My intention is to make a contribution to the sociology of intellectual production, […] as well as to analysis of fetishism and magic. There too, you might say, “But why not go and study magic in "primitive” societies, rather than in the Paris fashion scene?“ I think that one of the functions of ethnological discourse is to say things that are bearable so long as they apply to remote populations, with the respect we owe them, but much less so when they are related to Western societies.