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Social Anthropology:
♦ GIFT EXCHANGE ♦
DEFINITIONS
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Gift economy/gift exchange: a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but
rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards
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Reciprocity: the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit
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Total prestations: a system of gift giving with political, religious, kinship and economic
implications
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Commodity exchange: exchange of alienable things between transactors who are in a state of
reciprocal independence

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED
Gifts act as a ‘social glue’
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Mauss: gifts are a “coefficient of sociability”
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The exchange of gifts is a sort of social contract
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Refusing to accept and especially refusing to return a gift to one who has gifted you is
unbelievably offensive- return is an obligation
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Also linked to redistribution
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Essentially, though the gifts exchanged have no use value, they maintain a symbolic
power, which becomes the recipient’s debt
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To trade, the first condition was to be able to lay aside the spear”
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Pertinent in the example of Kabre culture
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Receiver is at the mercy of the giver; they are put in a subservient position where they
must reciprocate the gesture through an equivalent service or appropriate material
means
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Something done out of service to another person is to be returned equally as a matter
of politeness and expectant pressure
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Someone in possession of wealth is more able to establish power over another through
gift exchange
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Exchange may be a way for one to gain access to other people, not through purely
economic means but the relationship engendered in the transaction
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Timing of reciprocation and quality of gift reflects the nature of the social bond at
stake
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Supernatural argument: moral context
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Overarching moral obligation to give, receive, reciprocate
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Reciprocation resounds of moral soundness
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market economy/gifts vs
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Act of exchange is entangled with both gifts and commodities
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There is an absence of necessity for practical value
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Commodities=relationship between objects, gifts=solidifying relationships between
people
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To cease the gift giving process is to sever the social bond
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Sense of obligation still exists, where transactions are mediated through the return of
things with equivalent value
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Mainstream economics has so far offered little explanation for why individuals desire
commodities – and there is substantial room here for an anthropological contribution
towards the critique of the still dominant neoliberal paradigm
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Loans rather than true abandonment of possessions
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MAIN LINE OF ARGUMENT
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The gift is a social glue: it plays a major role as a whole social mechanism within society; with
the power of forming, maintaining and ceasing relationships
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Reciprocity lies at the heart of gift-giving
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Reciprocation resounds of
moral soundness
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Mauss emphasises reciprocation as gift-giving is never altruistic nor egoistic, this inherits the
Christian idea that to take pleasure in an act of generosity is to make it less generous
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If a gift was understood by the former, it reduce its
meaning to just the implications of the act
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However, at the heart of the market economy is a foundation built upon the philosophy of the
gift
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Bloch and Parry: It is the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that
attracts the most attention
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Described by Malinowski as integral to
their lifestyle, and difficult to distinguish from trade initially
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Trobrianders cross vast distances,
sometimes hundreds of miles, in dangerous waters in order to carry out this process,
travelling in beautifully adorned canoe boats
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Expeditions are costly, time-consuming and risky
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Objects of
no obvious economic value
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Unlike
commodity exchange, there is no agreed value – exchanges are symbolic
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This
enables the establishment and maintenance of peaceable relationships for trade
(Gimwali)
Each kula object is accompanied by the names of everybody who has possessed it in
the past, which must be recited at its transferral, personal fame
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Displays of acquired goods fill homes, and
giving for ‘love of give and take for its own sake’ are a display of wealth in itself
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Multiple levels of exchange, ranging from the “free gift” within family relationships,
to simple barter (Gimwali)
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Melanesian ‘Big Men’
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Status and the gift in Trobriand life: wealth is a means through which power may be
exercised
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Only most powerful men can
afford to equip them, and participation can strengthen a man’s political standing
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The word ‘Potlatch’ derives its meaning from ‘to give away’ or ‘a gift’
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Only aristocrats could hold a potlatch
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The event was given ‘weight’ by the donation of Chilkat blankets and animal skins
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If the
guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth
in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his 'power' was
diminished
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The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who
distributes the most resources
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Mauss on the Potlatch: it was an example of "total prestations", i
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, a system of gift
giving with political, religious, kinship and economic implications
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Kabre Exchange
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System of ‘owing’ creates a power dynamic in gift exchange
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Because of this they had to respect me
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”
Kabre people perpetually entangled with one another through the exchange
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They will teach their children to give
without expecting anything in return
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Sometimes you get back and sometimes you don't
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That is what we teach our children" – Piot describing a Kabre mother’s
words to her child
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Unlike market or commodity exchange in terms of money that can create debts, the
kind of exchange among Kabre society is more about which one person's "desire" was
met by another, and this kind of exchange is some kind of relationship "that cannot be
broken"
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This ongoing giving relation is called ‘ikpantore’
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Hau is the force which urges the repayment of gifts
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Grievous evil would come upon those who did not respect the obligations of hau
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Hau is a spiritual validation of a universal need for gift exchange: one that hinges on
moral obligations, senses of self and pursuit of what is ‘good’ and ‘right’
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“Donors try to render their new experience meaningful
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The specific meaning that egg donation has for each donor varies according to her
particular circumstances, but the language constructed in order to convey this
meaning emerges from the creative expression of several cultural paradoxes and
dichotomies that constitute, in themselves, an original and highly significant cultural
grammar
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The
donor is rewarded in a way by their own moral soundness, through the knowledge
that they are giving the ‘gift’ of motherhood
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Situates the practice within the context of religious gift-giving, sacrifice, caste, kinship,
and nationalism
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Once again, this type of gift giving is spiritually fulfilling to the donor and so is not
‘free’
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The Jainist interpretation of the doctrine of ahimsa (an extremely rigorous application
of principles of nonviolence) influences the diet of Jain renouncers and compels them
to avoid preparing food, as this could potentially involve violence against microscopic
organisms
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However, the former must not appear to be having any wants
or desires, and only very hesitantly and apologetically receive the food prepared by the
latter
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ARGUMENTS
Marcel Mauss: The Gift (1990)
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“A gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity does nothing, and is a contradiction
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Mauss specifies that gift exchange is characterised by three obligations: The obligation
to give; the obligation to receive; and the obligation to reciprocate
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His theory rests on the reciprocal nature of such exchanges
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Essentially, though the gifts exchanged have no use value, they maintain a symbolic
power, which becomes the recipient’s debt
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To trade, the first condition was to be able to lay aside the spear”
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Insights into implicit themes in Mauss’ work
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Understanding the gift depends on the fact that the gift may neither be conflated with
egoism nor altruism
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If a gift was understood
by the former, it reduce its meaning to just the implications of the act
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Problem that exists within trying to understand gift exchange lies in persistently trying
to understand the act of exchange
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Acts of exchange are not built upon individual rational interest, nor is it based on
overarching moral law
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Exchange is something upon which entire social systems are dependent
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As Mauss put
it in the Gift, it shows ‘homo economicus is not before us, but after us’
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Sahlins: Stone Age Economics (1974)
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Three types of reciprocity: generalised, balanced and negative
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The
material side of the transaction (the exchange of equally valuable goods) is repressed
by the social side and the reckoning of debts is avoided
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A failure to reciprocate does not
result in the giver ceasing to give
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' The exchange is less social, and is dominated by the
material exchange and individual interests
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" It
may be described as 'haggling,' 'barter,' or 'theft
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Kinship distance: the degree of social distance - kinship in particular - affects the kind
of reciprocity
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Kinship distance is based on both consanguinity and geographical distance
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Gift exchange is a “surrogate language”: the power of exchange provides mastery over
social relations and situations, through wielding the gift’s social meaning
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True distinction between gifts and commodities lies in the unique exchange relation
which is established by them
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The true distinction between commodity exchange and
gift exchange is captured here
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Exchange enhances a sense of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’
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It forms bonds of
commonality between people
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Applies not only to the material flow of gifts, but also to every act of giving and
receiving in a social system
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Marx (19th century)
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Exchange is an expression of underlying class/power relations
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Motivation for exchange is amplified by one’s relative position to another in society
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Reacting to works of art as if they were living beings or even people acting (agency),
entering into a personal relationship with them, triggering love, hate, desire or fear
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Focuses on the prows of the boats involved in Kula exchange in the Trobriand Islands
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Anderson: Imagined Communities
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An imagined community is different from an actual community in that it is not—and,
for practical reasons, cannot be—based on everyday face-to-face interaction among its
members
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This is useful within gift exchange as one may feel morally rewarded by ‘selflessly’
giving to their imagined community (be that to the homeless, to a charity, blood
donation etc
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Annette Weiner: Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving
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Focuses on a range of Oceanic societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea to test
existing theories of reciprocity (gift-giving) and marriage exchange
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She attributes these unique objects with the ability to create lasting social difference,
and hence social hierarchy
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Barbara Mills put it another way by saying, "Inalienable possessions are objects made
to be kept (not exchanged), have symbolic and economic power that cannot be
transferred, and are often used to authenticate the ritual authority of corporate groups"
The book is also important for introducing a consideration of gender in the gift-giving
debate by placing women at the heart of the political process
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Lévi-Strauss: Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949)
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Alliance theory
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Women are exchanged between kin groups, forming a marital alliance
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Bloch and Parry
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It is the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts
the most attention
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Richard Titmuss (1997)
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Blood donation argument
Titmuss argued that because there is no relationship between the blood donor and
recipient, the exchange must be altruistic not reciprocal
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His work on material culture also includes ethnographic research on how people
develop relationships of love and care through the acquisition of objects in shopping
and how they deal with issues of separation and loss including death through their
retention and divestment of objects
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Complementary to this work on separation from things is his ‘Theory of Shopping’,
looks at how the study of everyday purchases can be a route to understanding how
love operates within the family
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Overlap of sociability of economic exchange and gift exchange
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gift?

CRITICISM
David Graeber (2000)
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The Gift is “perhaps the most magnificent refutation of the assumptions behind
economic theory ever written”
Argues "as currently used, 'reciprocity' can mean almost anything
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Balanced gift exchange and market exchange have more in common than normally
assumed
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He
thinks it better to contrast "open" and "closed" reciprocity
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" This open reciprocity is closed off precisely when it is balanced
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Closed reciprocity of gifts is most like market exchange
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Dalsgaard (2011)

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Argues that Titmuss misconstrued the gift relationship by assuming it to be between
donor and recipient, not between donor and the hospital
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Derrida
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The paradox of the gift
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Argues that there is a paradox to the gift, as the gift implicitly demands to be outside
of trade and calculative reasoning, so must be understood altruistically
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A true gift would
require that neither the giver nor recipient recognize it as a good deed; Derrida thus
argues the gift is an impossibility
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Rather, human
history is full of examples of gifts giving rise to reciprocal exchange
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Such transactions transcend the divisions between the spiritual and the material in a way
that, according to Mauss, is almost "magical"
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Not to reciprocate means to lose honour and status, but the spiritual implications can
be even worse: in Polynesia, failure to reciprocate means to lose mana, one's spiritual
source of authority and wealth
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An important notion in Mauss' conceptualisation of gift exchange is what Gregory
(1982, 1997) refers to as "inalienability"
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Objects are sold, meaning that the ownership rights are fully transferred to the new
owner
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In a gift
economy, however, the objects that are given are inalienated from the givers; they are "loaned
rather than sold and ceded"
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Because
gifts are inalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has
to be repaid
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In other words, through gift-giving, a social bond evolves
that is assumed to continue through space and time until the future moment of exchange
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According to Mauss, the "free" gift that is not returned is a contradiction because it
cannot create social ties
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Mauss emphasizes that exchanging resulted from the
will of attaching other people – ‘to put people under obligations’, because “in theory
such gifts are voluntary, but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation”
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French anthropologist
Alain Testart (1998), for example, argues that there are "free" gifts, such as passers-by
giving money to beggars, e
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in a large Western city
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In this context, the donation certainly
creates no obligation on the side of the beggar to reciprocate; neither the donor nor the
beggar have such an expectation
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He feels that Mauss overstated the magnitude of the obligation created by
social pressures, particularly in his description of the potlatch amongst North
American Indians
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He describes the social context of Indian Jain renouncers, a
group of itinerant celibate renouncers living an ascetic life of spiritual purification and
salvation
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Since Jain renouncers do not work, they rely on food
donations from lay families within the Jain community
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"Free" gifts therefore challenge the aspects of the Maussian notion of the gift unless the
moral and non-material qualities of gifting are considered
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Gift exchange seems inherently subversive in the multitude of ways, it:
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Challenges us to reconsider dominant ways of economic thinking, firstly by
showing us that the Capitalist economy is my no means natural;
Gives insights into other ways of organisation;
Undermines the very driving force of Western economics itself – shows
economy must be embedded in social process
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Gell technology of enchantment
Weiner
Anderson
Jain/Buddhist idea
Miller ‘theory of shopping’

LECTURE OUTLINE/READING LIST
Politics and Economic Life
Presents political organisation and processes and economic life in cross-cultural perspective
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& F
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Durham NC: Duke University Press
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& K
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Cambridge: Polity Press
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(2009) Liquidated
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Durham NC: Duke University Press
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(1940)
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Oxford: Oxford University Press
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(1990 [1950]) The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies
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W
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Halls
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Sharma, A
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Gupta (eds) (2006) The Anthropology of the State: A Reader
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Vincent, J
...
) (2002) The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and
Critique
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ESSAY QUESTIONS
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“With one, we started by buying each other beer in the markets
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And so we went, back and forth… Later on, I wanted
to borrow a field and noticed he had an extra field, so I asked if I could borrow it
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” What is happening here, and what might it tell us about the
nature of exchange? (supervisor-given)
Does studying ‘the gift’ help us understand ‘the market’? (2015)
‘We can understand the economy much better if we start from a consideration of objects
themselves, rather than abstract processes of production, exchange and consumption’
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(2014)
What are the most important anthropological contributions to the study of one or more of the
following:
o Nationalism
o Money
o Markets
o Bureaucracy
o Gifts
(2014)
Discuss the ways in which at least two theoretical models of social and/or cultural life have
influenced anthropological studies of at least one of the following: (a) state power; (b) gender;
(c) exchange; (d) war and violence; (e) witchcraft; (f) corruption
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Or (b): Is ‘the market’ universal? (2011)
How does the concept of the ‘biography’ of an object aid analysis of economic life? (2010)
What does the concept of the gift show us about the differences between societies? (2008)



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