Exchanging through difference

Abstract

Abstract This article presents and discusses different sorts of economic exchange between nut gatherers from the São Francisco do Iratapuru community, in Brazilian Amazonia, and Brazil’s largest cosmetics company, Natura. Based on fieldwork conducted both at Natura and in the Amazonian community, the ethnography reveals that this encounter makes visible different logics of thought and action, which indicate what has value in the relational sphere of nut gatherers and businessmen. The paper argues in favour of the possibility of communication and exchange through specific conversions, despite their different conventions. Exchange takes place precisely in the domain of difference: in other words, where one sees nuts - in the form of debts and commodities - others see cosmetics - in the form of profitable products. The model, made visible by ethnography, is compared to the anthropological literature dealing with the distinction between gifts and commodities, offering an alternative analytical bifurcation.