Apprenticeship Indentures and Apprentices in Medieval England, 1250–1500

This thesis uses apprenticeship indentures to offer a novel insight into guilds and apprenticeship in medieval England. Indentures offer a unique view of idealised master-apprentice relationships, which are otherwise only visible in official records. A collection of 82 surviving indentures forms a starting point for exploring social, economic, and legal aspects of apprenticeship in medieval England, both within and outside the guild system. Chapter 1 outlines the content of indentures and provides a guide to their general form. Indentures developed gradually in response to social, economic and legal factors; these are explored in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 discusses the enforceability and enforcement of legislation pertaining to apprenticeship, as well as exploring the legal complexities of indentures as binding legal agreements made by minors. Chapter 3 considers apprenticeship in three ways in the context of the guild system: as a means of exploitation, as a means of exclusion, and as a means of providing technical training. No single model prevails, but the influence of each depends on geographical, economic, and temporal factors. Subsequent chapters provide an overview of the reality of apprenticeship. Chapter 4 discusses the use of behavioural clauses in indentures, which controlled apprentices’ behaviour with the primary aim of protecting masters’ reputations. Chapter 5 explores apprentices’ expectations of the apprenticeship, including provision of training. Chapter 6 presents novel estimates, based on surviving records, of the cost of maintaining an apprentice, concluding that they were not ‘cheap’ labour. Historians have not previously considered this cost. Chapter 7 uses testamentary evidence to examine close master-apprentice relationships, highlighting the importance of fictive kinship. Civic enfranchisement and its relative importance is also discussed. Overall, this thesis provides an original survey of apprenticeship in medieval England, based mainly on evidence from a previously neglected document type.

‘Canoe traffic’ of the Torres Strait and Fly Estuary

This paper concentrates on the material aspects of the interaction between Torres Strait Islanders and the Papuan peoples of the Fly estuary and the southwest coastal region of Papua New Guinea. In spite of the differences in ecology, habitation history and subsistence practices, or perhaps because of them, interaction between peoples of the region has a long history. Such patterns of interaction between linguistic and culturally diverse groups of peoples is well known in the Melanesian region. Historically, one of the most important cultural links between Papuans and Islanders has been regular and sustained contact maintained by voyages in large ocean-going canoes. The interesting aspect of this relationship from an economic point of view has been not only the exchange by canoes, that is, using canoes as a means of exchange, but also exchange in canoes, where the canoe itself has been the principal object of exchange. Exchange relations between Torres Strait Islanders, coastal Papuans and Australian Aboriginal groups at Cape York were facilitated by means of a sophisticated maritime technology and operated within the confines of well established real and fictive kinship ties.

Unequal Reach: Cyclical and Amplifying Ties Among Agricultural and Oilfield Workers in Texas

What kinds of ties do agricultural and oil and gas workers form in the field, and how do they use them later on? Why do they use them differently? Scholarship highlights how weak ties can link people to valuable information, while strong ties can be critical for day-to-day survival. Yet many mechanisms affect how workers form and use social networks over time and space. Drawing on 60 interviews and observations with agricultural and oilfield workers in Texas, I examine how both groups form strong ties of fictive kinship when living together in the field far from home—pooling resources, sharing reproductive labor, and using the discourse of family to describe these relationships. Then I examine how they use these ties very differently later in practice. Oilfield workers often use their fictive kin ties to move up and around the industry across space, time, and companies: amplifying ties. In contrast, agricultural workers renew the same strong ties for survival from season to season, maintaining cyclical ties. The comparison highlights how industry mobility ladders, tempos, and geographies affect how workers can use their networks in practice. While both agricultural and oilfield workers become fictive kin in situations of intense proximity, structural differences give their networks unequal reach.

The Role of Islamic Piety Movements in the Lives of Malaysian Female Muslim Students in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the transnational trajectories of female Malaysian Muslim students through their commitment to piety-minded forms of Islam. In particular, it seeks to identify the reasons for their participation in piety movements and its importance to their lives. The ethnographic research, conducted over 8 months, involved 18 Malaysian female respondents who were studying and living in Manchester between 2016 and 2017. The findings show that the students’ involvement in piety movements was due to fictive kinship providing generous hospitality upon their arrival to the United Kingdom, pre-departure programs on preparation for studying abroad, family influence and sisterhood relationships. Participation in piety movements is said to help relieve stress and overcome loneliness, and is considered vital in guiding Muslim students to lead fulfilling and virtuous lives. The findings contribute significantly to transnational student mobility theories and the importance of sociality and religion in transnational migration.

Guanxi, Three Forms or One

A consensus holds that guanxi has three forms—family, friendship and acquaintance guanxi—distinguished by the strength of obligation. It is also assumed that through fictive kinship, friendship and family guanxi may merge. The chapter shows that kinship obligations and guanxi obligations are fundamentally dissimilar, thus the notion of family guanxi is redundant, and that pseudo-family ties do not provide access to kin relations but affirm the distinction between family and friendship ties. Because guanxi is cultivated by its participants, friendship guanxi and acquaintance guanxi are not distinct forms but rather different stages of guanxi formation. In considering the sources of these confusions the chapter goes on to discuss problems arising from employment of common-language terms in sociological analysis, untested assumptions concerning Chinese culture, and methodological commitments which privilege latent structures of strong ties. It is shown that the strength of guanxi ties, strategically pursued by participants, fluctuate through agentic practices.

Conferring Kinship: Examining Fictive Kinship Status in a Black Adolescent’s Natural Mentoring Relationship

This case study examines the way an adolescent Black boy extends his kinship network as a part of navigating and demonstrating agency in mentoring relationships with nonparental adults. We purposively selected one participant, Bodos, from the sample of a larger mixed-method study involving youth, aged 12 to 18 years, in the southeastern United States. Drawing on narrative methodology, we used a holistic-content approach to analyze Bodos’ responses to semistructured interviews. Bodos used several narratives to describe his experiences. We offer three findings: (a) Fictive kinship is a positive feature of Black adaptive culture that can be leveraged by Black youth as a tool for creating a distinct relational dynamic with their mentors, (b) adolescent Black boys possess skills and knowledge that both preexist and emerge within positive mentoring relationships, and (c) youth agency and expectations manifest in mentoring relationships to inform and influence those adults’ significance. This case study furthers the field’s understanding of how cultural practices can positively influence relational development and create a unique relational context and experience.

Fictive Kinship Networks in Postsecondary Education

To discuss the disparity of education among minorities in this country, the understanding of the problem is essential. Education equality for people of color is based on their socioeconomic status and ethnic backgrounds. The lack of knowledge and appreciation of Black culture is a practice of disengagement that prohibits the connection between instructor and student. Utilizing Tinto's Model of Attrition and the Self-Determination and Resilience Theories, the chapter will explore the history of fictive kinship models, their impact on minority persistence in higher education and provide recommendations for the creation of networks on predominantly white institutions.