The Heat of the Hearth

Janet Carsten offers an original and very personal investigation of the nature of kinship in Malaysia, based upon her own experience of life as a foster daughter in a family on the island of Langkawi. She shows that Malay kinship is a process, not a state: it is determined partly by birth, but also throughout life by living together and sharing food. Carsten gives the reader a fascinating 'anthropology of everyday life', including a compelling view of gender relations; she urges reassessment of recent anthropological work on gender, and a new approach to the study of kinship.