Writing the Family: Genealogical Written Artefacts in Africa, Asia, and Europe

Project Group

The Project Group Writing the Family seeks to advance the cross-cultural study of genealogy as a scholarly field. The group emphasizes the role of handwriting in shaping social realities, particularly highlighting how genealogical writing impacts the imagination of family and kinship structures. The PG aims to provide a comparative analysis of the diverse types and materials of genealogical WAs across cultures, addressing a gap in existing scholarship which often studies such artefacts in isolation. While the family tree is well-documented, particularly in Europe and Islamic contexts, other genealogical forms remain less explored. This PG highlights how culturally sanctioned genealogical inscriptions influence perceptions of social groups and the representation of gender. The PG plans to integrate diverse genealogical practices, including epigraphic, manuscript, text-based, and diagrammatic forms, into a unified scholarly perspective. Through an international workshop and subsequent publications, the group will examine the materiality and socio-cultural functions of genealogical writing, ultimately focusing on narrative and non-diagrammatic genealogies in a subsequent research phase.