Avaliação: Fictive Kinship and Politics – Godparenthood in Pitumarca, Peru: Kinship and its adaptive and political implications

Godparenthood, an institution where a family seeks a sponsor for their child, can be analyzed on several levels. On one level, it is an adaptive strategy that ensures better survival of one’s children. On the cognitive level, it is a metaphorical extension of kinship terminology to usually unrelated persons within the semantic domain of kinship. Finally, on the sociological level, as a strategy of forging inter-family alliances, godparenthood is further utilized to promote political goals. In this paper I analyze compadrazgo in the town of Pitumarca, Peru, as a test case of all three aspects of godparenthood.

• kinship, godparenthood, Perú