kinship

My interviewee name is Lara, she is my cousin, from my father’s side, she is 28 years old, was born in Jordan, studied and worked in bank in Jordan as well but and moved to the states in about a year ago.

As an anthropologist I felt very comfortable interviewing my cousin, she was open to all questions and she is one of the closest cousins to me which helped the interview going easy and smooth with out any embarrassments. It would feel awkward to me interviewing someone unrelated to me since the questions were kind of personal and the person and I will feel uncomfortable.

I have a big family , it includes almost all ages, they are close to each other they socialize all the time and meet on every single holiday, except for couple persons that don’t get along with the family. They socialize a lot, mothers are more strict than fathers when it comes to dealing with their kids, and the reason behind this is that most of home work is on father where the father spends most of his time outside house. In my family, older individuals has to be treated specially, young family members has to always listen to and respect older people, and if that didn’t happen, every body disrespect the person. All my family members comes from same ethnicity, and thats because of tradition that men has to follow when it comes to fall in love or get married which is picking their wives from same ethnicity which positively effect their social life, they are very close to each other and have so many things in common to share.

I know first relatives from my mother and father’s side, not their cousins, uncles or aunt. I used to socialize a lot with my mother’s family members  than my father’s, but moving to the state effected this social relation and I now interact more with my father’s family since they live in same area I do. Oldest members are the most important members in family, every body take their advices and apply their decisions, they have to listen and respect this old person. Members who are married to the family are treated  the same as any family member because they are part of the family now, they socialize and live with the family and are considered to have same right and rules as any family member does. There is a big difference in treating a girl than guy, parents and family are very strict on their daughters than their sons, daughters are not allowed to have boyfriends, go out by their selves or travel, where guys can. This exercise helped me out remembering things about the family I came from, even all those things I knew from before, but answering questions about the family helped me organize my thoughts and recognize some stuff  never noticed even though I lived my whole life with them.