Populism in Latin America: A reading through the Theory of Reciprocity

This article proposes a reading of populism processes in Latin American countries in light of the logic of reciprocity in anthropology. The main hypothesis is that the principle of reciprocity is different from the principle of exchange (and in particular the exchange market). So, it can generate specific forms of alienation which are not reducible to the main form of alienation in the exchange system. The political populisms in Latin America are especially hard to analyse and criticize, precisely because they correspond to mixed alienation forms which are specific of reciprocity logic and reciprocity societies. These specific forms of reciprocal alienation overlap with forms of Western alienation. We apply this hypothesis to a comparative analysis of left-wing and right-wing populisms in Latin America.