Abstract
This article explores the way patrilineal descent and affinity intersect and interlock with the political system among Tibeto-Burman-speaking Akha highlanders of mainland Southeast Asia. In contrast to Leach's famous work on the Kachin of Burma, the Akha case suggests that asymmetric alliance is not only compatible with egalitarian political organization but can also be constitutive of it. Uncovering the cultural nexus between descent and affinity and the structural linkage between asymmetric alliance and political egalitarianism requires a kinship analysis that is also an analysis of local constructions of gender. [kinship, asymmetric alliance, gender, political systems, comparison, Southeast Asia, Akha]