Abstract

_ Source: _Volume 45, Issue 2, pp 169 - 190 Against Lévi-Strauss’ contention that writing and, subsequently, violence find its way into Nambikwara society only through foreigners and from the outside, Derrida argues that their interdiction to use proper names is testimony to the fact that its members know the violence associated with naming. The paper discusses arche-writing as a most elementary form of writing, and the violence associated with it, as the condition of possibility for naming, and thus for relating to the Other to begin with. Furthermore, it elaborates on the two other kinds of violence that derive from the violence of naming, namely, reparatory violence and violence in the common sense