Fondamenti o repertori? Mauss, Lévi-Strauss e alcune forme di socialità congolese

Abstract

Reciprocity, gift and exchange are very important concepts in the reflection of Mauss and Lévi-Strauss about the construction of human society. Mauss focuses on the gift and the exchange of objects, Lévi-Strauss on exogamy and the exchange of women. Both anthropologists want to find general principles of society. This essay examines Congolese ethnographic cases (blood brotherhood and mutual aid societies) that show the strong relationship between mobility and recreation of disrupted sociality. This correlation needs a theoretical attention useful to reflect on repertoires of sociality rather than on general principles and archetypes of society.