La signification sociale des ' biens de prestige' dans les formations lignagères africaines

My main objective is to sketch a demonstration, with empirical illustrative cases, of the theoretical power of a dialectical approach. My topic is centered on the notion of « multicentric» economy, and all its concomitants, such as « spheres of exchange,» « prestige goods,» and the like. Such notions are widely accepted among anthropologists, who apply them mechanically to their monographs. To use, in an uncritical way, such transactional categories is a perfect case of reification.To remain at the superficial level of exchange is no more successful in explaining the essence of the lineage mode of production than its progressive transformation within a world-wide dominant capitalism. In contradistinction to such an abstracted view of the economy, the task of a dialectical anthropology is to conceive theoretically any element within this relevant and irreducible totality which is a mode of production. This rigorous process of knowledge is a prerequisite to explain the underlying meaning of the « multicentric» ideology, and to go beyond the pure materiality of « prestige goods» to reach their plurifunctional social meaning

Aesthetics · Capitalism · Dialectic · Economics · Epistemology · Ideology · Linguistics · Materiality (auditing) · Mode of production · Political science · Positive economics · Prestige · Production (economics) · Reification (Marxism) · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · French Urban and Social Studies · Law · Philosophy