Del tráfico entre antropología y arte contemporáneo

Abstract

Taking the studies of the economy of illegal drugs as a methodological reference, the article proposes a preliminary discussion on the notion of ‘trafficking’ in relation to four aspects of border crossing between Anthropology and Contemporary Art. 1. Transport or mobilizing goods –in this case symbolic ones, that is basically ideas, categories and concepts but also strategies of appropriation and contextualization as pertinent to ethnography as to contemporary art. 2. The description  of  the  ‘contaminating’  character  which  such  goods  eventually  acquire when  circulate  in  different  contexts  (academic,  cultural  administration,  visual arts) thus provoking defensive strategies between the one and the other. 3. The awareness of the conflictive character of micro-practices which are tested during the dialogue of different kind of knowledge, ratified academically as fields or disciplines. 4. The discussion of the codes of illegality which accompany the quality of the ‘trafficker’ and the symbolic capital which derives from it.