The relational body, incest, and kinship in the age of globalized genetics

This article explores the transformations in kinship systems caused by the global spread of biogenetic knowledge. The impact of widespread scientific knowledge, however, occurs along a continuum in which the bodily grammar of kinship that describes relations of possession allows diverse forms of appropriation. This grammar is particularly clear in incest prohibitions, the least common denominator of kinship. The history of anthropology enables us to focus on the autonomy of the kinship register, in contrast with the notion of filiation, which is often associated with parenthood and provides a clearer way of understanding contemporary transformations. The gradual development of a bilateral model based on genetics is altering the bodily foundations of kinship systems and in turn reshaping incest prohibitions. Bilateral systems, associated with reproductive biotechnologies, continuously redefine the limits of bodily proximity in relation to the reproductive body, particularly within the field of lineages.