13/05/2026
What does it mean to inherit – and what is passed on, lost, or transformed in the process?
👋 Meet inherit fellow Resto Cruz, an anthropologist who studies how inheritance shapes kinship, mobility, and heritage in the post-1945 Philippines. Building on feminist and kinship anthropology, his research follows what gets passed on, from intimate family relationships to public culture. He pays particular attention to siblingship, showing that inheritance is not only passed down, but may also act between people of the same generation.
📸 This photo was taken inside a house once inherited by one of Resto's interlocutors in Iloilo, in the central Philippines. Though the house no longer stands, its materials live on in a new home, as do the memories and tensions it once held. For Resto, the house embodies how an inheritance can both connect and disconnect, implicating not only vertical ties of kinship but also lateral ties among siblings and cousins.
📚 Resto is an anthropologist of kinship, inheritance, and social and geographical mobilities. He has conducted ethnographic and archival research in the Philippines and the UK, and is developing work that situates Southeast Asia in broader comparative and transnational perspectives. He is currently a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the The University of Edinburgh, where he co-convenes the "Kinship: More or Less" research hub.
📷 Outside anthropology, Resto‘s interests include reading novels and creative non-fiction, going to the cinema, taking long walks, dabbling in photography, and cooking.
Find more information on Resto's project here:https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/fellows/resto-cruz
Portrait © Michelle Mantel
Slide 2: © Resto Cruz
