摘要：Abstract : This interview took place in June 2008 in Berlin. Emmanuel Désveaux, a French anthropologist and Professor at the EHESS exposes the main lines of his work concerning North American Indians. The conversation begins with the question of Désveaux’s relationship to the work of Lévi-Strauss, which has been deep and quite heterodoxly reconsidered by the author (1).The critical revision switches then to the investigation of Lévi-Strauss famous theses about matrimonial exchange and incest prohibition, which have been refuted by evidence from the American case (2). The interview tackles then the necessary extension of the notion of logical transformation to other domains than myths: rites, social organization, name list, techniques and even languages (3). The dialogue turns next to the identification of a specific American “quadrant”, in which filiation (separated from heredity) plays a crucial role. The distinction of the American field justifies thus the idea of a non-substantialist ontology, as well as the necessary rehabilitation of a moderate diffusionism (4). It suggests moreover a new – non genetic-based – investigation programme of indigenous languages (5).
