DOCSLIB.ORG

The Gift; Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Gift; Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies THE GIFT ESSAI SUR LE DON in SOCIOLOGIE ET ANTHROPOLOGIE Published by PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE Paris, 1950 THE GIFT Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies by MARCEL MAUSS Translated by IAN GUNNISON With an Introduction by . E. EVANS-PRITCHARD Professor of Social Anthropology and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford COHEN & WEST LTD 68-74 Carter Lane, London, E.C.4 1966 Copyright PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LOWE AND BRYDONE (PRINTERS) LTD, LONDON INTRODUCTION By E. E. Evans-Pritchard Fellow of All Souls College and Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford MARCEL MAUSS (i 872-1 950), Emile Durkheim's nephew and most distinguished pupil, was a man of unusual ability and learning, and also of integrity and strong convictions. After Durkheim's death he was the leading figure in French sociology. His reputation was closely bound up with the fortunes of the Annee Sociologique which he helped his uncle to found and make famous; some of the most stimu- lating and original contributions to its earher numbers were written by him in collaboration with Durkheim and Hubert and Beuchat: Essai sur la nature et la fauction du sacrifice (1899), De quelques formes primitives de classification : contribution a f etude des representations collectives (1903), Esquisse d'une theorie generale de la magie (1904), and Essai sur les variations saisonnieres des societes eskimos : essai de morphologic sociale (1906). The war of 19 14-18, during which Mauss was on opera- tional service, almost wiped out the team of brilliant younger scholars whom Durkheim had taught, inspired, and gathered around him^—his son Andre Durkheim, Robert Hertz, Antoine Bianconi, Georges Gelly, Maxime David, Jean Reynier. The Master did not survive them (d. 191 7). Had it not been for *X these disasters Mauss might have given us in ampler measure CK the fruits of his erudition, untiring industry, and mastery of ^2 method. But he not only wrote about social solidarity and ^ collective sentiments. He expressed them in his own life. For . him the group of Durkheim and his pupils and colleagues had ^ a kind of collective mind, the material representation of which ^was its product the Annee. And if one belongs to others and not to oneself, which is one of the themes, perhaps the basic theme, 1539716 VI THE GIFT of the present book, one expresses one's attachment by sub- ordinating one's own ambitions to the common interest. On the few occasions I met Mauss I received the impression that this was how he thought and felt, and his actions confirmed it. He took over the labours of his dead colleagues. Most un- selfishly, for it meant neglecting his own researches, he under- took the heavy task of editing, completing and publishing the manuscripts left by Durkheim, Hubert (who died in 1927), Hertz and others. He undertook also, in 1923-24, the even heavier task of reviving his beloved Annee^ which had ceased publication after 191 3. This imposed an added burden on him and farther deflected him from the field of his own chief interest. Mauss became a Sanskrit scholar and a historian of religions at the same time as he became a sociologist, and his main interest throughout his life was in Comparative Religion or the Sociology of Religion. But he felt that the new series of the Annie must, like the old one, cover all the many branches of sociological research, and this could only be done if he took over those branches other than his own which would have been the special concern of those who had died. Consequently, though he pubUshed many reviews and review-articles, his only major works after 1906 were the Essai sur le don, forme archaique de rSchange (1925), which Dr. Cunnison now presents in an EngUsh translation. Fragment d'un plan de sociologie generate descrip- tive (1934), and Une categorie de V esprit humain: la notion de per- sonne, celle de 'moi' (1938). His projected works on Prayer, on Money and on the State were never completed. But he was active all the time. The second series of the Annee had to be abandoned, but a third series was started in 1934. Then came the war of 1939-45. Paris was occupied by the Nazis, and Mauss was a Jew. He was not himself injured, but some of his closest colleagues and friends, Maurice Halbwachs and others, were killed. For a second time he saw all around him collapse, and this, combined with other and personal troubles, was too much for him and his mind gave way. This is not the place to make a critical assessment of Mauss's part in the development of sociological thought in France—it INTRODUCTION Vll has been admirably done by Henri Levy-Bruhl and Claude Levi-Strauss.* All that is required are some very brief indica- tions of the importance of Mauss's work and of the Essai sur le don as a particular example of it. Mauss was in the line of philosophical tradition running from Montesquieu through the philosophers of the Enlighten- ment—Turgot, Condorcet, St. Simon—to Comte and then Durkheim, a tradition in which conclusions were reached by analysis of concepts rather than of factSj_the facts being used as illustrations of formulations reached by other than inductive methods. But while that is true, it is also true that Mauss was far less a philosopher than Durkheim. In all his essays he turns first to the concrete facts and examines them in their entirety and to the last detail. This was the main theme of an excellent lecture on Mauss delivered recently (1952) at Oxford by one of his former pupils, M. Louis Dumont. He pointed out that though Mauss, out of loyalty and affection, studiously avoided any criticism of Durkheim such criticism is nevertheless implicit in his writings, which are so much more empirical than Durk- heim's that it might be said that with Mauss sociology in France reached its experimental stage. Mauss sought only to know a limited range of facts and then to understand them, and what Mauss meant by understanding comes out very clearly in this Essay. Ij^isjo see social phenomena—as, indeed, Durkheim taught that they should be seen-—in their totality. 'Total' is the key word of the Essay. The exchanges of archaic societies which he examines are total social movements or activities. They are atjhejame time economic, juridical^ moral, aesthetic, religious, mythological and socio-morphological phenomena. Their meaning can therefore only be grasped if they are viewed as a complex concrete reality, and if for con- venience we iriafe abstractions in studying some institution we * H. Ldvy-Bruhl, 'In Memoriam: Marcel Mauss' in UAnrUe Sociologique, Troisieme Serie, 1948-49. C. Levi-Strauss, 'La Sociologie frangaise' in La sociologie au XX" sikle, 1947, Vol. 2 [Twentieth Century Sociology, 1946, ch. xvii) ; 'Introduction a I'oeuvre de Marcel Mauss', in Sociologie et Anthropologie, a collection of some of Mauss's essays published in 1950. Vlll THE GIFT must in the end replace what we have taken away if we are to understand it. And the means to be used to reach an under- standing of institutions? They are those employed by the anthropological fieldworker who studies social life from both outside and inside, from the outside as anthropologist and from the inside by identifying himself with the members of the society he is studying. Mauss demonstrated that, given enough well documented material, he could do this without leaving his flat in Paris. He soaked his mind in ethnographical material, including all available linguistic material; but he was successful only because that mind was also a master of sociological method. Mauss did in his study what an anthropologist does in the field, bringing a trained mind to bear on the social life of primitive peoples which he both observes and experiences. We social anthropologists therefore regard him as one of us. But to understand 'total' phenomena in their totality it is necessary first to know them. One must be a scholar. It is not sufficient to read the writings of others about the thought and customs of ancient India or ancient Rome. One must be able to go straight to the sources, for scholars not trained in socio- logical methods will not have seen in the facts what is of sociological significance. The sociologist who sees them in their totality sees them differently. Mauss was able to go to the sources. Besides having an excellent knowledge of several modern European languages, including Russian, he was a fine Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Celtic and Hebrew scholar, as well as a brilliant sociologist. Perhaps to their surprise, he was able to teach Sanskritists much that they did not know was in their texts and Roman lawyers much that they did not know was in theirs. What he says about the meaning of certain forms of exchange in ancient India and in ancient Rome in the Essai sur le don is an illustration. This was perhaps not so remarkable a feat as that he was able to show from Malinowski's own account of the Trobriand Islanders where he had misunder- stood, or had inadequately understood, their institutions. He could do this because of his vast knowledge, which Mahnowski lacked, of Oceanic languages and of the native societies of — INTRODUCTION IX Melanesia, Polynesia, America and elsewhere, which enabled him to deduce by a comparative study of primitive institutions what the fieldworker had not himself observed. The Essai sur le don, apart from its value as an exercise in method, is a precious document in itself.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Policy Brief for the State of New Hampshire
    Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College Policy Research Shop A Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences Roles for the Private Sector in State Parks Systems A Policy Brief for the State of New Hampshire September 21, 2006 PRS Policy Brief 0506-07 Prepared by: Tracey A. Fung, William O’Neal, and Adam H. Sigelman This report was written by undergraduate students at Dartmouth College under the direction of professors in the Rockefeller Center. William O’Neal, a graduate student in the chemistry department, supervised the students and contributed to the preparation of this report. We are also thankful for the services received from the Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology (RWiT) at Dartmouth College. Contact: Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, 6082 Rockefeller Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 http://policyresearch.dartmouth.edu • Email: [email protected] Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College Policy Research Shop A Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS ROLES FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN STATE PARKS SYSTEMS 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 2 1.1 Privatization by Delegation 2 1.2 Purpose of Privatization 3 1.3 Concerns about Privatization 5 2. ESTABLISHING THE APPROPRIATENESS OF PRIVATIZATION 7 3. POTENTIAL ROLES FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN NH STATE PARKS 9 3.1 Custodial 9 3.2 Retail 9 4. CASE STUDIES 11 4.1 New Hampshire 11 4.2 New York 11 4.3 Kentucky 12 4.4 British Columbia 13 4.5 Georgia 14 4.6 South Dakota 15 4.7 Vermont 15 4.8 Summary 16 5. CONCLUSION 16 1 Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College Policy Research Shop A Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Noiva Do Cordeiro Community: Contributions from Elements of a System Based on Substantive Economy
    Comunidade Noiva do Cordeiro: contribuições por meio de elementos de um sistema baseado em uma economia substantiva Luiz Paulo Rigueira de Morais ¹ Wescley Silva Xavier ¹ Daniel Calbino Pinheiro ² ¹ Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), Viçosa – MG, Brasil ² Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei (UFSJ), São João del-Rei – MG, Brasil Resumo Este estudo investigou como ocorreram a formação e a interação de um sistema econômico alternativo na comunidade Noiva do Cordeiro-MG com as dinâmicas da Economia Mercantil. Para atingir este objetivo, realizou-se uma investigação qualitativa valendo-se de uma etnográfica desenvolvida na comunidade rural. Baseado nas teorias da sociologia econômica de Marcel Mauss e de Karl Polanyi, este trabalho sinaliza que os aspectos da dádiva e da reciprocidade nas relações produtivas foram fundamentais para a reprodução de uma forte lógica solidária. Mediante princípios, estruturas e instituições muito próprios, em que o dinheiro tem uma importância bem limitada, os achados apontam que a comunidade desenvolveu um sistema diferenciado reproduzindo múltiplas lógicas econômicas, a despeito da tensão resultante de uma economia de mercado. Palavras-chave: Economia Solidária. Sociologia Econômica. Etnografia. Comunidade Noiva do Cordeiro. Noiva do Cordeiro community: contributions from elements of a system based on substantive economy Abstract This study investigated the formation and interaction of an alternative economic system in the Noiva do Cordeiro-MG community with the dynamics of the mercantile economy. Qualitative research was conducted from an ethnography study developed with the rural community. Based on the theories of economic sociology by Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi, this paper points out that the aspects of giving and reciprocity in productive relationships were central to reproducing a strong solidarity logic.
    [Show full text]
  • Gifts of Appreciated Property Capital Gains Tax You Are Generous with Your Cash Gifts, but Sometimes You Would Like to Give Even More
    / 1 Gifts of Appreciated Property Capital Gains Tax You are generous with your cash gifts, but sometimes you would like to give even more. Gifts of appreciated When you own an asset that has appreciated in value, assets may be the solution: and if you sell that asset, you will pay a tax on the difference between your purchase price and what you • A gift of appreciated assets may allow you to give to your heart’s content when cash flow is not received from the sale. This is called a capital gains tax. sufficient. Capital gains tax rates are based on your personal income tax bracket at the time of sale and the length of • When you make a gift of an appreciated asset, there may be additional tax advantages. time you owned the property. Motives for Giving Capital Gains Tax is Optional Did you know that capital gains tax is an optional tax? While gifts of appreciated assets provide excellent tax You have three options that are correlated with this tax: benefits for many—that is just icing on the cake. Our experience is that most Christian stewards give: Option #1—pay the tax. • Due to of our love for God and our desire to express Naturally, this is the most expensive option. that love to those around us. Option #2—postpone the tax. • As an act of worship and gratitude to God. By holding appreciated assets, entering into an exchange of real estate under a special section • To fulfill the “gift of giving” (Romans 12:6-8).
    [Show full text]
  • An Economic Sociological Look at Economic Anthropology
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Aspers, Patrik; Darr, Asaf; Kohl, Sebastian Article An economic sociological look at economic anthropology economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Provided in Cooperation with: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne Suggested Citation: Aspers, Patrik; Darr, Asaf; Kohl, Sebastian (2007) : An economic sociological look at economic anthropology, economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 9, Iss. 1, pp. 3-10 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/155897 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available
    [Show full text]
  • Plants: Crop Diversity Pre‐Breeding Technologies As Agrarian Care Co‐Opted?
    Accepted: 12 September 2018 DOI: 10.1111/area.12499 SPECIAL SECTION INTERSTICES OF CARE: RE-IMAGINING THE GEOGRAPHIES OF CARE Plants: Crop diversity pre‐breeding technologies as agrarian care co‐opted? Garrett Graddy-Lovelace School of International Service, American Within the realm of international agricultural biodiversity conservation, there has University, Washington, DC, USA been a surge of funding for “pre‐breeding” of plant genetic resources for food and Correspondence agriculture. Molecular high‐throughput analysis, among other techniques, attempts to Garrett Graddy-Lovelace Email: [email protected] discern, document, and digitise the genomic traits of farmer/landrace varieties and crop wild relatives stored in gene banks to render them legible fodder for professional breeding. But pre‐breeding necessitates thorough phenotypic evaluation and charac- terisation to understand the physiological attributes, heritable traits, and responses of a plant through its life cycle, under various growing and climactic conditions. This paper explores the irony that a range of surveillance technologies have been devel- oped and deployed to mimic the agrarian work and skills of observing plants and attending to how they are faring, what they like and do not like over many seasons and contexts. These calls and technologies acknowledge the need for heedful atten- tion to crops, even as they further displace actual farmers and their longstanding modes of selecting and saving open‐pollinated seeds each harvest. Here, attending to crops entails remembering and communicating collectively gathered information of and from the plant. Such agrarian expertise of caring for plants has been systemati- cally devalued and de‐intellectualised, with gendered implications. Drawing on femi- nist geographies and political ecology, a landscape of care framework discloses the matrix of human and beyond‐human care at work in cultivating agricultural biodiver- sity.
    [Show full text]
  • Survey of State Estate, Inheritance, and Gift Taxes
    INFORMATION BRIEF Research Department Minnesota House of Representatives 600 State Office Building St. Paul, MN 55155 Joel Michael, Legislative Analyst [email protected] Updated: July 2018 Survey of State Estate, Inheritance, and Gift Taxes This information brief provides background information on state estate, inheritance, and gift taxes. The District of Columbia and 17 states, including Minnesota, impose one or more of these taxes. The District of Columbia and 11 states, including Minnesota, impose estate taxes, five states impose inheritance taxes, and Maryland imposes both an estate and inheritance tax. Connecticut imposes a gift tax (in addition to an estate tax). Contents Executive Summary ......................................................................................... 2 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 4 Estate Taxes ..................................................................................................... 4 State Inheritance Taxes .................................................................................... 8 Gift Taxes......................................................................................................... 9 Reconciling Different State and Federal Exemptions .................................... 11 Exemptions or Deductions for Farm and Small Business Property ............... 14 Revenues Yielded by the Taxes ..................................................................... 16 Copies of this publication
    [Show full text]
  • Utilitarianism and Wealth Transfer Taxation
    Utilitarianism and Wealth Transfer Taxation Jennifer Bird-Pollan* This article is the third in a series examining the continued relevance and philosophical legitimacy of the United States wealth transfer tax system from within a particular philosophical perspective. The article examines the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill and his philosophical progeny and distinguishes the philosophical approach of utilitarianism from contemporary welfare economics, primarily on the basis of the concept of “utility” in each approach. After explicating the utilitarian criteria for ethical action, the article goes on to think through what Mill’s utilitarianism says about the taxation of wealth and wealth transfers, the United States federal wealth transfer tax system as it stands today, and what structural changes might improve the system under a utilitarian framework. I. INTRODUCTION A nation’s tax laws can be seen as its manifested distributive justice ideals. While it is clear that the United States’ Tax Code contains a variety of provisions aimed at particular non-distributive justice goals,1 underneath the political * James and Mary Lassiter Associate Professor of Law, University of Kentucky College of Law. Thanks for useful comments on the project go to participants in the National Tax Association meeting, the Loyola Los Angeles Law School Tax Colloquium, the Tax Roundtable at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law, and the University of Kentucky College of Law Brown Bag Workshop, as well as Professors Albertina Antognini, Richard Ausness, Stefan Bird-Pollan, Zach Bray, Jake Brooks, Miranda Perry Fleischer, Brian Frye, Brian Galle, Michael Healy, Kathy Moore, Katherine Pratt, Ted Seto, and Andrew Woods.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Drucker, Karl Polanyi, and the Midcentury Critique of Economic Society
    Polanyi in the United States: Peter Drucker, Karl Polanyi, and the Midcentury Critique of Economic Society Daniel Immerwahr An extraordinary trend in the social sciences has been the revival, from relative obscurity, of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation. With the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism, Karl Polanyi’s ideas are, ironically, more relevant today than they were in 1944, when his book was first published. Social theorists concerned with political economy in partic- ular have latched onto The Great Transformation for its powerful criticisms of market-based policies and for its defense of the role of the state. Rather than speaking of the need for governments to don what Thomas Friedman calls ‘‘the golden straightjacket’’ of market discipline, Polanyians speak of states creating the sorts of markets that meet human needs—economic structures that will serve society, not command it.1 Enthusiasm for such an approach has led admirers of Polanyi to found the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy, hold eleven international Karl Polanyi conferences, translate The Great Transformation into at least nine languages, and pub- lish numerous books and articles on Polanyi’s ideas. This article has benefited greatly from the advice of Nils Gilman, Fred Block, Dan Buch, Robin Einhorn, David Hollinger, Mike Levien, Ben Oppenheim, Ariel Ron, the JHI’s readers, and the Berkeley Intellectual History Group: Ryan Acton, Eliah Bures, Grahame Foreman, Simon Grote, Keith Woodhouse, and Ben Wurgaft. 1 Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), chap. 5. Copyright ᭧ by Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 70, Number 3 (July 2009) 445 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS ✦ JULY 2009 And yet, despite Polanyi’s current popularity, his path to prominence has been a tortuous one.
    [Show full text]
  • Individuality in John Locke and John Stuart Mill: a Response to Michael J
    Individuality in John Locke and John Stuart Mill: A Response to Michael J. Sandel by Cara Camcastle BA. Hon. Econ., University of British Columbia, 1995 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of Political Science We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA August 1998 © Cara Camcastle, 1998 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract This thesis examines from a philosophical and theoretical standpoint, the validity of the communitarian claim that liberalism promotes an abstract, asocial, and atomistic conception of the self. To better understand the inner logic of Lockean and Millian arguments, I analyse 'individuality' the concept at the centre of the dispute between liberals and communitarians. The thesis illustrates the essentially contested nature of this concept, and the complexity and diversity of the liberal tradition which has been generally overlooked by communitarian critics. Locke's conception of individuality is morphological because it emphasises how an individual assisted by the right kind of education constructs his individuality through deliberation and self-control.
    [Show full text]
  • Of California Berkeley Department
    P ;/ • ;Iniversity.1 of California AP Berkeley Department of Economics_ ben CIDER v CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS RESEARCH The Center for International and Development Economics Research is funded by the Ford Foundation. It is a research unit of the Institute of International Studies which works closely with the Department of Economics and the Institute of Business and Economic Research. CIDER is devoted to promoting research on international economic and development issues among Berkeley faculty and students, and to stimulating collaborative interactions between CIDER them and scholars from other developed and developing countries. INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH Richard Sutch, Director The Institute of Business and Economic Research is an organized research unit of the University of California at Berkeley. It exists to promote research in business and economics by University faculty. These working papers are issued to disseminate research results to other scholars. Individual copies of this paper are available through IBER, 156 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. Phone (510) 642-1922, fax (510) 642-5018. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY Department of Economics Berkeley, California 94720-3880 __,CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS RESEARCH Working Paper No. C96-064 The Economics of Corruption in Less Developed Countries: A Review of Issues )<.K Pranab Bardhan University of California February 1996 Key words: speed money, centralized collection, multiple equilibria JEL Classification: D73, 017 Abstract In this paper we start with a discussion of some of the different denotations of the problem of corruption. We then consider the ways in which the damaging consequences of corruption operate in the economy, while not ignoring its possible redeeming features in some cases.
    [Show full text]
  • Gift Exchange and Living-Related Kidney Transplantation in the Philippines
    Repaying and Cherishing the Gift of Life: Gift Exchange and Living-related Kidney Transplantation in the Philippines Yosuke Shimazono ABSTRACT: This paper considers living-related kidney transplantation, especially that between family members in the Philippines. Drawing on the anthropological theory of gift, it explores two aspects of the gift relationship—the relationship between the do- nor and the recipient and the relationship between the recipient and the object—and describes two categories of acts—‘acknowledging the debt/repaying the gift of life’ and ‘taking care of a kidney/cherishing the gift’. This paper seeks to show that there is an internal tension in live kidney transplantation between two rival principles of gift operative in the world of Filipino family and kinship: one akin to the Maussian or ‘ar- chaic’ gift and the other that places cherishing of the gift over repaying of the debt. KEYWORDS: ‘archaic’ gift exchange, family, gift, kidney transplantation, Marcel Mauss, Philippines In his seminal essay, The Gift, Mauss attempted is to make a present of some part of oneself’ to unravel the common principles running (1990: 16). The objects given are typically the through gift exchange practices in societies important substance and being of the indi- which he termed ‘archaic’—Melanesia, Poly- vidual and/or group. Even after being given nesia and the Pacific Northwest (Mauss 1990). away, they still bear the ‘stamp of those who According to Mauss and his successors, gift possessed it previously’ (Carrier 1994: 25). exchange as practised in these societies was According to Weiner and Godelier, they are characterised by two major elements that are ‘inalienable possessions’, which cannot com- intertwined: the obligatory transfer of the ob- pletely be alienated; the original owner retains ject and the inalienability of the object.
    [Show full text]
  • Appel a Proj What Gender Makes
    “What Gender Makes” Call for contributions for a forthcoming issue of Techniques&Cultures Co-ordinated by Pascale Bonnemère, Franck Cochoy and Chloé Clovis Maillet Ninety years ago, Marcel Mauss described the “division according to sex” as "a fundamental division of great importance in all societies to a degree that we may not suspect. Our sociology, in this sense, is much weaker than it should be when addressing this point. All that we can say to our students, particularly to those who might do fieldwork, is that we have only been doing the sociology of men and not that of women or of both sexes.” (Mauss, 1969: 15).1 A few years later, Mauss pointed out that “two things were immediately apparent given the notion of techniques of the body: they are divided and vary by sex and by age” (1973 [1936]: 76).2 He added that this division of the techniques of the body between sexes could not simply be equated to the gendered division of labor. Mauss thus opened the way for a still ongoing conversation around the issue of the relation between gender and technology. This author had already mentioned the male bias (or androcentrism) in social sciences, presenting “sex” (although his vocabulary differs from the terms in use today) as a dimension that runs through social life and as an operator of general significance; he also warned that the division of techniques of the body between the sexes goes beyond gendered forms of work. This issue of Techniques & Culture aims to elaborate on this program—which still remains to be fully explored—through case studies covering different periods and geographic areas.
    [Show full text]