Abstract

GREENBERG, James B.. Capital, Rituals and the Frontiers of the Closed Corporate Community. Desacatos [online]. 2002, n.9, pp.132-147. ISSN 2448-5144.

In this article the author re-examines the cultural dimensions of the closed corporate community. Greenberg uses the case of the Mixes in Oaxaca to explore how elements of capitalist and non-capitalist means of production are culturally integrated to define a synchretic social formation. His prime aim is to show how elements ofthe capitalist mode -such as money, credit, wealth, contracts and property- are reinterpreted and reworked when passed through the prism ofMixe culture. He focus on the cultural significance linked to money and wealth. Basically, the author thesis is that the Mixe notions of good and bad money -along with the rituals associated to Mixe trade- determine how money and wealth circulate within the community. Furthermore, such ideas and rituals are only some of the cultural resources used by the Mixe communities to mediate their relations with the vast capitalist world.

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