The matrifocal family : power, pluralism, and politics

Essays originally published 1956—1987 plus two conference papers presented in Dec. 1992 and Aug. 1993. The essays in this collection focus attention on the enormous contribution made by women in maintaining family relations in situations of both racial and gender domination. Written by Raymond T. Smith over a period of more than forty years, the essays in The Matrifocal Family address issues of enduring and vital significance, cultural diversity and social integration. The concept of the "matrifocal family" developed in these essays denotes neither female-headed households nor female domination. Instead the essays in this collection focus attention on the enormous contribution made by women in maintaining family relations in situations of both racial and gender domination, and point to the crucial role played by family ties in creating and maintaining class and status hierarchies.

Several themes run throughout the essays. One, deriving from the author's earliest work in Guyana and continuing through his most recent research in the United States, questions the common view of African American family life as "disorganized" and pathological. Without minimizing the severe problems that beset the poor and oppressed, or the social pathologies of modern urban life, Smith argues that the remarkable strength, resilience and diversity of African American kinship has been almost willfully ignored.

The second theme running through these essays is Smith's view that race is neither the natural basis of social differentiation nor the inevitable starting point for cultural distinctions and political conflict. As the process of globalization has accelerated there has been, throughout the world, a counter process of racial and "ethnic" assertion resulting in what is now called "identity politics." The Matrifocal Family argues that there is no "natural" reason for societies to divide along lines of race or "ethnicity."

Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 CONTENTS 6 Acknowledgments 8 Preface 10 Chapter One Introduction 12 PART ONE: Kinship and Family Structure 22 Chapter Two Hypotheses and the Problem of Explanation 24 Chapter Three Culture and Social Structure in the Caribbean 32 Chapter Four The Matrifocal Family 50 Chapter Five Hierarchy and the Dual Marriage System in West Indian Society 70 Chapter Six Family, Social Change, and Social Policy in the West Indies 92 PART TWO: Conflict and Difference: Race, Culture, and Politics 110 Chapter Seven Plural Society Theory 112 Chapter Eight Caste and Social Status Among the Indians of Guyana (coauthored with Chandra Jayawardena) 122 Chapter Nine Race and Class in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean 154 Chapter Ten Living in the Gun Mouth: Race, Class, and Political Violence in Guyana 176 Chapter Eleven On the Disutility of the Notion of "Ethnic Group" for Understanding Status Struggles in the Modern World 196 Notes 214 References 222 Index 238 Power, Pluralism and Politics The publication of this collection of essays provides an opportunity to suggest the relevance of Caribbean ethnography to recent discussions of social theory, and to forge a link between that ethnography and the study of urban problems in the United States.