La reciprocidad y el don no son la misma cosa

Abstract

The aim of this text is to show how the notion of ‘reciprocity’, although have been considered a synonymous of gift exchange, veils different social situations. A brief survey of the history of the use of the word shows how ‘reciprocity’, from Durkheim to Polanyi, seems as a palimpsest of various notions. Although, he essays a defense of a concept of ‘gift’ related to the Maussian texts, and closer to some issues of recent ethnography and social theory. He distinguishes two types of gifts paths: closed, where final consumption goods circulates, and open ones, where we find not-consumption goods, which resume the whole of social relationship.