Among Blacks in the Recôncavo da Bahia, Northeastern Brazil, the cultural construction of social relations and social organization, as well as the representations that sustain them must be understood in order to analyze their family systems. This article begins with a discussion of key analytical categories and structuro-functionalist methodologies - their theoretical and sociocultural foundations and their place in the analysis of family and kinship practices among marginalized people in Latin America, particularly in Brazil. It then turns to exploration of implicit meanings that are embedded in socioethnic contexts that structure languages, beliefs, and experiences of family among Blacks in that region. The model proposed is founded in the association of two conceptual levels: that of the ‘house’ and ‘configuration of houses’ (ensemble of houses structured within the ideology of kinship and family) as system of meanings.
