Mobilising Kinship as a Modern Network: Syrian Christian Family Associations

Abstract

This article analyses the meanings, practices and socio-historical contexts of kudumbayogams (family associations) among the large, relatively prosperous, multi-denominational community of Syrian Christians in Kerala, who are today spread across the globe. Kudumbayogams present new ways of mobilising and displaying family, kinship and community ties. The article argues that while earlier socio-economic shifts inaugurated the spatial dispersal and reconstitution of Syrian Christian patrilineal families and households, they also led to the formation of family associations, alongside other modern associational forms. Based on a detailed analysis of printed family histories, and allied documents, this study conceptualises kudumbayogam as a modern fortification of attempts to resolve the ambiguities of changing times by tethering a Christian brand of upper-caste social conservatism with ‘neoliberal’ individualism. This modern fortification mobilises households and families through an array of structures and activities that seek to foster cultural continuity, communication, conflict resolution and charity among its members. In the process, kudumbayogams actively blunt intra-group contradictions and highlight inter-group differences.

Introduction

This article attempts to make sociological and historical sense of a complex modern organisational form, called kudumbayogam or family association, among the Syrian Christians of Kerala. Several scholars have analysed the chequered encounters of family and kinship structures with colonial and postcolonial modernity in Kerala and across South Asia (Chatterjee & Riley, 2001; Devika, 2008; Sreenivas, 2012). They have highlighted how such encounters have transformed the contexts and modalities of defining and doing family, kinship and community. Recent scholarship on Syrian Christians has shown how the twentieth century, with all its pressures and potentials, has reconfigured Syrian Christian individuals and families through large-scale economic migration, political interventions and socio-spiritual reforms and counter-reforms (Zachariah, 2001). Thomas (2018) focuses in this context on gender issues and minority rights. Her concluding analysis raises the valuable point that ‘within academic scholarship, we are relegated to single vectors of analysis’ (Thomas, 2018: 152). While this comment relates to racialised discrimination in India and the inadequate understanding of women’s roles in relation to religion, she does not mention kudumbayogams or indicate the relevance of family associations.

More recently, Ajay (2024) has discussed the effects of transnational labour migration for Syrian Christians in Kerala with regard to masculinity, social change and impact on family dynamics. She shows how, when women migrate for labour and leave their fathers or husbands behind to become breadwinners, such men often become involved in community matters to acquire or regain status in the community through joining Church-related activities. Again, there is no reference to middle-class kudumbayogams. However, Ajay (2024: 39) refers to the study by Devika and Thampi (2007) on kudumbashree initiatives, a government programme for women. This does not invoke patrilineage, however, and it basically promotes neighbourhood associations of women.

The reconfigured Syrian Christians of Kerala in the twenty-first century present as a bundle of contradictions—a point highlighted by Abraham (2019) among others. The community combines caste consciousness with castelessness, and enhanced conditions and rights for women with rigid patriarchal and heteronormative controls, and it seeks to harmonise social mobility with social conservatism. Thus, there is a need to examine and conceptualise kudumbayogam as a historically contingent, modern fortification and mobilisation of pre-existing structures, which is part of ongoing attempts to resolve the ambiguities of changing times by tethering a Christian brand of upper-caste social conservatism with forms of ‘neoliberal’ individualism. Focused on the writing of family histories as part of such ongoing attempts to shape identity constructions, Varghese (2004: 899) observes that this ‘could inadvertently drive the whole apparatus to the slippery bents of xenophobia and racism that might become potent at critical junctures in a multicultural milieu as that of Kerala’. This point is also expanded in detail elsewhere (Donald, 2022).

The present study examines family organisations rather than specific nuclear families or individuals or identity construction through writing of family histories, as discussed by Varghese (2004). This focus on family organisations is reflected in the research methodology and the tools applied for this research project, which is less a field-work-based ethnographic study, reporting and discussing what people said, though some conversations with family office-bearers and members were conducted. The research for this article involved mainly the scrutiny of a wide range of documents, now available online. Based on a detailed analysis of printed family histories, and allied documents such as family bulletins, constitutions, censuses and family websites, the article draws a picture of how, in the twenty-first century, the Syrian Christians of Kerala as a privileged minority (Thomas, 2018) have faced various pressures to mobilise. In response, they have sought to reorganise as a family-based collection of community organisations. These reconstitution efforts were affected by intense experiences of various implications of modernisation, migration and the resulting worldwide spread of Syrian Christians. These new challenging parameters and inputs brought to the fore issues of managing gender relations, the need to re-balance shifting perceptions of rights and duties, and revisiting the nature and extent of links to churches and formal church organisations.

The article shows how, for Syrian Christians, establishing family associations to forge new kinship functions and ‘islands of meanings’ (Zerubavel, 1996) was one of the many organisational ways to mitigate the sense of dislocation. It first outlines the broad characteristics of Syrian Christian kudumbayogams and highlights the special role of the patron and the family historian in its ideological preservation. Then, it historicises the beginnings of family associations and reflects on the significance of transnational migration and the internet in their proliferation. This is followed by a brief examination and discussion of the changing functions of family associations and a concluding discussion.

Outlining Syrian Christian Kudumbayogams

In Malayalam, the language of Kerala in South India, kudumbayogam can denote both a formal association with office-bearers, buildings and registered members and simply a mode of assembly or get-together, temporarily mobilised with minimum order. Its semantic range covers formal associations as well as informal family gatherings. Meeting each other as families, bound by blood, affinity, caste or religion, during festivities and life-cycle events is as much part of routine life in twenty-first-century Kerala as it is elsewhere. One can technically qualify all such gatherings as a kudumbayogam. This article focuses on lineage-based kudumbayogams of Syrian Christians, which are made up of collateral units of a patrilineal descent group with a common historical/apical ancestor. Though unnoticed and almost invisible in academic debates, such kudumbayogams form an important aspect of modern reconfiguration and mobilisation of kinship in Kerala, especially among ‘middle-class’ Syrian Christians. Such associations, observed earlier in multi-religious Lebanon (Khalaf, 1971: 240), may behave like corporate entities, which engage in collective actions, where office-bearers act on behalf of everyone and the group possesses or controls property. The chief or any office bearer, and through them the association, becomes what Tönnies (1957: 246) called a social person, who can be observed, recognised and acknowledged by others. This lends kudumbayogams a sense of permanence and a collective will, often visible in their interaction with other purposive social organisations or associations, including the state.

Syrian Christian kudumbayogams have a peculiar formal life, replete with rules and conventions of modern associationism. They present stable structures of governance with invented hierarchies, assigned roles, obligations and defined functions. These features are common to lineage-based associations across various contexts and around the world (Baylouny, 2006; Khalaf, 1971; Noll, 2016; Sanyal, 1980). A typical association’s executive or governing body has a president, a secretary, a treasurer and many members. Beyond the three key positions, one would also find vice-presidents, joint secretaries or secretaries with specific tasks such as publicity or administration, nominees, auditors, legal advisors, branch representatives/convenors/organisers and patrons. Registered family-household units form the basis of such family associations. These units are divided into branches (kudumba shakhas). While the number of family branches remains constant, new chapters may emerge depending on changes in migration destinations. For example, the Kandathil Kudumbayogam, one of the oldest family associations, established in 1890, has Dubai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ernakulam and Trivandrum chapters based on the geographical spread of the kin network (Kandathil Kudumbam, n.d.). Each chapter may have its own set of events and meetings, which are coordinated by chapter-specific organisers or convenors.

Kudumbayogams do not always operate as compulsory groups for members and thus do not display any coercion. Like caste associations, they are partially ascriptive and partially voluntary (Rudolph & Rudolph, 1960: 6–7). Individual heads of households (mostly men) are expected by other family members to ‘voluntarily’ join kudumbayogams. However, such volunteerism is immersed in ascriptions of patrilineal blood-ties and family name. It may also be a device to give specific men some useful work to do in terms of acquiring social capital for the family, as Ajay (2024: 37) observed for church organisations. Based on interviews with association members and office-bearers, it is evident that adult men and women who belong to constitutive patrilineal families are automatically perceived as members of the association, irrespective of their individual volunteerism. Yet, it is the voluntary spirit of a household or a branch that determines their ‘visibility’ in the associational life of the family.

The transition from kudumbam to kudumbayogam involves fundamental exercises in defining ‘family’ and conditions of formal membership. The constitution of kudumbayogams is a significant document in this account. It represents a decisive shift in how families organise themselves. Membership in a kudumbayogam requires evidence (oral or written) to prove a household’s claim to a given ancestry. For example, Chennakkattu Kudumbayogam declares that ‘any family’ who can claim an ancestry based on regional or documentary evidence can be considered for membership (Chenakkattu Kudumbayogam, n.d.). Once this claim is satisfactorily made, the household must enter itself in the family register by paying a pre-decided fee. If a member decides to move away from the parental home to establish a new ‘household’, this new unit is expected to re-register itself. If a man lives in his wife’s paternal home, he and his offspring can continue as members if they maintain their family name (tharavatuperu). Similarly, if a woman from the family continues to live in her parent’s home even after marriage, she may be a member according to her volition. Daughters of the family would continue to be members in the kudumbayogam even after marriage, though they may have no voting rights or membership fees.

Only a few women occupy positions of authority in Syrian family associations. In fact, family associations expand the scope of Syrian Christian patriarchy, with all its modern contradictions and ironies (Abraham, 2019). On rare occasions, special quotas for ‘women representatives’ are instituted in executive bodies of family associations (Chemmanam Family, n.d.). It goes without saying that males dominate family associations, yet these are not all categories of men. A careful reading of the family association literature identifies that men drawn from business, professional and landed elites control the committees and decide the overall aims and objects of the association.

The Patron and the Family Historian

Two specialised designations within Syrian Christian family associations, the patron and the family historian, elucidate their ideological character. The patrons or rakshaadhikaari are usually senior priests from the family. Sometimes, families may have a chief patron or mukhya rakshaadhikari, and under him several other patrons. In family publications, the patron’s photograph is often highlighted and distinguished from those of other office-bearers (Vadakkethalackal Mahakudumbayogam, n.d.). Historically, the Syrian Christian priest has been active in the everyday affairs of his family while managing responsibilities within the episcopal hierarchy (Manjooran Family, n.d.: 39). The patron is a legitimate representative of the family and the church. He plays the role of an enduring philosopher, connecting individual family members/units, the family association and the church. Through him, the provincial church develops a reciprocal patron-client relationship with family associations. He and other clergy in the kin network school kudumbayogams as one of the many institutional arrangements of Christian familism, which perceives the family as the ‘seed of civil society’ (Waters, 2007: 199). The existence of normative families, in this instance heteropatriarchal and caste-abiding, fulfilling their socially sanctioned roles is seen as essential for the proper order of all social spheres, including the civil society. The family, from such a perspective, is the foundation of sacred, natural and social ordering (Waters, 2007: 204). The rakshaadhikari, as a charismatic authority, signifies and articulates this view for the association. He reinvents a socially conservative but economically flexible agenda for the family.

Like the patron, the family historian is also a venerated figure in family associations. Usually, a family historian is a current or past office-bearer or founder member who plays a critical role in collecting, documenting, writing and publishing the family history (kudumbacharitram). He is usually an economically cushioned, socially revered family man or ecclesiastic, known within family circles for his curiosity and filial commitment. Family Associations celebrate this individual for his efforts and always mention him separately in their literary accounts. The example of the Edamankalathy Family (n.d.), a Syrian Catholic family, is noteworthy. The founder patron of the family association, Fr. Xavier Pulaparambil, is also the family’s historian. In 1967, he compiled the family’s history and played a crucial role in organising the first family meeting. The family association fondly eulogises his contributions in their digital displays and literary sources. Some family associations have permanent standing committees on family history and genealogy. They also assign family members certain editorial roles in family bulletins and publications. It is evident that Syrian Christian kudumbayogams identify multi-modal documentation as a serious function. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that kudumbayogams have ushered in new documentary cultures among Syrian Christians. Families who are not organised as kudumbayogams also document their lives through everyday practices of photography or the paper trail they produce because of their interactions with social and other organisations. Nevertheless, they do not form committees to write convenient histories or design domestic symbols. Everyday practices of social reproduction, including functions of documenting and remembering, are thus formalised in family associations and are used in mobilising kinship associations.

The primacy given to documentation, which largely consists of encomiums for family elders and legacy but is not limited to them, means that the figure of the family historian also indicates the class character of Syrian Christian family associations. Drawing from Milios and Economakis (2011), class positions are linked to the ideological and political convictions of a social class that may not fit perfectly with the class places of the individuals involved. However, one finds a convergence between class position and place in Syrian Christian family activism. What also shapes the class position of Syrian Christian associations is their ‘upper-caste place’ within the social matrix of Kerala, observed recently for Syrian Christians generally by Thomas (2018). Associations exist within a historically consolidated middle-class realm. Without the cushions of such security, kudumbayogams, as conceived by Syrian Christians, would perhaps not succeed.

Historical Emergence of Kudumbayogams

This section discusses in depth the constellation of factors that led to the emergence and growth of such ‘secure’ kudumbayogams among Syrian Christians. Though we find a proliferation of kudumbayogams in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s, due to transnational migration and pursuant filial disruptions, its beginnings can be traced to shifting socio-economic relations and family forms in late colonial Travancore. As a result of British colonial interventions, the period witnessed a shift from subsistence forming to commercial agriculture. Permanent occupancy rights and rent regularisation were granted to holders of superior tenants in private lands. Proprietary rights enabled government tenure holders the right to sell their land, making it a market commodity. Syrian Christians emerged as a vital community that purchased large parcels of land from these traditional tenure holders in Travancore (Menon, 1993; Tharamangalam, 1984; Thomas, 2018: 30). Further, the rapid growth of the spice trade in the beginning of the twentieth century meant that a section of Syrian Christians, under the patronage of the British, consolidated themselves as native planters and traders, while ex-slave castes were transformed into plantation labourers (Chiriyankandath, 1985). This boom in cash-crop trade led to the monetisation of the economy and the arrival of commercial banks (Oommen, 1976). Once again, Syrian Christian capitalist families who had deep pockets in commercial agriculture established the first set of commercial banks.

By the early decades of the twentieth century, a section of Syrian Christians was thus moulded into landowners, traders and bankers (Thomas, 2018: 6). These men, along with their kin in the ranks of a ‘modernising’ state and church, anchored the modern associational life of Syrian Christians. They defined and embodied the community and fought for a greater share in ecclesiastical and secular hierarchies (Devika & Varghese, 2011; Kochuthressia, 1994). Predictably, they were also the office- bearers of the first set of kudumbayogams, which emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, along with caste and community organisations (Keerikattu Kudumbayogam, n.d.; Marattukulam Kudumbayogam, n.d.; Roy, 2002).

Simultaneously, the Syrian Christian patrilineal family household, portrayed as being stable, flexible and efficient, became the domestic model for an emerging capitalist economy (Varghese, 2006). They were often contrasted with Nair matrilineal households, perceived as inefficient and unstable (Jeffrey, 1973). The early twentieth century saw a rise in Travancore’s population. As a result, poorer, land-starved but flexible Syrian Christian family households were among the first to migrate to highland areas of Malabar and Travancore (Joseph, 1997, 2014). These migratory movements disrupted the extended patrilocal character of Syrian Christian kinship. The spatial dispersal and fragmentation experienced consequently encouraged several families to start family associations and devise new rituals such as annual meetings to stay in touch with each other (Thoonkuzhy family, n.d.).

The role of modern Christianity, more specifically Protestant missions, is also important to understand the transformation of the community and the establishment of family associations. Syrian Christian contacts with Protestant missionaries produced many graduates and undergraduates employed in churches, scriptural schools, missions and civil offices in Mysore, British, Travancore and Cochin services (Richards, 1908: 60). One finds ample evidence of this mobility in family histories and other allied literature of kudumbayogams. The arrival of the Church Mission Society (CMS) in the early nineteenth century played an important role in developing a print culture among Syrian Christians. One can probably understand the preponderance of amateur genealogists and family historians among Syrian Christians in early access to literary culture.

Encounters with the Protestant Missions also forced a process of reformation in the Syrian Christian Churches. This influence can be appreciated only when we consider the peculiar position of Syrian Christians and their families. Unlike the rest of the population, Syrian Christians were co-religionists of the British, often framed as a reformable sanctuary in the midst of the heathens (Richards, 1908). Anglican Protestantism convinced Syrian Christians to reform their self, community and the church, often against the predilections of their caste-Hindu neighbours (Chiriyankandath, 1985). Most denominations started their evangelical missions during this period. Ecclesiastical reorganisation and autonomy also fashioned Syrian Christians’ associational life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the early twentieth century, Syrian Christians were sharing a stage with Latin Catholics and Protestants, as Christians, despite attempts to maintain their claims to an ancient pedigree and, thus, superior status.

However, this slow process of transition, which led to a notional opening of Syrian denominations, did not go unchallenged. As Aloysius (2004: 4) points out, the process of modernisation not only witnessed democratic religious movements, in this case marked by the entry of lower castes through Christian evangelism, but also inspired counter-democratic movements led by upper castes, inside and outside the church. The insistence on blood, family and caste in kudumbayogams at times of democratic revision of Christianity provides evidence of their ‘anti-democratic’ thrust. With increasing numbers of lower castes, the need to distinguish oneself became more urgent for the native Christians, and anxieties of identity erosion became a prominent trope in the Syrian Christian family literature. Forming family associations, along with other organisations, and producing meticulous family histories and genealogies, seemed to have helped them partially in overcoming such anxieties. Modern Christianity and its subversions continue to shape the tastes, icons, symbols and language of family associations.

Transnational Migration and the Internet

Having briefly discussed the historical processes that shaped the beginnings of family associations, it is important here to specify two ongoing processes that sustain them, namely, transnational migration and the internet, which are both tied to the exigencies of a neoliberal economy. It is well known that transnational migrations in the 1970s, especially to the Gulf countries, played a significant role in shaping Kerala’s economy and social fabric (Prakash, 1998; Thomas, 2003). Economic remittances often led to situations of ‘private affluence and public squalor’ (Vertovec, 2004: 986). Family associations are such examples of ‘private affluence’, operating as sites of middle-class leisure. Syrian Christian families who accumulated new wealth due to migration were central to the consolidation of family associations (Varghese, 2004). In the 1970s and thereafter, an extensive class of upstart transnational migrants started dominating the list of family mobilisers and office-bearers. Today, the transnational migrant’s bifocality, which contrasts home society and host society in everyday life, sets the tenor of family associations (Vertovec, 2004). Grand events of family associations, such as annual meetings, funerals, family history launch and so on, become discursive grounds for male migrants to reconcile their places with their memories, and to connect their economic success with family values. They try to guard the moral economy of reciprocity within extended kin networks to school the social life of the second generation of migrants (Osella & Osella, 2009), while Kurien (2014) demonstrates how Christian migrants, and their foreign-born children, place new demands and expectations on home denominations. International migrants have become key figures in the transformation story of religious organisations. These findings on religious organisations corroborate related changes in family mobilisations and organisations.

The transnationalisation of Syrian Christian kin networks and the emergence of the commercial internet by the late 1990s had serious implications for family associations (Parker & Clegg, 2006). Family associations, often under the stewardship of transnational migrants, started using internet platforms to park and shape their discourses as text, sounds and visuals. Earliest examples of Syrian Christian websites and blogs come from white-collar immigrants settled in the United States, where one witnessed an upsurge in consumer genealogy and interest in genetics in the early decades of the present century (see the family website of K.V. Zachariah, a US-based doctor, Kavilai Veetil Zachariah Family, n.d.). Internet-enabled platforms create spaces of what may be called ‘decentralised dialogue’, and through these dialogues, Syrian Christians have actively constituted a community of practice. Today, the family website is increasingly a vital organisational feature of family associations. The function of time-space compression and the ease of building public and private loops of conversation and platform-specific features have made websites a structural priority. Thus, it is unsurprising that ‘website launch’ has become a special category of events for families, a milestone in the life of a family association (e.g., Padathumappila Family, n.d.; Plamparambil Kudumbayogam, n.d.).

Functions of a Kudumbayogam

Further discussion is needed on the professed aims of family associations to understand their growing significance. Though the aims of kudumbayogams may differ, depending upon their specific histories, economic interests, social station and educational attainments, we can identify several commonalities. These aims can be broadly classified into cultural continuity, communication, conflict resolution and charity. Cultural continuity ought to be understood as perceived cultural continuity, in the face of clear breaks and inconstancies, which primarily involves the invention of traditions and what Natarajan (2011) calls ‘culturalization of caste’ through a reinterpretation of kinship origins. Family associations aim to preserve the patrimonial legacy and culture of the kin network. This is done with the help of old and new tools, family histories, genealogies, audio-visual productions, family meetings and so on. Families mobilise material and cultural symbols to preserve a unique cultural station and nurture a family-centric historical consciousness. The family bust of the Thayillam Kudumbayogam, called the Ayroor pillar, is an interesting example. Ayroor in the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala is considered the birthplace of several elite Syrian Christian families. They have collectively put up a stone-cement pillar, with the names of 268 ancestors from nine generations, in a private family plot at Ayroor (Thayillam Family, n.d.). Family members describe the pillar as a standing guide for the future generations. Similarly, family associations build family offices, chapels and auditoriums as enduring structures for social reproduction and cultural continuity (Maniyampra Kudumbayogam, n.d.).

Kudumbayogams also become interesting spaces of socialisation for children. Many associations offer specific programmes for children and youngsters. This could range from dedicated youth meets to balayogams or children’s assemblies. For example, the Cheeramvellil Kudumbayogam organised an exclusive youth meet along with its usual annual gathering in 2015 and put this on their website (Cheeramvellil Kudumbayogam, 2015). Similarly, another family has a dedicated Youth Movement with a separate digital logo (Karuvatta Munjanattu Kudumbayogam, 2015). Cultural continuity also involves prescribing conduct and issuing negative warnings and restraints. For example, one Catholic family categorically highlights the ‘need to ward off influences of atheistic movements’ to ensure order within the family (Marattukulam Kudumbayogam, n.d.). Overwhelmingly, associations identify individualisation, non-normative domestic arrangements, such as live-in relationships or inter-faith/caste marriages, and divorces as major challenges, which they attempt to overcome with warnings in family literature or meetings. Saving families from breakdown is a critical housekeeping task for group cohesion. Thus, many associations resolve, or at least try to mitigate, conflicts between individual members, families and couples. Conflict resolution also aids cultural continuity and above all guarantees a sense of order based on stable gender relations, filial hierarchies and Christian piety.

Family associations are clearly systems of purposive communication and network building. Through a set of repetitive organisational rituals, such as family association meetings and genealogy revisions, members are informed about life-cycle events, such as deaths, births and marriages and other family occasions. Family associations, depending upon their specific needs and inclinations, may add new functions to their system of communication. An example would be the ‘employment register’ of the Marattukalam Kudumbayogam, where unemployed members are encouraged to list themselves in the family employment register. The office-bearers of the association connect the unemployed with potential employers within the family (Marattukulam Kudumbayogam, n.d.). Baylouny (2006), in her work on Jordanian family associations, also observes how employment contacts become important for middle-class family members and act as a form of self-help. This needs to be seen together with the important phenomenon of community solidarity, which recent sociological research in India has identified, albeit as a local community, rather than as an extended family. Similarly, Chalwadi (2024) illustrates various forms of neighbourhood solidarity among Dalits in Mumbai, not based on formal association, but on ad hoc arrangements to support each other in a time of crisis, in this case the COVID pandemic and resulting lockdowns.

The fourth group of aims deals with charity or help. This may include endowment funds for deserving students, financial aid for unmarried girls from underprivileged family units or medical aid for poor family members. Again, family associations perceive charity as a mechanism to overcome (or rather camouflage) the class differentiations within the kinship network. While studying the efficacy of such works is beyond the scope of this study, it should be noted that such philanthropic exercises of caring for one’s own kind acquire special meaning in an economic order where the state is consistently withdrawing from its social commitments. Family associations, in many parts of the world, are encouraged to replace these state welfare functions (Rossi, 2007) or to mobilise private action in the absence of public provisions.

An illustrative example of this kind is an upcoming multi-storeyed complex, under the auspices of the Pakalomattom Maha-Kudumbayogam, which would house a clinic, retreat centre, old-age home, palliative care unit, charitable trust, ecumenical chapel, research library and counselling centre. It will also operate as the administrative building of this ‘globally dispersed’ family (Pakalomattom Family, n.d.). Anchored by the Pakalomattom Trust, an offshoot of the maha-kudumbayogam, the trustees highlight that the building stands in physical proximity to the family’s ancestral church and the vaults of Pakalomattom Archdeacons who led the Syrian Christian Church in Kerala till the advent of colonial rule. They also underline it as a global shrine of what they call ‘the first Christian family of India’, a proud self-description, setting them apart from other families (Varghese, 2004: 900). These examples show how family associations diversify and expand the scope of their relevance with changing times.

Concluding Discussion

This article introduced family associations as an increasingly relevant aspect in the historical and contemporary mobilisation of kinship in Kerala. It may not be a modern movement, as the research showed how the elite Christian repurposing of ‘families’ into ‘associations’, starting from the late colonial period, was simultaneously a celebration of their patriarchal family form, a defence against modern egalitarian disruptions and a strategic embrace of appropriate self-improvement.

The reconstituted household, aligned with the needs of a changing political economy, legitimised new ways of ‘doing’ domesticity and informed the need for family associations. Today, a kudumbayogam tends to operate as the public face of a family or group of families, furthering the ‘institutionalisation’ of the family with organisational features that reproduce family feelings, as Bourdieu (1996) saw it. Nowadays, Syrian Christian kudumbayogams increasingly draw their leaders and ideologues from a broad class of successful transnational migrants. The latter embody the possibilities of neoliberal individualism with their professional choices and Christian familism, combined with their commitment to kudumbam and kudumbayogam. Under their guidance, kudumbayogams persist as modern fortifications that operate at a meso-level, between family households and the larger society. When a family becomes an association or part of an association, it enters new avenues of social reproduction. A modern association places its constitutive domestic units under new rules and regulations.

Studies of family associations can also help us untangle the relationship between kinship and caste/religious associations. In the case of Syrian Christians, the overall push is to establish a desirable continuum between family, community and church, which all face challenges with the breakdown of domestic relationships and processes of undesired individualisation. We thus see a constant attempt by family associations to reinvent their usefulness for the changing times. It would be insightful to compare family associations, other kinship-centric formations in India, and also differently constituted networks of solidarity and self-help, such as identified by Chalwadi (2024), in more depth. The large-scale withdrawal of the state from providing all kinds of services and the growth of privatisation in many spheres of service provision result in a need for many South Asians, not only Syrian Christians, to mobilise more or less informal solidarity networks. Supporting those whom one considers as family or utilising a friendship network of similarly placed people is probably much more widespread in South Asia than academics realise. The existence of this phenomenon, as this article argues for Syrian Christians, makes it necessary to gain a deeper understanding of how these solidarity networks operate, whether in the kudumbayogam form or in other ways. It is also important to be aware that such solidarity networks among upper-caste and elite South Asians may structurally work against the interests of lower-caste, working-class kin solidarities. We also need more research on the tensions between ‘traditionally-minded’ forms of family association and the strategies of more ‘modern’ individuals from those same communities to avoid such ties in order to be able to lead ‘their own’ lives.