Project description
Cracking the code of matrilineal kinship in Southwest China
In the Hengduan Mountains of south-west China, the Na-Qiangic (NQ) languages are at risk of vanishing, spoken by ethnic minorities. Within this linguistic tapestry, diverse kinship and marriage practices, such as the intriguing ‘zouhun’ visiting system, have flourished. However, many questions linger. Are these practices remnants of broader customs? What fuels the diversity of family structures here? With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the KinSiGHT project uses linguistic methods to decipher the transformation of kinship systems among the Gyalrongs. The project focuses on the evolution of kinship, marriage and NQ phylogeny. By bridging linguists and anthropologists, KinSiGHT aims to unravel the enigmatic Gyalrongic kinship patterns and illuminate the origins of family structures in the Hengduan Mountains.
Objective
The Na-Qiangic (NQ) languages are an endangered subgroup in Sino-Tibetan (ST), spoken by ethnic minorities in the Hengduan Mountains of Southwest China. The NQ-speaking area is home to great diversity of kinship and marriage patterns, where one finds zouhun, a non-conjugal visiting system, practiced by matrilineal communities. Many questions remain unanswered: Are matrilineal kinship and zouhun vestiges of once more widespread practices? Did these diverse kinship patterns originate from a common ancestral system? What are the factors leading to the diversity of family structures in this area? To answer these questions, KinSiGHT focuses on the Gyalrongic (NQ)-speaking area in northwestern Sichuan, and uses linguistic methods to trace transformations of kinship systems of the Gyalrongs. The two interlocking themes of this investigation will be (i) the directionality of transformation from the Proto-Gyalrongic kinship system to the synchronic systems, and (ii) correlations among historical changes in kinship systems, marriage patterns and NQ phylogeny. KinSiGHT will advance our understanding of the Gyalrongic kinship patterns and their values in revealing the origin of family structure in the Hengduan Mountains, as well as general principles of kinship transformation.
KinSiGHT will enhance collaborations between linguists and anthropologists. During this fellowship, the PI, Shuya Zhang, will be based at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies (TCD), where she will benefit from instructions from Prof. Nathan Hill in practicing historical linguistic methods. During the secondment at the Center for Himalayan Studies (CNRS Paris), she will work with Dr. Stphane Gros, a prominent anthropologist specializing in ethnic minorities in Southwest China. The fellowship will enable the PI to become a leading female scholar in ST kinship studies, and will position her to prepare a competitive ERC grant application, while opening up new career opportunities in ethnological museums.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological morphologycomparative morphology
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
D02 CX56 Dublin
Ireland