De los modos de organización social en el Antiguo Egipto. Lógica de parentesco, lógica de Estado

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

Estudios sobre parentesco y Estado en el Antiguo Egipto

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras-UBA / Ediciones del Signo

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2006; p. 15 - 50

Ancient State societies –including Ancient Egypt– were mainly organized by two diverse but coexisting logics, related, respectively, to kinship and the State. On the one hand, kinship seems to constitute the basic practice of social organization in pre-State times, when all social practices speak the “idiom” of kinship. On the other hand, once the State emerges, the State practice tends to impose itself as a dominant principle to the scale of the whole territory subjected to its control, through its capacity of coercion, creation and intervention. However, in this last scenario, the logic of kinship does not wane, and still plays a role of great relevance in the inner organization of both peasant communities and the State elite. The coexistence of both logics of social organization during State times implies different points of articulation between them, and this can be seen in peasant and State-elite contexts, as well as in the very way in which the community of gods is organized.