Desire as the foundation of the subject, dynamic principle of culture.

Notes for a psycho-anthropological reflection on symbolic reproduction

Abstract

This article develops the relationship between desire and cultural reproduction, from a conceptual point of view. Desire is emphasized as a process that articulates the subject with culture. Each culture presents ritual and ritualized practices that regulate the desires of individuals to constitute them as reproductive subject of a given culture. The methodological approach focuses on the fact that anthropology as a science requires observing social phenomena from a theoretical framework that includes desire as a social category. This work presents a conceptual proposal made in this regard, exemplified with a specific ethnographic case of Hñähñu migrants to Mexico City.