Matters of Life and Death: Kin-work at Funerals

Abstract This article draws on queer and feminist social anthropological epistemologies in order to sketch out a methodological framework for the interpretation of archaeological data from funerary contexts. Funerary assemblages have ongoing significance in archaeological models of identity and social structure, including one’s status, gender, cosmological beliefs, etc. Biomolecular analyses of human remains are a major source of data about the past and are increasingly used to reconstruct past social structures, especially where there is evidence of biological connection between individuals at a single funerary site. However, archaeological interpretation of these sites is complicated by their origin in social interactions, belief structures, and sometimes extended funerary rites, which themselves may have been adapted for a range of ritual, political and interpersonal needs. Here, we consider the funerary sphere as a site of ‘kin-work’, a concept from feminist anthropology that centres the everyday, habitual, and often overlooked material efforts of sustaining inter- and intra-generational familial relations. We argue that kinning practices form a key part of burial rites as the dead person or persons’ relationships are reconsidered, renegotiated, transformed, or manipulated. The goal is to develop a model of kin relations within funerary contexts in order to contribute to a more nuanced archaeology of social practice that complements emerging discussions of family structure, kinship and relatedness.