicker Than Blood? Allah’s Bonbibi and the Making of Kin in Deltaic Bengal.” The presenter shared fascinating information from over a decade of studying fishing communities in the Sundarbans, the huge tidal forest at the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.
Residents of the Sundarbans, it seems, have formed “elected kinship” relationships with fellow members of their social class, regardless of religion or profession but based on a shared subaltern (read other-than-some-real-or-perceived-outside-elite-class) identity. The most fascinating bit: this extended kinship includes the man-eating tigers in the region.
Thus families extend themselves ritually, knowing that extended social networks are critical in times of crisis. This extension even welcomes tigers, whom the residents call, “our tigers” or “our big cats,” not wanting to summon them by pronouncing their name.
Interesting, but incomplete. I asked her a couple of the obvious gender analytical questions behind this phenomenon and she had dismissive anecdotal answers at best. I was frustrated, but not surprised, that in her decade-plus of intensive research she never wondered:
- What family role does the tiger assume? Is it male or female, young or old, by blood or in-law?
- Who proposes and negotiates for new elected kinship relationships? Men? Women? Children? (All along she said “people” or “fishers”, to which I asked, “When you say ‘people,’ do you mean ‘men’?”)
- Whose interest does the extending of kinship relationships serve? Women’s? Men’s? Particular agrarian communities (fishers, gatherers, cultivators)?
Dear readers, please take note any time the actions and motivations of men are tantamount to “social trends” worthy of academic papers while the actions and motivations of women are only tossed around as quaint anecdotes.
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