This Paper Analyzes Family and Kinship Patterns in Latin America Among distinct socio-economic groups in urban and rural settings. The literature on which the analysis rests is also critically examined. Much of the focus is on those aspects of the material which deal with extended family (parentesco) relations and with fictive kinship (compadrazgo) ties; less attention is given to studies and components of the nuclear family. The central theme developed in the essay is that familial ties and the institution of fictive kinship are not breaking down under the impact of modernization, despite theories and interpretations of urbanization and industrialization which maintain that the opposite is true. Our position and findings on his matter are summarized in the conclusion.

Canadian Association of Latin American Studies Annual meeting Mexico City, Mexico May 24-27, 1971

“Woman has always been for man the ‘other,‘ his opposite and complement.”

Scholars of Latin America Have Recently Concerned Themselves With socially-oriented studies—not merely of structures, institutions, or groups, but about the individuals who comprise those entities. Despite analyses of political and military elites, students, peasants, blacks, and immigrants, little scholarly work has been undertaken on man's “other,” the female. Only now are studies on the largest single sub-grouping in society beginning to appear, and these are primarily the work of women scholars. The undertaking is rife with problems, not the least of which is the lack of any comprehensive guide to sources or research directions. Few major subjects suffer such a lack of core bibliography, methodological apparati, or thematic models as does the subject of the female. In an attempt to redress the balance and to encourage the study of man's “opposite and complement,” I present here an essay dealing with research directions and a core of works on the female in Ibero-America.

Contemporary Latin American Literature, Houston, Texas, March 17-18, 1972. The Committee on Latin American Studies of the University of Houston is organizing this meeting on contemporary Latin American poetry, fiction, and theatre. Participants will include distinguished writers and scholars from Latin America as well as North American scholars. For information write: Harvey L. Johnson, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004.