Several recent studies have shown the paramount importance of slavery, especially amongst populations in the past considered as “noble savages”. Slavery really appears as one of the world’s most widespread social phenomena, even in pre-colonial societies (amongst native American populations, in Africa or in South-East Asia).

As opposed to what has been thought for a long time, factors other than violence, warfare, raids and abduction lead to slavery. Many societies, considered to be “egalitarian”, “simple” or “socially unstratified”, have been known to enslave people as a result of debt insolvency. That a poor individual, for no other reason than poverty and unpaid debts, could become a slave was perfectly acceptable.

Slaves were not only used as hard labour. They could also be bodyguards, form small private militias serving their masters: they were therefore privileged auxiliaries of empowered people.

One can even consider that this institution (in particular slavery debt slavery) created favourable conditions for the emergence of the state. A data base on pre-colonial slavery has been created by analysing some four hundred different populations.

From now on, this data base is available online : cartomares.

Main publication :

Testart, A. 2001 : L'esclave, la dette et le pouvoir : études de sociologie comparative (Slaves, Debts and Power : Studies in Comparative Sociology). Paris : Errance.

Testart, A. 2002 : The Extent and Significance of Debt Slavery. Revue Française de Sociologie 43, Supplément : 173-204 [translation of « Importance et signification de l'esclavage pour dettes », published in 2000 in this journal].

In most standard anthropological works, marriage has been studied from the perspective of taboos and prohibitions. Yet marriage also has an economic dimension, what one can call “the money of marriage”. In yesterday’s Europe, dowry was a serious source of worry for families and unmarried daughters. In many parts of the world, this has been termed “marriage compensation” or the “price of the bride”. This custom meant that the husband-to-be had to provide goods for his step-father in order to marry the latter’s daughter; moreover these gifts would often be of considerable value.

The importance of these considerations derives from the fact that, in a number of traditional societies, goods exchanged for reasons related to marriage constitute the largest amount of all transfers made. Primitive currencies such as Pacific shells are above all used as payment for marriage. If one is to seriously study marriage transactions, one has to reconsider the entire economics of these societies. This leads to the conclusion that those who are too poor to pay for marriage are at risk of depending on rich and powerful individuals. A data base on marriage transactions in traditional societies has been created for around four hundred communities.

From now on, this data base is available online : cartomares

Main publications :

Funerary practices can be studied from two viewpoints: from the perspective of rites and from that of the material goods buried or burnt together with the deceased. This second point of view appears as particularly important, as what archaeologists find in excavations are precisely these grave goods. We also know through ethnography that in many communities the deceased’s possessions were meant to be destroyed during his funeral. Another way of ensuring prestige yet preventing these goods’ destruction through inhumation or cremation is to distribute them during sumptuous banquets. This expenditure was always geared towards securing the social status of the heirs. Yet what is striking are the many ways in which this can be done, and the diversity of what one can describe as “funerary policy”. It is also apparent that each of these funerary policies will leave very different archaeological remains.

This research topic aims at promoting common thought and discussion by both archaeologists and social anthropologists on the many forms of and reasons for funerary practices, in order to suggest new lines of research on the archaeology of death. This discussion will eventually develop in due course.

Main publications :

The round table discussions on “Odd deaths, abnormal burials, questions of interpretation in funerary archeology,” held on March 16, 17, and 18, 2005 under the auspices of the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, has had a favorable reception in archeological circles, and we are already considering a continuation for March or April 2006. This one will be in collaboration with the Archeological Museum of Sens. Two topics are envisaged :

The goal of these discussions is to encourage debate on possible interpretations of these seemingly untypical burials. Included will be problematic introductions, the presentation of new assumptions, a review of existing explanations as well as examination of critical cases (known or new ones) for which interpretation is difficult or open to contradictory interpretations. The greatest part of the time will be reserved for discussion.

The round table discussions are organized by Luc Baray, Luc Bachelot, Bruno Boulestin and Alain Testart.

Since Mauss’s pioneer works, there has been a confusion in anthropology between gift and exchange. One should emphasize that there is no specific “reciprocation” associated to the act of giving. Neither Mauss nor later scholars have seen the notion of obligation as a problem. Several articles have investigated the difference between gift and exchange, as well as their distinction from a third type of transfer (appearing in its most simple form as taxation). To put things simply, the difference between exchange and gift does not derive from the existence or non-existence of reciprocation, nor from the fact that the latter is expected or not. Even less relevant is the self-interest of the individuals taking part in the process. The difference lies in that compensation for a gift cannot be legitimately requested. One cannot claim to make a gift and simultaneously ask for anything in return (because this would be asking for payment). One can only expect and hope for a counter-gift.

From these observations it is possible to demonstrate that the kula should be seen as a series of exchanges while, for instance, potlatch is an uninterrupted series of gifts and counter-gifts.

This research topic has been continued as a reflection on the difference between mercantile and non-mercantile exchange.

The collection of the published articles, and some others, should soon be collected in a book : Critique du Don.

A new edition of Des dons et des Dieux, actually unavailable, and revisited (because of old arguments outdated from the author's point of view) is also considered.

For the time being, main publications :

Since the birth of modern anthropology almost a century and a half ago, we have accumulated considerable knowledge, and wonderful ethnographic works have entertained us in detail with the strangest customs practiced by faraway peoples. Theory nevertheless is still in its incipient stages. In order to describe societies studied by ethnology, this discipline still makes use of imprecise adjectives: “simple”, “savage” and “primitive” societies… Laymen do understand that communities of the Amazon, Australian Aboriginals, Indians of the great plains, etc… invented social forms very different from ours, or even radically contrasting with those of the Roman Empire; yet we cannot explain in precise terms how they differed.

Any science (or any discipline that claims to be scientific) starts by at least classifying the objects of its study. One should initially focus on this preliminary task, while knowing that such an endeavour will not be easy. Moreover, ties with other social sciences should not be severed, as these disciplines have studied societies from other horizons by referring to their own collected data and dealing with their particular problems.

We shall of course base ourselves on a few anthropological concepts that we will have previously redefined: the various kinds of gifts and exchange, forms of land ownership and tenure, forms of subjection such as slavery, etc… Yet this project cannot be limited strictly to anthropology, and we shall often refer when necessary to concepts and ideas borrowed from law, sociology or history.

Main publication :