Cousin Marriages Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change [Hardcover]

Juxtaposing contributions from geneticists and anthropologists, this volume provides a contemporary overview of cousin marriage and what is happening at the interface of public policy, the management of genetic risk and changing cultural practices in the Middle East and in multi-ethnic Europe. It offers a cross-cultural exploration of practices of cousin marriage in the light of new genetic understanding of consanguineous marriage and its possible health risks. Overall, the volume presents a reflective, interdisciplinary analysis of the social and ethical issues raised by both the discourse of risk in cousin marriage, as well as existing and potential interventions to promote healthy consanguinity via new genetic technologies.
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The editors should be congratulated for expertly steering a course through a highly complex, sensitive, and increasingly politicised area of enquiry. This is a mature volume which navigates a range of often taboo and stigmatised practices and identities with diligence and a sense of ethical responsibility. One major contribution is in detailing just how legislation or debate concerning cousin marriage is frequently less to do with health, and more bound up with anxieties about nationalism and the politics of integration.? Sociology of Health & Illness

&an engaging multi-disciplinary reflection on a common theme, namely, cross-cousin marriage. The collection offers perspectives  sociological, anthropological, historical, clinical and political  on the practice of cousin marriage and particularly as this distinctive marital strategy gains visibility.? Bob Simpson, Durham University

This book deals with an important, rich and understudied topic: the impact of new genetic understandings of close marriage and its possible health risks on marriage practices and understandings of kinship in cross-cultural perspective. It offers valuable new material, and has lc5