Marcel Mauss
Encyclopedia
Marcel Mauss was a French
sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim
, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology
. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline; particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic
, sacrifice
and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a profound influence upon the founder of structural anthropology
, Claude Lévi-Strauss
. His most famous book is The Gift
(1923}.
, Vosges
to a Jewish family, and studied philosophy at Bordeaux
, where his uncle Émile Durkheim
was teaching at the time, and aggregated
in 1893. Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée, however, Mauss moved to Paris
and took up the study of comparative religion
and the Sanskrit
language. His first publication in 1896 marked the beginning of a prolific career that would produce several landmarks in the sociological literature.
Like many members of Année Sociologique Mauss was attracted to socialism
, particularly that espoused by Jean Jaurès
. He was particularly active in the events of the Dreyfus affair
and towards the end of the century he helped edit such left-wing papers as le Populaire, l'Humanité
and le Mouvement Socialiste
, the last in collaboration with Georges Sorel
.
Mauss took up a chair in the 'history of religion and uncivilized peoples' at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
in 1901. It was at this time that he began drawing more and more on ethnography, and his work began increasingly to look like what we would today call anthropology
.
The years of World War I
were absolutely devastating for Mauss. Many of his friends and colleagues died in the war, and Durkheim died shortly before its end. The postwar years were also difficult politically for Mauss. Durkheim had made changes to school curricula across France, and after his death a backlash against his students began. Like many other followers of Durkheim, Mauss took refuge in administration, securing Durkheim's legacy by founding institutions such as l'Institut Français de Sociologie (1924) and l'Institut d'Ethnologie in 1926. In 1931 he took up the chair of Sociology at the Collège de France
. He actively fought against anti-semitism
and racial politics both before and after World War II
. He died in 1950.
, Mauss argued that gifts are never "free". Rather, human history is full of examples that gifts give rise to reciprocal exchange. The famous question that drove his inquiry into the anthropology of the gift was: "What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?" (1990:3). The answer is simple: the gift is a "total prestation", imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", engaging the honour of both giver and receiver (the term "total prestation" or "total social fact" (fait social total) was coined by his student Maurice Leenhardt
after Durkheim's social fact
). Such transactions transcend the divisions between the spiritual and the material in a way that according to Mauss is almost "magical". The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: "the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them" (1990:31). Because of this bond between giver and gift, the act of giving creates a social bond with an obligation to reciprocate on part of the recipient. To not 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. Mauss distinguished between three obligations: giving - the necessary initial step for the creation and maintenance of social relationships; receiving, for to refuse to receive is to reject the social bond; and reciprocating in order to demonstrate one's own liberality, honour and wealth.
An important notion in Mauss' conceptualisation of gift exchange is what Gregory (1982, 1997) refers to as "inalienability". In a commodity economy there is a strong distinction between objects and persons through the notion of private property. Objects are sold, meaning that the ownership rights are fully transferred to the new owner. The object has thereby become "alienated
" from its original owner. In a gift economy, however, the objects that are given are inalienated from the givers; they are "loaned rather than sold and ceded". It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels the recipient to reciprocate. Because gifts are inalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has to be repaid. Because of this, the notion of an expected return of the gift creates a relationship over time between two individuals. 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. Gift exchange therefore leads to a mutual interdependence between giver and receiver. According to Mauss, the "free" gift that is not returned is a contradiction because it cannot create social ties. Following the Durkheimian quest for understanding social cohesion through the concept of solidarity, Mauss's argument is that solidarity is achieved through the social bonds created by gift exchange.
amongst North American Indians.
Another example of a non-reciprocal "free" gift is provided by James Laidlaw (2000). He describes the social context of Indian Jain renouncers, a group of itinerant celibate renouncers living an ascetic life of spiritual purification and salvation. The principle of non-violence influences the diet of Jain renouncers and compels them to avoid preparing food as this could potentially involve violence against microscopic organisms. Since Jain renouncers do not work, they rely on food donations from lay families within the Jain community. 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. Laidlaw describes how the renouncers produce litanies of refusal when receiving the food and never show thankfulness or appreciation for it. In order not to appear as beggars, they visit families at random, attempting not to create relationships with a family by returning there regularly. What is given is not considered a gift by either donors or receivers, and since appearing as having any wants would spoil the Jain renouncer's spiritual purity there absolutely must not be anything given in return. Consequently, what Jain renouncers receive is supposed to be a spontaneous free gift without any strings attached, and the elaborate culturally constructed process surrounding this procedure is meant to ensure that this is what happens.
In his argumentation, Laidlaw employs Derrida's four criteria for a "free gift":
Laidlaw unsuccessfully argues that food donations received by Jain renouncers fulfil all four criteria. They are a non-reciprocated free gift, although they aren't a very altruistic one since such donations are the "paradigmatic religious good deed" (punya). Yet "Punya" literally means "merit, religious merit; virtue; or charity"and the local lay families are very eager to receive these moral "gifts" in return for their material gifts.
Laidlaw's example does pose a challenge to Mauss's definition of the gift in two ways: first, it is given with only moral non-material gifts received; second, these moral returns are impermanent, except in the memory and stories of the recipients. for example, cooking a delicious Thanksgiving dinner for the family certainly creates obligations, but object (the dinner) given is necessarily consumed in the process. There only remains the memory of the object, and it becomes questionable how there remains an "indissoluble bond of a thing with its original owner" (Gregory, 1982:18). Similarly, money given to beggars in a context where giver and receiver are aliens (as in Testart's example) appears to be fully alienated from the former, particularly since money - in contrast to other objects - often (albeit not always) has no inherent personal qualities. Yet somehow the gaze of the giver and receiver may remain in memory, or the circumstances of the gifting may remain and be told to others during stories.
"Free" gifts therefore challenge the aspects of the Maussian notion of the gift unless we take into consideration the moral and non-material qualities of gifting. These aspects are, of course, at the heart of the gift, as demonstrated in books such as Annette Weiner's (1992), Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving.
') - much of his best work was done in collaboration with members of the Annee Sociologique, including Durkheim
(Primitive Classification), Henri Hubert
(Outline of a General Theory of Magic and Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice), Paul Fauconnet
(Sociology) and others.
Like many prominent French academics, Mauss did not train a great number of students. Nonetheless, many anthropologists claim to have followed in his footsteps, most notably Claude Lévi-Strauss
. The essay on The Gift is the origin for anthropological studies of reciprocity
. His analysis of the Potlatch
has inspired Georges Bataille
(The Accursed Share); then the situationists (the name of the first situationist journal was "Potlatch"); and has been used by many interested in gift economies
and Open Source
software, although this latter use sometimes differs from Mauss's original formulation. See also Lewis Hyde
's revolutionary critique of Mauss in "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property".
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline; particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
, sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a profound influence upon the founder of structural anthropology
Structural anthropology
Structural anthropology is based on Claude Lévi-Strauss' idea that people think about the world in terms of binary opposites—such as high and low, inside and outside, person and animal, life and death—and that every culture can be understood in terms of these opposites...
, Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
. His most famous book is The Gift
The Gift (book)
The Gift is a 1923 short book by the French sociologist Marcel Mauss and is best known for being one of the earliest and most important studies of reciprocity and gift exchange.Mauss's original piece was entitled Essai sur le don...
(1923}.
Background
Mauss was born in ÉpinalÉpinal
Épinal is a commune in northeastern France and the capital of the Vosges department. Inhabitants are known as Spinaliens.-Geography:The commune has a land area of 59.24 km²...
, Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
to a Jewish family, and studied philosophy at Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, where his uncle Émile Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
was teaching at the time, and aggregated
Agrégation
In France, the agrégation is a civil service competitive examination for some positions in the public education system. The laureates are known as agrégés...
in 1893. Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée, however, Mauss moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and took up the study of comparative religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
and the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
language. His first publication in 1896 marked the beginning of a prolific career that would produce several landmarks in the sociological literature.
Like many members of Année Sociologique Mauss was attracted to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, particularly that espoused by Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
. He was particularly active in the events of the Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
and towards the end of the century he helped edit such left-wing papers as le Populaire, l'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
and le Mouvement Socialiste
Le Mouvement socialiste
The Le Mouvement socialiste was a revolutionary syndicalist journal in France founded in 1899 by Hubert Lagardelle and dissolved in 1914. Other key founders included Karl Marx's grandson Jean Longuet and Émile Durkheim's nephew Marcel Mauss...
, the last in collaboration with Georges Sorel
Georges Sorel
Georges Eugène Sorel was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. His notion of the power of myth in people's lives inspired Marxists and Fascists. It is, together with his defense of violence, the contribution for which he is most often remembered. Oron J...
.
Mauss took up a chair in the 'history of religion and uncivilized peoples' at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
École pratique des hautes études
The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....
in 1901. It was at this time that he began drawing more and more on ethnography, and his work began increasingly to look like what we would today call anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
.
The years of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
were absolutely devastating for Mauss. Many of his friends and colleagues died in the war, and Durkheim died shortly before its end. The postwar years were also difficult politically for Mauss. Durkheim had made changes to school curricula across France, and after his death a backlash against his students began. Like many other followers of Durkheim, Mauss took refuge in administration, securing Durkheim's legacy by founding institutions such as l'Institut Français de Sociologie (1924) and l'Institut d'Ethnologie in 1926. In 1931 he took up the chair of Sociology at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
. He actively fought against anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and racial politics both before and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He died in 1950.
Theoretical views
In his classic work The GiftThe Gift (book)
The Gift is a 1923 short book by the French sociologist Marcel Mauss and is best known for being one of the earliest and most important studies of reciprocity and gift exchange.Mauss's original piece was entitled Essai sur le don...
, Mauss argued that gifts are never "free". Rather, human history is full of examples that gifts give rise to reciprocal exchange. The famous question that drove his inquiry into the anthropology of the gift was: "What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?" (1990:3). The answer is simple: the gift is a "total prestation", imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", engaging the honour of both giver and receiver (the term "total prestation" or "total social fact" (fait social total) was coined by his student Maurice Leenhardt
Maurice Leenhardt
Maurice Leenhardt, was a French pastor and ethnologist specialising in the Kanak people of New Caledonia.-Life:Leenhardt was born in Montauban....
after Durkheim's social fact
Social fact
In sociology, social facts are the values, cultural norms, and social structures external to the individual and capable of exercising a constraint on that individual....
). Such transactions transcend the divisions between the spiritual and the material in a way that according to Mauss is almost "magical". The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: "the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them" (1990:31). Because of this bond between giver and gift, the act of giving creates a social bond with an obligation to reciprocate on part of the recipient. To not reciprocate means to lose honour and status, but the spiritual implications can be even worse: in Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
, failure to reciprocate means to lose mana
Mana
Mana is an indigenous Pacific islander concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. The word is a cognate in many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian....
, one's spiritual source of authority and wealth. Mauss distinguished between three obligations: giving - the necessary initial step for the creation and maintenance of social relationships; receiving, for to refuse to receive is to reject the social bond; and reciprocating in order to demonstrate one's own liberality, honour and wealth.
An important notion in Mauss' conceptualisation of gift exchange is what Gregory (1982, 1997) refers to as "inalienability". In a commodity economy there is a strong distinction between objects and persons through the notion of private property. Objects are sold, meaning that the ownership rights are fully transferred to the new owner. The object has thereby become "alienated
Alienation (property law)
Alienation, in property law, is the capacity for a piece of property or a property right to be sold or otherwise transferred from one party to another. Although property is generally deemed to be alienable, it may be subject to restraints on alienation....
" from its original owner. In a gift economy, however, the objects that are given are inalienated from the givers; they are "loaned rather than sold and ceded". It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels the recipient to reciprocate. Because gifts are inalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has to be repaid. Because of this, the notion of an expected return of the gift creates a relationship over time between two individuals. 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. Gift exchange therefore leads to a mutual interdependence between giver and receiver. According to Mauss, the "free" gift that is not returned is a contradiction because it cannot create social ties. Following the Durkheimian quest for understanding social cohesion through the concept of solidarity, Mauss's argument is that solidarity is achieved through the social bonds created by gift exchange.
Critiques
Mauss's views on the nature of gift exchange have not been without their critics. Testart (1998) for example argues that there are "free" gifts, such as passers-by giving money to beggars in e.g. a large Western city. Donor and receiver do not know each other and are unlikely to ever meet again. 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. Moreover, the transaction does not establish a relationship between the two, much less a mutual interdependence . Testart also suggests that there are different kinds of obligations: a) feelings of obligation, e.g. created by having been invited for dinner and having a feeling that one should reciprocate; b) social obligations, meaning that the social context obliges one to reciprocate, and that a failure to do so would not only affect one's relationship with the giver but also affect one's reputation in general; and c) legal obligations, as established through a legal contract. Testart argues that only the latter can actually be enforced. He feels that Mauss overstated the magnitude of the obligation created by social pressures, particularly in his description of the potlatchPotlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...
amongst North American Indians.
Another example of a non-reciprocal "free" gift is provided by James Laidlaw (2000). He describes the social context of Indian Jain renouncers, a group of itinerant celibate renouncers living an ascetic life of spiritual purification and salvation. The principle of non-violence influences the diet of Jain renouncers and compels them to avoid preparing food as this could potentially involve violence against microscopic organisms. Since Jain renouncers do not work, they rely on food donations from lay families within the Jain community. 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. Laidlaw describes how the renouncers produce litanies of refusal when receiving the food and never show thankfulness or appreciation for it. In order not to appear as beggars, they visit families at random, attempting not to create relationships with a family by returning there regularly. What is given is not considered a gift by either donors or receivers, and since appearing as having any wants would spoil the Jain renouncer's spiritual purity there absolutely must not be anything given in return. Consequently, what Jain renouncers receive is supposed to be a spontaneous free gift without any strings attached, and the elaborate culturally constructed process surrounding this procedure is meant to ensure that this is what happens.
In his argumentation, Laidlaw employs Derrida's four criteria for a "free gift":
- There is no reciprocity
- The recipient must not recognise the gift as a gift or himself as the recipient of a gift
- The donor must not recognise the gift, either
- The thing itself cannot appear as a "gift"
Laidlaw unsuccessfully argues that food donations received by Jain renouncers fulfil all four criteria. They are a non-reciprocated free gift, although they aren't a very altruistic one since such donations are the "paradigmatic religious good deed" (punya). Yet "Punya" literally means "merit, religious merit; virtue; or charity"and the local lay families are very eager to receive these moral "gifts" in return for their material gifts.
Laidlaw's example does pose a challenge to Mauss's definition of the gift in two ways: first, it is given with only moral non-material gifts received; second, these moral returns are impermanent, except in the memory and stories of the recipients. for example, cooking a delicious Thanksgiving dinner for the family certainly creates obligations, but object (the dinner) given is necessarily consumed in the process. There only remains the memory of the object, and it becomes questionable how there remains an "indissoluble bond of a thing with its original owner" (Gregory, 1982:18). Similarly, money given to beggars in a context where giver and receiver are aliens (as in Testart's example) appears to be fully alienated from the former, particularly since money - in contrast to other objects - often (albeit not always) has no inherent personal qualities. Yet somehow the gaze of the giver and receiver may remain in memory, or the circumstances of the gifting may remain and be told to others during stories.
"Free" gifts therefore challenge the aspects of the Maussian notion of the gift unless we take into consideration the moral and non-material qualities of gifting. These aspects are, of course, at the heart of the gift, as demonstrated in books such as Annette Weiner's (1992), Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving.
Legacy
While Mauss is known for several of his own works - most notably his masterpiece Essai sur le Don ('The GiftThe Gift (book)
The Gift is a 1923 short book by the French sociologist Marcel Mauss and is best known for being one of the earliest and most important studies of reciprocity and gift exchange.Mauss's original piece was entitled Essai sur le don...
') - much of his best work was done in collaboration with members of the Annee Sociologique, including Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
(Primitive Classification), Henri Hubert
Henri Hubert
Henri Hubert was an archaeologist and sociologist of comparative religion who is best known for his work on the Celts and his collaboration with Marcel Mauss and other members of the Annee Sociologique....
(Outline of a General Theory of Magic and Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice), Paul Fauconnet
Paul Fauconnet
Paul Fauconnet was a French sociologist who is best known as a contributor to the Annee Sociologique.Fauconnet aggregated in philosophy in 1892 and earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1895. He also earned a further doctorate in law in 1920, although his interest in the law was purely scholarly...
(Sociology) and others.
Like many prominent French academics, Mauss did not train a great number of students. Nonetheless, many anthropologists claim to have followed in his footsteps, most notably Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
. The essay on The Gift is the origin for anthropological studies of reciprocity
Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)
In cultural anthropology and sociology, reciprocity is a way of defining people's informal exchange of goods and labour; that is, people's informal economic systems. It is the basis of most non-market economies. Since virtually all humans live in some kind of society and have at least a few...
. His analysis of the Potlatch
Potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...
has inspired Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
(The Accursed Share); then the situationists (the name of the first situationist journal was "Potlatch"); and has been used by many interested in gift economies
Gift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
and Open Source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software, although this latter use sometimes differs from Mauss's original formulation. See also Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde is a scholar, essayist, translator, cultural critic and writer whose scholarly work focuses on the nature of imagination, creativity, and property.-Early life:...
's revolutionary critique of Mauss in "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property".
See also
- AnthropologyAnthropologyAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
- Structural anthropologyStructural anthropologyStructural anthropology is based on Claude Lévi-Strauss' idea that people think about the world in terms of binary opposites—such as high and low, inside and outside, person and animal, life and death—and that every culture can be understood in terms of these opposites...
- StructuralismStructuralismStructuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
- Gift economyGift economyIn the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
- Kula ringKula ringKula, also known as the kula exchange or kula ring, is a ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea.The Kula ring spans 18 island communities of the Massim archipelago, including the Trobriand Islands...
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
- Émile DurkheimÉmile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
Further reading
- Sylvain Dzimira, Marcel Mauss, savant et politique, La Découverte, 2007 (lire en ligne la préface de Marcel Fournier, le sommaire et l'intro.).
- Fournier, MarcelFournier* Fournier RF-4 is a motor glider* Museo Fournier de Naipes is a playing card museumFournier is a surname:*Alain Fournier, computer graphics researcher*Alain-Fournier, French writer*Alphonse Fournier , Canadian politician...
. 1994. Marcel Mauss. Fayard: Paris (the definitive biography in French). - Ferguson, Kennan. 2007. 'The Gift of Freedom.' Social Text. 25:2 39-52.
- Lévi-Strauss, C.Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
. 1987 [1950]. Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss. London. Routledge. - Moebius, Stephan/Papilloud, Christian (Ed.). 2005. Gift – Marcel Mauss' Kulturtheorie der Gabe. Wiesbaden: VS.
- Moebius, Stephan. 2006. Marcel Mauss. Konstanz
- Fournier, Marcel. Marcel Mauss: A Biography, PUP, 2005