SEMINAR: Anthropology and Sociology Seminar

Anthropologists have long demonstrated how the concepts and practices of kinship are fundamental to social life. However, the way in which these concepts are expressed, and practices enacted, varies greatly from context to context. This paper begins from the question: if kinship really is fundamental to social life, then is this the case even in the most remote, and ephemeral, milieux on Earth: those that live in Antarctica bases? Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in and through New Zealand’s Scott Base, and the USA’s McMurdo Station, during the summer field season of 2016-17, this paper shows how the concepts and practices of kinship are fundamental here. Yet more intriguing are questions of how ties of genealogy, gendered relations, and practices of home-building, are constructed and sustained in such extreme settings.