Trapido, Joseph (2016) Potlatch and the articulation of modes of production: revisiting French Marxist Anthropology and the history of central Africa. Dialectical Anthropology 40 (3), pp. 199-220. ISSN 0304-4092.
Abstract
This essay seeks to understand the potlatch as indicative of a wider category of exchange. Looking at the similarity in wild exchange rituals between northwestern America and central Africa the article argues that potlatch ritual is not as an archaic remnant but a product of the interaction between capitalist and ‘human’ modes of production. In this dynamic ‘human modes of production’ (see anon) did not become capitalist, but rather there was a ritual escalation related to a series of non-capitalist imperatives based in rights in people and theatrical displays of authority. In constructing the theoretical structure used to make this case I draw on and seek to rehabilitate the work of French Marxist Anthropologists working in central Africa, above all Georges Dupré and Pierre-Philippe Rey.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Potlatch, Congo, French Marxist Anthropology, Ritual, Mode of production |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Jul 2016 13:11 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:25 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/15768 |
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