Gain and Transformation in the Land Without Evil: Jesuit's missions in Paraguay
 

Conférence de
Brian Owensby, University of Virginia, Department of history, Charlottesville
« I explore the motive of economic ‘gain’ as a global phe­nomenon played out on the stage of colonial Paraguay among Spanish settlers, Guaraní Indians, Portuguese slave raiders and Jesuits between the 16th and 19th centuries. The main point is to rethink the story of Polanyi’s “great transformation” from a more self-consciously global per­spective and in doing so question the assumption that the pursuit of individual gain is simply a matter of ‘human nature’.»

« … un motif rarement avoué comme valide dans l’histoire des sociétés humaines, et certainement jamais élevé au niveaud’une justification d’action et comportement dans la vie quotidienne, à savoir, le gain. »
Karl Polanyi, La grande transformation (1944)