Abstract
The article aims at presenting contemporary subsistence practices adopted by Mbya populations (Guarani) in southern and southeastern Brazil from an approach that articulates economy and politics, as well as some aspects of shamanism and ritual. It seeks to demonstrate how an asymmetric reciprocity model persists between the Mbya in connection with complex economic practices, whose main tenets are money and city trade. In contrast to the perception of “disintegration” peculiar to a collective economic model, and focusing on a process of “individualization” akin to a capitalist logic, as proposed by Egon Schaden in the 1940s, the author suggests that contemporary economic practices hold the principles of reciprocity and even optimize Mbya’s system in its openess to a multi-local perspective.
Keywords
Mbya Guarani; money; subsistence; work