WHEN HUNGER GOES AROUND THE LAND - HUNGER AND FOOD AMONG THE ALUUND OF ZAIRE

This article analyses the cultural dynamics of hunger and of food-rela ted practices and experiences among the aLuund of southwestern Zaire. The Luunda data show that perceptions and attitudes towards food and h unger are much more than the expression of nutritional deprivation. It is argued that hunger is viewed as the physical and cosmological equi valent of disruptive relationships in the social field. When hunger go es around the land', it circulates from village to village in a moveme nt that runs counter to the life-giving circulation of food and women in marriage transactions. Hunger is also a transformational idiom whic h allows for the redefinition of social anomie by opening up the self- reproducing matrilineal cycle into wider processes of social reproduct ion and extended social reciprocity.