Abstract

The introduction examines David Graeber’s intellectual trajectory from economic to political and «militant» anthropology. Through his concepts of «everyday communism», violence and imagination, we delve into his analysis of the human economy, the concentration of power and the related alternative ontologies that link familiar and distant cultural worlds. Graeber’s anthropology thus stands as an original «third way» between a critique of the contemporary inequalities and a tool for envisioning prefigurative social alternatives. Finally, inspired by The Dawn of Everything, we critically consider Graeber’s position in ethnographic theory debates and his political-cultural interpretation of «play», tracing his dissemination in Italian anthropology.