✦ 2. Bentian kinship (Extension) ✦

 You are not born into a family. You are born then make family.

Family is not something you're born into; among the Bentian, it's something you make. That's how the Bentian of Borneo see it at least. Let's read this passage from Sillander (p.154-5) to find out more:

The reason that Bentians trust kin is thus not so much that they are genealogical relatives but rather that the people they know and are most involved with are relatives. In other words, they prefer to deal with kin, not because genealogical relatives in some respect would be fundamentally distinct per se but because they have practically experienced kin relations to provide support and security, and they generally expect—albeit with some caution and a similar experience-based awareness of the possibility of exceptions—kinspersons to be well-disposed toward them because they assume the sense of obligation to be reciprocal.

The importance of this practical as opposed to genealogical constitution of kinship is substantiated by the fact that the kind of kinship that matters most to the Bentian is typically acquired as opposed to ascribed. Bentians single out those that they perceive belong to the sphere of what Yengoyan calls the “effective kindred,” as opposed to the “complete kindred,” by referring to them as kaben bene, “true relatives” or “true companions.” “Effective kinship, ” involving solidarity, is defined and constituted by networks of shared activity. It is those relatives who are unified through practical association that most often invoke notions of relatedness, and it is among them that these tend to be most effective. Here again the Bentian are remarkably similar to the Ilongot, who “ experience their bonds in terms of the cooperative orientations that unite them and lend substance to the claim that they are kin” (Rosaldo 1980:10).

Conversely, this suggests that Bentian kinship, like egocentric bilateral kinship generally, is not automatic. It has to be enacted. That one is related to someone is not quite enough to make that person important. It is those relatives with whom one has much to do—or that have much to do with oneself—that become important. Those who move away tend to become distant not only physically but also emotionally—if not occasionally visited. Those who never give anything in return tend to be avoided—if possible. Those who are one’s neighbors, however, are difficult to ignore and tend to become important whether one likes them or not. Interaction, reciprocity, and proximity thus emerge as crucial factors shaping “true” relatedness. Together these factors define and give shape to a social field of “immediacy” in which sociality itself functions as the principal source of relatedness (Bird-David 1994).

 To what extent is your family like this?

Sillander, K. (2011). Kinship and the Dialectics of Autonomy and Solidarity among the Bentian of Borneo. In T. Gibson & K. Sillander (Eds.), Anarchic Solidarity: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia (pp. 141-169). Yale Southeast Asia Studies.