“The act of giving or taking one thing in return for another”

What kinds of things are exchanged?

Exchange is universal

The chief means by which useful things move from one person to another

In order for social relationships to exist we must exchange something whether it is the communicative exchange of language, the economic and/or ceremonial exchange of goods or the exchange of spouses.

i.e. exchange is important for the establishment and maintenance of relationships

“If Friends make gifts, Gifts Make Friends”

Gifts

• What kinds of gifts are there?

• When do we give gifts?

WHAT IS A GIFT?

IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS A FREE GIFT?

• WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT RECIPROCATING?

• ARE THERE BONDS OF OBLIGATION?

• IS THERE SOME COMPETITIVENESS INVOLVED IN GIFT GIVING?

• HOW DO WE FEEL WHEN WE HAVEN’T RECEIVED A GIFT OF AT LEAST EQUAL VALUE?

• WHAT IF THE GIFT RETURNED IS OF HIGHER VALUE?

Marcel Mauss 1925: The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

• Mauss points to three fields of obligation: to give, to receive and to repay

• Gifts, according to Mauss, create relationships not only between individuals but between groups, relationships which take the form of total prestations

• ‘What rule of legality and self-interest, in societies of a backward or archaic type, compels the gift that has been received to be obligatory reciprocated? What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?” (Mauss 1925)

The Potlatch

• A form of ceremonial exchange of gifts employed by indigenous groups on NW coast of BC (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and especially the Kwakiutl )

• held in connection with events in the life cycle, initiations, marriages, house building, funerals, assumption of certain dance privileges.

• the potlatch ceremony extravagant and lavish preparations are made by the host

• These include much food preparation for the guests, and the creation of masks and art work as gifts for the guests

• The word means ‘to feed’ or ‘to consume’

A Kwakiutl clan chief wore this mask when greeting rival chiefs invited for a feast and potlatch. It reminded the guests of their host's great riches and their indebtedness to his generosity. This Kwakiutl mask represents a mythic ogress of the forest. Dz'onokwa, who skulked through villages at night to steal children to eat. She was also the "master of wealth," represented by the copper of her eyebrows, and so an appropriate symbol for the ceremonial feast.

• Today the potlatch gifts range from coffee mugs, and socks, to hand knit blankets and clothes, to hand carved masks and murals

•Because of all the gifts, a traditional potlatch took years to prepare

• A large potlatch held in 1921 was said to take 17 years of preparation

• A modern day potlatch may take about a year to prepare.

C. 1900

Social Significance• potlatch celebrations are a significant representation of the host's status and the display of rank and title

• At these feasts they took names which were the property of "numayms" (a lineage or descent group (brotherhoods and clans) consisting of a series of ranked social positions)

• In return for giving away food and wealth they get recognition of their status brotherhoods and clans,

• Numayms also controlled property and resources, and were ‘owned’ by the chiefs.

•Marriages for one’s children and places in the brotherhoods are only won during the potlatch Potlatches become very competitive

• aspiring leaders use competitive potlatching to move up the system.

• The potlatch is a system of gift exchange--- material goods are exchanged for social recognition and power

The obligation to give

The obligation to receive

The obligation to reciprocate

Prestation• More than simple exchange

• Also includes reciprocity and the various obligations

• ‘total social phenomenon’

• It is not individuals but collectives that impose obligations of exchange and contract upon each other

• What is exchanged is not solely property and wealth

Thomas and Jane Carlyle’s Christmas Presents• Renowned 19th century English historian

• Spent Christmas in the 1850s with Lord and Lady Ashburton (wealthy Scottish banker)

• In 1851 The Ashburton’s gave Christmas presents to the Carlyles• Thomas got a jigsaw puzzle

• Mrs Carlyle got a scarf or a bracelet

• both were well received

• In 1855 Mrs Carlyle received a black silk dress - A novelty because it was only recently that they were produced by machine

• Mrs Carlyle claimed that she was being insulted.

What do we have to know to be able to understand those meanings attributed to these gifts?

class, social mobility, matrimony, patronage, employment, manufacturing processes, issues of style, conventions of gift-giving.

Gift Exchange does not operate according to market laws, but the social rules of power, symbol, convention, etiquette, ritual, role and status.

STONE AGE ECONOMICS

Karl Polanyi 1968

Divided economies into three types according to the dominant mode of distribution

market --involves money and profitredistribution

-- collection from members of a group and then redivision within this group. E.g. tax system-- Typical of political organization headed by village elders, a chief, king who keep a substantial part of the annual produce of a society who stores it for subsequent disposal on special occasions such as annual feasts, the ceremonial visit of neighbouring tribes

reciprocity-- The return of a gift or prestation

Marshal Sahlins Stone Age Economics (1972)• A material transaction is usually a momentary episode in a continuous social relation.

• The social relation governs the nature of the immediate exchange and the flow of goods

• Exchange in primitive societies is not the same as in industrial societies.

• Place of transaction in total economy is different.

• Sahlins suggests that there are 3 types of reciprocity form a continuum that correlates with kinship and social distance.

• At one end is assistance freely given , the pure gift, between friends and relatives , at other end is theft.

home

lineage

village

tribe

intertribal

social distance. Determines the nature of the exchange

Generalized reciprocity

• e.g . gifts, or sharing, helping, generosity.

• characterized between close kin and friends

• highly moral

• Generalized reciprocity is correlated with Rankrelative wealth and needfoodGeographic distance

Balanced reciprocity

between structural equals who trade or exchange goods or services.

direct exchange i.e trade

A precise balance between the things exchanged

Usually without delay although return may also be stipulated within a given period

Balanced reciprocity is less personal and moral and more economic

The material side is at least as important as the social side, there is more precise reckoning.

Important in e.g.. peace making death payments and marriage alliances.

Negative reciprocity:

• the attempt to get something for nothing

• most impersonal sort of exchange