Critique of Anthropology

This article was completed by 1982, shortly before the author's tragic death It was originally conceived as the theoretical introduction to her dissertation on the anarchist collectives in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War; unfortunately the thesis was never finished. We would like, if possible, in the future to make available to our readers some of the results of her research. We have decided to publish the article without modifications. In a sense it very much reflects the theoretical concerns of the author - and of many of the members of the Editorial Board of Critique of Anthropology — at the beginning of the decade. By publishing the article we are not only remembering the author, but also preserving continuity with our own past in the journal.

The original version of this article was published in 1980 in a book edited by H. Wesseling and L. Bussé (History and Development, 1980). This is a revised version, for which the authors have also written a new introduction.