This essay presents a history of the mikiliste, the high-living bon-vivant who travels to Europe and is a central figure in Kinois urban mythology.It looks in particular at the highly theatrical exchanges engaged in by the mikiliste, exchanges which relate especially to music patronage and to designer clothing. I show how these exchanges have evolved over time, both shaping and being shaped by the political economy of Kinshasa. The essay shows how such aesthetic performances should not be discussed in isolation from wider political-economic considerations. Those who participate in economies of prestige must be connected to a material base, and the ruling class, with their access to the resources of the interior, have become ever more important participants in the mikiliste rituals of largesse. Recently, the violent contestation of mikiliste exchange, both in Europe and in Kinshasa, indicates that such moments of largesse may be involved in reproducing political-economic relations in the Congolese capital.
This essay seeks to understand the potlatch as indicative of a wider category of exchange. Looking at the similarity in wild exchange rituals between northwestern America and central Africa the article argues that potlatch ritual is not as an archaic remnant but a product of the interaction between capitalist and 'human' modes of production. In this dynamic 'human modes of production' (see anon) did not become capitalist, but rather there was a ritual escalation related to a series of non-capitalist imperatives based in rights in people and theatrical displays of authority. In constructing the theoretical structure used to make this case I draw on and seek to rehabilitate the work of French Marxist Anthropologists working in central Africa, above all Georges Dupré and Pierre-Philippe Rey.
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