The ‘Global' versus the ‘Local': Cognitive processes of kin determination in Aboriginal Australia

International audienceMorgan and his informants' interpretation of Australian social categories as “marriage classes” has survived in Dumont's (and Viveiros de Castro's) distinction of a “local” (Dravidian systems) and a “global” (Australian systems) formula. This paper explains that the “global formula” is neither a necessary nor an applied device in Australian kin category determination, even when genealogical memory is short and when there is a non-limitation of range in the extension of categories. Instead, a heuristic model, which is called the relational triangle, is proposed. This model depicts the procedure through which Australian people pragmatically determine and extend kin categories. Moreover, it also offers a visualisation of the cognitive schema and processes framing discourse and behaviour in relation to kinship and draws some parallels with Greenberg's hypotheses on markedness in kinship classes