According to anthropologist Jonathan Parry, discussion on the nature of gifts, and of a separate sphere of gift exchange that would constitute an economic system, has been plagued by the
ethnocentric use of a modern, western, market society-based conception of the gift applied as if it were a universal across culture and time. However, he argues that anthropologists, through analysis of a variety of cultural and historical forms of exchange, have established that no universal practice exists. Similarly, the idea of a
pure gift is "most likely to arise in highly differentiated societies with an advanced division of labour and a significant commercial sector" and need to be distinguished from non-market "prestations". According to Weiner, to speak of a gift economy in a non-market society is to ignore the distinctive features of their exchange relationships, as the early classic debate between
Bronislaw Malinowski and
Marcel Mauss demonstrated. Gift exchange is frequently "
embedded" in political, kin, or religious institutions, and therefore does not constitute an
economic system per se.
Property and alienability Gift-giving is a form of transfer of
property rights over particular objects. The nature of those property rights varies from society to society, from culture to culture. They are not universal. The nature of gift-giving is thus altered by the type of property regime in place. Property is not a thing, but a relationship amongst people about things. It is a social relationship that governs the conduct of people with respect to the use and disposition of things. Anthropologists analyze these relationships in terms of a variety of actors' (individual or corporate)
bundle of rights over objects. Take a purchased book over which the author retains a copyright. Although the book is a commodity, bought and sold, it has not been completely alienated from its creator, who maintains a hold over it; the owner of the book is limited in what he can do with the book by the rights of the creator. Weiner has argued that the ability to give while retaining a right to the gift/commodity is a critical feature of the gifting cultures described by Malinowski and Mauss, and explains, for example, why some gifts such as Kula valuables return to their original owners after an incredible journey around the Trobriand islands. The gifts given in Kula exchange still remain, in some respects, the property of the giver. became the subject of debate with the French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, author of "
The Gift" ("Essai sur le don", 1925). In contrast, Mauss emphasized that the gifts were not between individuals, but between representatives of larger collectives. These gifts were a
total prestation, a service provided out of obligation, like
community service. They were not alienable commodities to be bought and sold, but, like
crown jewels, embodied the reputation, history and identity of a "corporate kin group", such as a line of kings. Given the stakes, Mauss asked "why anyone would give them away?" His answer was an enigmatic concept,
the spirit of the gift. Parry believes that much of the confusion (and resulting debate) was due to a bad translation. Mauss appeared to be arguing that a return gift is given to maintain the relationship between givers; a failure to return a gift ends the relationship and the promise of any future gifts. Both
Malinowski and
Mauss agreed that in non-market societies, where there was no clear institutionalized economic exchange system, gift/prestation exchange served economic, kinship, religious and political functions that could not be clearly distinguished from each other, and which mutually influenced the nature of the practice. continued this analysis in
The Enigma of the Gift (1999). Albert Schrauwers argued that the kinds of societies used as examples by Weiner and Godelier (including the
Kula ring in the Trobriands, the
Potlatch of the
indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and the
Toraja of
South Sulawesi,
Indonesia) are all characterized by ranked aristocratic kin groups that fit
Claude Lévi-Strauss' model of
House Societies (where
house refers to both
noble lineage and their
landed estate). Total prestations are given to preserve landed estates identified with particular kin groups and maintain their place in a
ranked society.
Reciprocity and the spirit of the gift Chris Gregory argued that
reciprocity is a dyadic exchange relationship that we characterize, imprecisely, as gift-giving. Gregory argued that one gives gifts to friends and potential enemies in order to establish a relationship, by placing them in debt. He also claimed that in order for such a relationship to persist, there must be a time lag between the gift and counter-gift; one or the other partner must always be in debt. Marshall Sahlins gave birthday gifts as an example. They are separated in time so that one partner feels the obligation to make a return gift. To forget the return gift may be enough to end the relationship. Gregory stated that without a relationship of debt, there is no reciprocity, and that this is what distinguishes a gift economy from a
true gift, given with no expectation of return (something Sahlins
generalised reciprocity; see below).
Marshall Sahlins, an American cultural anthropologist, identified three main types of reciprocity in his book
Stone Age Economics (1972). Gift or
generalized reciprocity is the exchange of goods and services without keeping track of their exact value, but often with the expectation that their value will balance out over time.
Balanced or Symmetrical reciprocity occurs when someone gives to someone else, expecting a fair and tangible return at a specified amount, time, and place. Market or
negative reciprocity is the exchange of goods and services where each party intends to profit from the exchange, often at the expense of the other. Gift economies, or generalized reciprocity, occurred within closely knit kin groups, and the more distant the exchange partner, the more balanced or negative the exchange became.
Charity, debt, and the "poison of the gift" Jonathan Parry argued that ideologies of the "pure gift" are most likely to arise only in highly differentiated societies with an advanced division of labour and a significant commercial sector" and need to be distinguished from the non-market "prestations" discussed above.
David Graeber points out that no reciprocity is expected between unequals: if you make a gift of a dollar to a beggar, he will not give it back the next time you meet. More than likely, he will ask for more, to the detriment of his status. Many who are forced by circumstances to accept charity feel stigmatized. In the
Moka exchange system of Papua New Guinea, where gift givers become political "big men", those who are in their debt and unable to repay with "interest" are referred to as "rubbish men". The French writer
Georges Bataille, in
La part Maudite, uses Mauss's argument in order to construct a theory of economy: the structure of gift is the presupposition for all possible economy. Bataille is particularly interested in the potlatch as described by Mauss, and claims that its agonistic character obliges the receiver to confirm their own subjection. Thus gifting embodies the Hegelian dipole of
master and slave within the act.
Spheres of exchange and "economic systems" The relationship of new market exchange systems to indigenous non-market exchange remained a perplexing question for anthropologists.
Paul Bohannan argued that the
Tiv of
Nigeria had three
spheres of exchange, and that only certain kinds of goods could be exchanged in each sphere; each sphere had its own form of special-purpose money. However, the market and universal money allowed goods to be traded between spheres and thus damaged established social relationships. Jonathan Parry and
Maurice Bloch argued in "Money and the Morality of Exchange" (1989), that the "transactional order" through which long-term social reproduction of the family occurs has to be preserved as separate from short-term market relations. It is the long-term social reproduction of the family that is sacralized by religious rituals such baptisms, weddings and funerals, and characterized by gifting. In such situations where gift-giving and market exchange were intersecting for the first time, some anthropologists contrasted them as polar opposites. This opposition was classically expressed by Chris Gregory in his book "Gifts and Commodities" (1982). Gregory argued that: Gregory contrasts gift and commodity exchange according to five criteria: But other anthropologists refused to see these different "
exchange spheres" as such polar opposites.
Marilyn Strathern, writing on a similar area in Papua New Guinea, dismissed the utility of the contrasting setup in "The Gender of the Gift" (1988). could be considered a commodity, purely a gift, or both. Rather than emphasize how particular kinds of objects are either gifts or commodities to be traded in
restricted spheres of exchange,
Arjun Appadurai and others began to look at how objects flowed between these spheres of exchange (i.e. how objects can be converted into gifts and then back into commodities). They refocussed attention away from the character of the human relationships formed through exchange, and placed it on "the social life of things" instead. They examined the strategies by which an object could be "
singularized" (made unique, special, one-of-a-kind) and so withdrawn from the market. A
marriage ceremony that transforms a purchased ring into an irreplaceable family heirloom is one example; the heirloom, in turn, makes a perfect gift. Singularization is the reverse of the seemingly irresistible process of
commodification. They thus show how all economies are a constant flow of material objects that enter and leave specific exchange spheres. A similar approach is taken by Nicholas Thomas, who examines the same range of cultures and the anthropologists who write on them, and redirects attention to the "entangled objects" and their roles as both gifts and commodities.
Proscriptions Many societies have strong prohibitions against turning gifts into trade or
capital goods. Anthropologist Wendy James writes that among the
Uduk people of northeast
Africa there is a strong custom that any gift that crosses subclan boundaries must be consumed rather than invested. For example, an animal given as a gift must be eaten, not bred. However, as in the example of the Trobriand armbands and necklaces, this "perishing" may not consist of consumption as such, but of the gift moving on. In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party. To keep the gift and not give another in exchange is reprehensible. "In folk tales,"
Lewis Hyde remarks, "the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies." reported that, while they are aware of
food preservation using drying, salting, and so forth, they reserve their use for items bartered outside the tribe. Within the group, when someone has a successful hunt they immediately share the abundance by inviting others to enjoy a feast. Asked about this practice, one hunter laughed and replied, "I store meat in the belly of my brother." Carol Stack's
All Our Kin describes both the positive and negative sides of a network of obligation and gratitude effectively constituting a gift economy. Her narrative of
The Flats, a poor
Chicago neighborhood, tells in passing the story of two sisters who each came into a small inheritance. One sister hoarded the inheritance and prospered materially for some time, but was alienated from the community. Her marriage broke up, and she integrated herself back into the community largely by giving gifts. The other sister fulfilled the community's expectations, but within six weeks had nothing material to show for the inheritance but a coat and a pair of shoes. == Case studies: prestations ==