Cultura, proteínas, beneficios: Un comentario al libro de Marvin Harris «Caníbales y reyes».

Sin resume

Fetishism and the social value of objects.

The idea of the fetish has a particular presence in the writings of both Marx and Freud. It implies for these two theorists of the social, a particular form of relation between human beings and objects. In the work of both the idea of the fetish involves attributing properties to objects that they do not 'really' have and that should correctly be recognised as human. While Marx's account of fetishism addresses the exchange-value of commodities at the level of the economic relations of production, it fails to deal in any detail with the use-value or consumption of commodities. In contrast Freud's concept of the fetish as a desired substitute for a suitable sex object explores how objects are desired and consumed. Drawing on both Marx and Freud, Baudrillard breaks with their analyses of fetishism as demonstrating a human relation with unreal objects. He explores the creation of value in objects through the social exchange of sign values, showing how objects are fetishised in ostentation. This paper argues that while Baudrillard breaks with the realism characteristic of Marx's and Freud's analyses of fetishism, he does not go far enough in describing the social and discursive practices in which objects are used and sometimes transformed into fetishes. It is proposed that the fetishisation of objects involves an overdetermination of their social value through a discursive negotiation of the capacities of objects that stimulates fantasy and desire for them

Rebirth of a nation or 'The incomparable toothbrush': the origin story and narrative regeneration in Sri Lanka

I examine the post-Independence role of Sri Lanka’s origin story, revealing the ways in which the foundational myth of the Mahavamsa functions as a conflicted site of cultural ‘encompassment’ (Kapferer) in literary and political discourse. Through an analysis of the fiction of Tissa Abeysekara, Carl Muller and the assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa, I show how the scripting of this myth in fiction reveals a shift from the celebratory drives of nationalism to a critique of patriotism in a way that both reflects and anticipates a broader paradigmatic shift in the construction of belonging and the outsider found in post-war Sri Lanka

Recent work on human nature: Beyond traditional essences

Kronfeldner M, Roughley N, Toepfer G. Recent work on human nature: Beyond traditional essences. Philosophy Compass. 2014;9(9):642-652.Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: (1) conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, (2) eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and (3) constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: descriptive (descriptivism), explanatory (explanativism), definitional (taxonomic relationalism), or explanatory and definitional (property cluster essentialism). These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: there is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts

Conexões e entrecruzamentos: configurações culturais e direitos em um circuito migratório entre La Paz e Buenos Aires

A partir de um conflito entre imigrantes bolivianos em Buenos Aires em torno do “trabalho escravo” nas oficinas de costura da cidade, o artigo trata da relação entre direitos (“ocidentais”) e formas culturais aymaras ou andinas. Como são qualificadas essas relações de trabalho quando envolvem trabalhadores e proprietários (ou administradores) bolivianos/andinos? A cultura aymara problematiza a ideia de exploração laboral e a exploração laboral problematiza a cultura aymara. O artigo foca o circuito migratório transnacional e a circulação heterogênea que o conforma (pessoas, dinheiro, objetos, saberes e práticas culturais) para tentar compreender aquele conflito. Com base na análise da convivência enredada de direitos e traços culturais aymaras, proponho que o cruzamento e a sobreposição de instituições e de “lógicas” culturais, sociais, econômicas e políticas são um componente constitutivo desses processos de circulação.Based upon the study of a conflict that erupted between Bolivian immigrants in Buenos Aires over the concept of “slave labor” in the city’s sweatshops, the present article deals with the relationship between (western) rights and Aymara or Andean cultural forms. How are these work relations qualified when they involve Bolivian/Andeanworkers and owners (or administrators)? Aymara culture problematizes the concept of labor exploitation and vice versa. The present article focuses on the transnational migratory circuit and heterogeneous circulations (of people, money, objects, knowledge and practices) that it contains in order to better comprehend this conflict. Based upon an analysis of the lived, networked experience of rights and Aymara cultural traces, I propose to interlink and juxtapose the social, cultural economic and political logics and institutuions that are constituitive components of these processes of circulation