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The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies.
... 275-299). 6 Shifting the attention to his academic coté, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (Mauss, 2002(Mauss, [1925) is undoubtedly the text that resonates most when seeking his cooperative ethos. It is crucial to recognize that the political intention behind The Gift was to demonstrate the existence of economic systems that did not adhere to the capitalist principles of profit maximization and self-interest (Aria, 2016). ...
... Mauss is quite explicit on this. He refers to cooperatives as the "economic organizations of the proletariat" (Mauss, 2002(Mauss, [1932: p. 96), positioning them as contemporary iterations of gift societies. 7 Emphasizing the cooperative model as an emergent economic order, he contends that it is already operational in specific economic groups where tasks are undertaken and services are provided for others (Mauss, 2002(Mauss, [1932, pp. ...
... Mauss is quite explicit on this. He refers to cooperatives as the "economic organizations of the proletariat" (Mauss, 2002(Mauss, [1932: p. 96), positioning them as contemporary iterations of gift societies. 7 Emphasizing the cooperative model as an emergent economic order, he contends that it is already operational in specific economic groups where tasks are undertaken and services are provided for others (Mauss, 2002(Mauss, [1932, pp. ...
... Iemand die een gift en/of renteloze lening heeft ontvangen via een SUNnoodhulpbureau. Mauss, 1990Mauss, [1950 ...
... Daar waar een gift vaak gepresenteerd wordt als vrijblijvend en zonder verwachting van een tegenprestatie (Elder-Vass, 2020), kaart Mauss (1990) (Mauss, 1990). ...
... Daar waar een gift vaak gepresenteerd wordt als vrijblijvend en zonder verwachting van een tegenprestatie (Elder-Vass, 2020), kaart Mauss (1990) (Mauss, 1990). ...
In Nederland leven medio 2024 ongeveer 1 miljoen mensen in armoede of rond de armoedegrens en meer dan een half miljoen leeft met problematische schulden. Zelfs zonder schulden of armoede kan een ingrijpende gebeurtenis leiden tot financiële tekorten, waardoor men niet in staat is zelf noden op te lossen. Dit kan resulteren in urgente financiële en/of sociale noden. Zowel op landelijk als gemeentelijk niveau wordt beleid gevoerd om mensen met financiële problemen te ondersteunen, via toeslagen en gemeentelijke minimaregelingen of bijzondere bijstand. Echter, het komt voor dat mensen geen aanspraak maken op deze regelingen, of dat de regelingen niet toereikend of tijdig beschikbaar zijn. SUN-noodhulpbureaus bieden in zulke gevallen ondersteuning met een gift of renteloze lening. Dit onderzoek laat zien dat de ondersteuning van SUN-noodhulpbureaus bewegingsruimte creëert voor gemeenten, donateurs, hulp- en dienstverleners en de ontvangers van steun (begunstigden). Een SUN-noodhulpbureau stelt hulp- en dienstverleners, gemeenten en donateurs in staat ondersteuning te kunnen bieden en maakt dat begunstigden minder zorgen hebben en kunnen focussen op andere zaken. Omgevings- en culturele factoren, het type steun, de relatie tussen hulpverlener en cliënt, percepties van de casus én de behoeften van gemeenten en donateurs spelen een rol bij het zorgen voor deze bewegingsruimte. Deze factoren bepalen wie op welke wijze geholpen kan worden als er sprake is van urgente financiële nood én welke betekenis deze ondersteuning kan hebben. Een SUN-noodhulpbureau heeft niet de ambitie om het armoede- of schuldenvraagstuk op te lossen, maar draagt bij aan het verzachten, stabiliseren of (potentieel) doorbreken van situaties van mensen met urgente noden, zodat zij nieuw perspectief krijgen en niet tussen wal en schip vallen.
... As Portes (1995, 14) argued: 'the resources obtained from fellow community members and members of social networks, while apparently "free," have hidden costs'. In the wake of the seminal essay by Mauss (2002), anthropologists have long explored this ambiguity by studying the exchange of gifts. 1 Like gifts, informal support, care and hospitality can be free and disinterested -which increases their symbolic value -yet this does not eliminate the expectation of reciprocity. ...
... The exchange of gifts thus involves power relations. The donor's generosity may impose a debt on the recipient, at least until he or she devises a roughly equivalent or superior counter gift (Mauss 2002;Sahlins 2011). Charity, but also social benefits, are sometimes experienced as a gift that cannot be reciprocated, and that hurts the recipients' self-esteem (Felder, Fneich, and Stavo-Debauge 2023;Vandevoordt and Verschraegen 2019). ...
... If this is the dark side of social capital, the bright side could be a situation where support is gratuitous and does not involve quid pro quo. However, anthropologists have suggested that the unreciprocated gift may make the person who accepts it feel inferior (Mauss 2002). This last section describes how being accommodated 'for free' can also mean being unable to reciprocate, as in Carmen's case. ...
In cities facing housing shortages, vulnerable newcomers almost always live with family or friends upon arrival. While social networks are often seen as a source of support that facilitates migration and settlement, research has also shown that newcomers can be exploited by established migrants and relatives. Challenging the dichotomy between positive and negative social capital, this article reveals how exploitation and support coexist within social relationships. It shows how exploitation emerges from the ambiguous and implicit obligations of reciprocity that is inherent in informal support. Examining the informal housing arrangements and experiences of Colombian newcomers in Rotterdam (NL), this article analyses what support they receive from their hosts and how they reciprocate. It shows how the arrangements are shaped by the unequal positions of guests and hosts, and how they involve relational work. Through negotiating informal housing arrangements and reciprocity, guests and hosts negotiate and shape their relationship. The article draws on anthropological theories of gift-giving to explore the tensions and uncertainties that characterise hospitality. It shows how attention to reciprocity makes it possible to move beyond the opposition between support and exploitation and to understand how relationships can simultaneously be both supportive and exploitative. ARTICLE HISTORY
... In "The Gift", Mauss (1990) suggests that people experience deep feelings of obligation/duty to accept and to reciprocate when given a gift, whether it be a physical item, time or care. He explained that in ancient societies, there were three obligationsto give, to receive and to reciprocate. ...
... Each gift is a part of a system of reciprocity -"the system is quite simple; just the rule that every gift has to be returned in some specified way sets up a perpetual cycle of exchanges within and between generations" (Mauss, 1990, p. xi). According to Mauss (1990) the reciprocation of the "Gift" is ultimately related to social connectedness and is required for societies to thrive. Becker (2014) argued that reciprocity is closely connected to gratitude but also suggests connections between gratitude and equality, obligation (or duty) and justice. ...
... Alice ultimately claims that she must give back to the BGC Ottawa to pay for what she received which, according to Mauss, will help perpetuate the cycle of exchanges within and between generations of children and youth at the BGC Ottawa and keep the community thriving. In "the Gift", Mauss (1990) focused on obligation when he detailed his reading of reciprocity. He explained that in ancient societies, there were three obligationsto give, to receive and to reciprocate. ...
Increasingly, researchers, practitioners, participants, governments, funders, and others involved with sport are suggesting that sport is good for children and youth – but only under the right conditions . “Good sport” requires careful consideration and targeted action to ensure participants have positive experiences. Caring adults, particularly those who had positive sport experiences in their childhood, can set the stage for “good sport” to happen for children and youth. One way they can do this is to return to volunteer and/or work with the very organizations that provided them with opportunities in their childhood or youth – what we call “giving back”. In this research project, we prepared reports, presentations, and academic manuscripts that detail the “giving back” experiences of young (aged 17-27) and established (aged 28+) adult leaders who engage in sport leadership roles with three community partners offering programs targeting children and/or youth, namely the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa (BGC Ottawa), la Société des Jeux de l’Acadie (SJA) and the Arctic Winter Games International Committee (AWGIC). In each of the three cases, we discussed young and established leaders’ understandings of “community”. Our analyses also focused on the leaders’ motivations for “giving back” and the meanings they gave to their responsibilities, in addition to and beyond sporting fervor, as practices of engagement and commitment to young people and to the “community” (however they defined it). While completing the analyses, three themes emerged that needed further exploration. These themes include – youth development, sense of belonging and community development, and deep motivations for working in these contexts. These themes are the focus of this report. Highlighting these themes will give our community partners, governments, and funders a sense, within these sports programs, of how volunteers and employees understand their work (with respect to how it helps children and youth develop), how they feel while doing this work, (with respect to sense of belonging and community development) and why they do this work (deep motivations). We also feel a responsibility to share the leaders’ voices about the value of these programs and activities and, ultimately, some of the conversational paths that might help our community partners and other community sport organizations continue to deliver transformative sport programming and events for children and youth.
... The reviewing system of the 1970s functioned on the basis of a gift economy. Gift economies are very different from market economies in that the exchange of goods and services occurs in parallel to an exchange of obligation (Mauss, 1954). Gift economies have numerous advantages over market economies, especially under high uncertainty. ...
... To reject the giving or receiving of gifts is to reject the relationship (Mauss, 1954), in effect to surrender all accumulated social benefits of the relationship. Komter (1996) recounts a story of a poor person winning the lottery. ...
... Also, gifts are always between individuals in the sense they require an exchange between humans. However, gifts and ties of obligation can simultaneously be with institutions, a concept called prestation (Mauss, 1954). For example, warriors in the ancient world pledged loyalty to a specific lord. ...
This opinion paper presents two proposed token‐based systems to fix the information system academy's review system. At present, the review system consumes more human resources than the information systems academy has by an order of magnitude. The cost of this overflow is borne entirely by information systems researchers. I argue this is because the review system is based on a gift economy that cannot handle the currently sized market. Both proposals involve the creation of tokens and a central governing body. The first proposal involves a market built around a review bank (central governing body) that issues review tokens that function as a proxy currency. Journals function as intermediaries between authors and reviewers. Authors pay journals for reviews, and journals pay experts such as reviewers and editors for their services. Reviewers exchange their review tokens on the open market or trade review tokens for favours with institutions like universities. The second proposal involves a gift economy where reviewers transfer their allegiance from peers to the information systems academy. In this proposal, each individual token is unique, like a trading card and an affiliation board tracks the transfer of tokens, linking former possessors of a token together in a review ring. As tokens are regifted, they accumulate history, and thereby social worth, captured in the form of messages each possessor writes. Former possession of a large number of tokens and of tokens with particular histories confers status benefits. These benefits in turn lock reviewers into the review ring system encouraging them to do further reviews. Economic, social, and other implications of both policies are discussed and questions are posed for the information systems academy to grapple with. Example issues discussed include the effect of the proposals on the political power of reviewers and shifts in political power in the information systems academy.
... Islamic and nationalist dispositions interpellate a subjectivity for the 'Turkish way of helping,' which turns development projects into inalienable extensions of Turkey's identity. Based on Marcel Mauss' study on gift exchange (Mauss 2002(Mauss [1925), we can say that Turkish aid workers give development aid as a gift that carries the individuality of the giver; 'through it the giver has a hold over the beneficiary' because 'to accept something from somebody is to accept some part of his spiritual essence ' (15-16). When aid objects become entangled with the norms and values of the giver, social obligations on giving paradoxically demand keeping them since they are imbued with the identity of the giver. ...
... Islamic and nationalist dispositions interpellate a subjectivity for the 'Turkish way of helping,' which turns development projects into inalienable extensions of Turkey's identity. Based on Marcel Mauss' study on gift exchange (Mauss 2002(Mauss [1925), we can say that Turkish aid workers give development aid as a gift that carries the individuality of the giver; 'through it the giver has a hold over the beneficiary' because 'to accept something from somebody is to accept some part of his spiritual essence ' (15-16). When aid objects become entangled with the norms and values of the giver, social obligations on giving paradoxically demand keeping them since they are imbued with the identity of the giver. ...
This study examines Turkey’s aid politics in Somalia by investigating actors, ideas, and organizational networks involved in the making of humanitarian and development projects. Drawing on interviews with Turkish aid workers – including experts, local coordinators, and volunteers from state, humanitarian, and Islamic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – this research elucidates how solidarist motivations of NGOs created strategic opportunities for the state to expand its market and regional interests. The article presents that NGOs perceived helping Somalia not only as a humanitarian effort but also as an Islamic and nationalist responsibility. Solidarist ideologies and practices of Turkish NGOs created market and political advantages and legitimized them as Turkey’s benign interventions to protect Somalia from the Western aid system. The state-NGO collaboration in aid projects conflated solidarist and self-interested motives, and it configured a moral economy embedded in Turkey’s aid politics, which this research conceptualizes as a benevolent expansion, legitimizing unequal exchange and hierarchies in this development partnership as good deeds in favour of Somalia.
... What appears in the narrative sequence provided by Laureta, unlike that provided by Fock, is the stated recognition of the wife and mother-in-law that their "secret" conveys the meaning of manioc food provided without the requirement of any helping contribution from others of difference across the marked divide preferred for an exchange properly to take place. Because of anthropology's long legacy of using the collective morality of peaceful alliances when exchanges between divided, opposing entities benefit the whole, the translation here should presume the presence of a decipherable Waiwai view of the antisocial (Durkheim [1984] 2014; Mauss [1950Mauss [ ] 1990). However, a reevaluated notion of moral sociality founded on the ideal of concorporality could view the unfavorable exchange as a positive transformation requirement. ...
... What appears in the narrative sequence provided by Laureta, unlike that provided by Fock, is the stated recognition of the wife and mother-in-law that their "secret" conveys the meaning of manioc food provided without the requirement of any helping contribution from others of difference across the marked divide preferred for an exchange properly to take place. Because of anthropology's long legacy of using the collective morality of peaceful alliances when exchanges between divided, opposing entities benefit the whole, the translation here should presume the presence of a decipherable Waiwai view of the antisocial (Durkheim [1984] 2014; Mauss [1950Mauss [ ] 1990). However, a reevaluated notion of moral sociality founded on the ideal of concorporality could view the unfavorable exchange as a positive transformation requirement. ...
... But all these topics can be examined in the micro-interactions that make them up. Mauss (2016Mauss ( [1925) examined the ceremonies of gift exchange that became money; today we have Arlie Hochschild's (1983) analysis of emotional labor. Weber defined the modern state as the monopolization of violence on a territory; I turned this into micro research on what happens in violent situations. ...
... But all these topics can be examined in the micro-interactions that make them up. Mauss (2016Mauss ( [1925) examined the ceremonies of gift exchange that became money; today we have Arlie Hochschild's (1983) analysis of emotional labor. Weber defined the modern state as the monopolization of violence on a territory; I turned this into micro research on what happens in violent situations. ...
This interview with Randall Collins explores the role of interaction rituals (IR) in our increasingly digital world. For Collins, IR is a micro-sociological mechanism that provides both the glue that holds social groups together and the energy that fuels disputes and domination. Crucially, Collins posits that IRs are most effective under face-to-face or “bodily copresent” conditions. The pivotal question of this interview is how well this proposition holds in an age where interaction increasingly takes place through and with technologies. The interview begins with Collins explaining how he became interested in IR, before moving on to consider topics such as whether bodily copresence is as important today as it was when he wrote Interaction Ritual Chains (2004); the relative importance of online and offline IRs; how AI might change our ritual landscape; the role of materiality in the ritual process; and whether IR theory will continue to be as relevant in the future.
... Therefore, the dance can maintain its meaning and internal situated dynamics of continuity and change. To put it in scholarly terminology, making the dance available to a broader audience does not turn the performance into a mere commodity that can freely be exchanged for money detached from its cultural context (as Marcel Mauss describes the capitalist exchange, Mauss [44]). The way the Boloye today is performed in exchange for money does, in fact, have similarities to how Mauss describes pre-capitalist modern exchanges. ...
... According to Mauss, the hau of goods meant that they could not just be exchanged for money or other goods as they were too firmly separated from the sphere of what was considered exchangeable. The examples Mauss uses to exemplify this are not cases where objects under no circumstances could change hands, but cases where exchanges need to be negotiated; for example, he refers to the ancient Roman tradition of flogging a family horse before it could be sold [44]. This description fits rather well with the way the Boyole dance has been commodified. ...
The article explores the impact of tourism and commercialization on intangible cultural heritage, using the Boloye dance in Côte d’Ivoire as a case study. The dance, originally a secretive ritual performed by the POrO society in the Sénoufo community, has transformed into a public cultural performance. The study explores how this cultural practice has been adapted to engage broader audiences without compromising its ritualistic and cultural integrity. This is carried out through fieldwork conducted in Korhogo, including participant observations, interviews with performers, and the analysis of social media content. The paper argues that the Boloye dance’s resilience and continued vitality are due to its dynamic adaptation within cultural boundaries, allowing it to serve both as a community resource and a public spectacle. This is enabled through the Sénoufo flexible cultural framework, which allows for the negotiation of changes within spiritually sanctioned boundaries. The article concludes that tourism and the commercialization of cultural practices, in this case, do not compromise the authenticity of the practices or the cultural integrity of the people who perform them. The case study challenges a commonly expressed view in previous research that tourism necessarily erodes cultural authenticity, showing instead that cultural practices can evolve while retaining their significance. The paper contributes to a scholarly and public debate on the sustainability of intangible cultural heritage in the context of global tourism and economic development and change.
... Looking more closely at the concept, the core to understanding corruption is the notion of two persons exchanging a gift. Marcel Mauss' anthropological studies of pre-modern societies suggest that exchanging gifts creates a social bond between two parties, as well as an obligation of reciprocity (Mauss 1925(Mauss /2016). Mauss' studies contend that "there is no such thing as a free gift", implying that reciprocity is a universal norm connected to gift-giving. ...
... Looking more closely at the concept, the core to understanding corruption is the notion of two persons exchanging a gift. Marcel Mauss' anthropological studies of pre-modern societies suggest that exchanging gifts creates a social bond between two parties, as well as an obligation of reciprocity (Mauss 1925(Mauss /2016). Mauss' studies contend that "there is no such thing as a free gift", implying that reciprocity is a universal norm connected to gift-giving. ...
Corruption, defined as the “misuse of public position for private gain”, represents an act of deviance from official duties in the interest of self-enrichment. Denmark is ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in the world. Danish court records, however, show that corruption cases have appeared in the 21st century. Using Luhmann’s systems theory and Foucault’s method of genealogy, this article asks how this has happened. I argue that understanding corruption in Denmark may go back to changes in public administration ideas and practices since the 1990. New Public Management reform has increased the complexity in public administration where meaning horizons of communication related to different functional systems – especially the sub-systems of law and economy – clashes. I theorise and illustrate using court cases how the coexistence of different codes creates an environment for public employees that in some circumstances – however still rare – result in corruption.
... However, after leaving the field, the anthropologist seems to gain supremacy over any informants, as they are "accredited" to make an interpretation of the lives of others (Strathern, 2004). For example, Mauss (1950Mauss ( /1990) noticed the common process of exchanging large amounts of money and property as gifts within Maori society. The Maori believed that there is a hau, "a spirit of the giver in the gift". ...
... However, after leaving the field, the anthropologist seems to gain supremacy over any informants, as they are "accredited" to make an interpretation of the lives of others (Strathern, 2004). For example, Mauss (1950Mauss ( /1990) noticed the common process of exchanging large amounts of money and property as gifts within Maori society. The Maori believed that there is a hau, "a spirit of the giver in the gift". ...
Since the 1990s, professional service design knowledge has travelled globally, detached from its larger Western history and contexts. The proliferation of service design knowledge shapes how individual designers enact their craft locally. However, the dissemination of professional knowledge has remained highly abstract, making it challenging for designers to grasp the underlying perspectives and debates associated with it. Against this backdrop, this doctoral study explores the intricate relationships between individual service designers and the contexts they must navigate. Specifically, it aims to illuminate the complications faced by servicedesigners when striving to establish genuine and meaningful connections between their professional practice and the local contexts in which they work. This study articulates and addresses the constraints that professional knowledge places on service designers when they attempt to situate their practice within local contexts.
Drawing on practice theories, particularly material semiotics, this inquiry is conducted under an experimental program called “soiling service design”. This study recognises that the potential values and harms of a service design practice reside in the specificities of the situation. Knowing and doing contextual service design needs to carefully tackle the messy and meaningful lived context – the soil – rather than rashly washing it away. Employing multiple research methods, the program is unfolded through two experimental clusters: 1) Probing the neatness of narrative, and 2) Weaving service design into the lived context.
The contributions of this thesis are twofold. Firstly, the study elaborates on the detached views held by service designers which restrain them from situating their practices. Such views condition how designers perceive their connection to the world and lead to the potential for a sense of meaninglessness. The value of explicating the detached views is not to offer a comprehensive explanation, but to facilitate practitioners to sensitise their unarticulated perceptions and emotions in doing service design. Their perceptions are a crucial grip to understand the social condition of situated service design practices. Secondly, this study draws out an alternative possibility of relating professional design to local contexts. By proposing various ways of doing and knowing as means to attend to relational practices, the thesis suggests the ability to situate design practice can be cultivated through attentiveness to what others do. Design practice does not necessarily form an inherent-coherent process, but rather entangles with other practices so that the conditions of each other's existence are reciprocally constituted. Messy encounters soil the established understanding of service design. Appreciating the encounters aids individual designers in finding means for determining how they can participate in an ongoing process of worldmaking.
... Thus, he argues that gratuity is at the core of grace's operation, and as a result, the performatory responsibilities of grace are found in regular instances of free giving, even if he does not equate the two concepts (gratuity and gifting) as same. He agrees with anthropologist Mauss (1990Mauss ( [1950Hubert &Mauss 1964[1898) that both gift and sacrifice must be articulated within their reciprocal valences yet does not discard gratuity as a sociological illusion in tandem with Mauss. By this, he makes less the constraints imposed by gift-giving practices. ...
... Thus, he argues that gratuity is at the core of grace's operation, and as a result, the performatory responsibilities of grace are found in regular instances of free giving, even if he does not equate the two concepts (gratuity and gifting) as same. He agrees with anthropologist Mauss (1990Mauss ( [1950Hubert &Mauss 1964[1898) that both gift and sacrifice must be articulated within their reciprocal valences yet does not discard gratuity as a sociological illusion in tandem with Mauss. By this, he makes less the constraints imposed by gift-giving practices. ...
The persistent violence perpetrated by Boko Haram in Nigeria has resulted in profound trauma, affecting numerous individuals who struggle with its physical, emotional, and psychological aftermath. While existing scholarly works outline recovery pathways for these survivors, there is a notable lack of recognition and appreciation for religious-based recovery, particularly the role of God's grace and sacrifice. This research employs a qualitative approach, drawing insights from the Noodle's kitchen, to contribute to the current literature on trauma and resilience. Specifically, the study investigates resilient mechanisms within the context of a faith-based Christian Centre, focusing on how survivors' utilization of grace and sacrifice strategies embedded in socio-cultural and religious contexts, enhances our understanding of trauma, survival, and recovery.
... One area of research examines how helping affects a person's status ranking, that is, the status gains from giving and the status loss from receiving (Flynn et al. 2006;Nadler and Halabi 2015). For example, work on costly signaling shows that individuals will incur costs to give in the short term to enhance their reputation over the long term (see Mauss 1990; for an overview, see Nadler and Halabi 2015). The competitive altruism hypothesis posits that individuals are more altruistic when their actions are public because their reputation is at stake. ...
... 4. Social psychologists explain this status threat using basic psychological needs theory to suggest that this experience compromises fundamental needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Nadler 2015, 308; see also Ryan and Deci 2000). Social exchange theory and equity theories explain the threat as a need to rebalance the relationship in some way by returning a favor or expressing gratitude (Fiske 1992;Gouldner 1960;Mauss 1990;Schein 2009). Such action serves to maintain social order and the optimal functioning of society (Gouldner 1960;Schein 2009, 28). ...
... Gennem sine gaver og fortaellinger om dem, insisterer Agnes på, at hun hellere giver end modtager, "ved du hvad, jeg kan undvaere alt til mine børn." I de fleste samfund er den gensidige udveksling af følelser, tjenester og gavereller reciprocitet -en hel central vaerdi (Mauss 1990). At forblive et godt menneske også i slutningen af livet, hvor man er blevet afhaengig af andres hjaelp, er således taet forbundet med viljen til, men også muligheden for at give tilbage (Long 2020:30). ...
Hvordan skaber ældre mennesker - der en stor del af livet har været vant til, at det var dem, der skulle tage sig af andre - mening med slægtens hjælp og omsorg for dem? Det er omdrejningspunktet i artiklen, der undersøger, hvordan ældres erfaringer med at modtage hjælp formes af specifikke historiske vilkår indenfor den danske velfærdsstat. Men også gennem en aktiv forhandling af mening, og et vedvarende moralsk arbejde. Jeg argumenterer for, at de ældre til dels håndterer slægtens omsorg ved at vriste sig fri af dominerende dyder knyttet til idealet om aktiv og vellykket aldring – så som selvstændighed. I stedet skaber de mening og handler ud fra dyder som tilhører tidligere perioder af deres liv og som kredser om opofrelse for familien.
... For example, Psarikidou et al. [29] highlight that individuals accessing food support services such as food banks are often viewed as "receivers" of food, as opposed to "purchasers", indicating a compounding lack of autonomy and agency, and resulting in reduced social status. Middleton et al. [6] reinforce this through conceptualisation of the receipt of food from food banks as a gift, drawing on Mauss' [30] theory which states that all gifts are in some way received with an obligation of reciprocation, and to receive a gift with no means or intention to reciprocate presents a threat to social status. Therefore, individuals receiving 'free' food from food banks are liable to a hidden cost -a reduction in social status from those who do the gifting, and resulting stigmatisation [6,31]. ...
Background
Within high income countries, individuals experiencing food insecurity have become increasingly reliant on food support to satisfy household food needs. However, experiencing food insecurity and accessing food support are highly stigmatised, negatively impacting psychological and emotional wellbeing. Being able to quantify this stigma may contribute towards reducing these impacts. This study aimed to develop and validate two novel scales enabling the quantification of stigma concepts within the food insecurity and food support context: (1) the Food Insecurity Self-stigma Scale (FISS), which measures the level of self-stigma (and related constructs) that individuals experiencing food insecurity feel regarding their food insecure status; and (2) the Food Support Experiences Scale (FSES), which measures the psycho-social experiences (including the experience of self-stigma) when individuals access a food support service.
Methods
English speaking participants who identified as experiencing food insecurity completed the new FISS (N = 211) and FSES (N = 123) measures, alongside other validation measures. Exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were carried out for both scales. Regressions using latent variables derived from the CFA were used to test convergent and divergent validity. McDonald’s Omega was used to assess internal reliability and intra-class correlations between initial and retest FISS and FSES scores of a small number of participants (FISS: N = 14; FSES: N = 8) were used to assess test-retest reliability.
Results
EFA indicated three-factor structures best fit both scales. CFA revealed a good fit of the model for the FISS (15 items; 3 factors: righteous anger, non-disclosure, and stereotype endorsement). Meanwhile, an acceptable-to-poor fit of the model was revealed for the FSES (23 items; 3 factors: self-approval and disclosure, dietary and interpersonal satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness and impact). Importantly, convergent validity was only found for the non-disclosure subscale of the FISS and the self-approval and disclosure subscale of the FSES.
Conclusions
The FISS and FSES provide valid tools for quantifying aspects of stigma relating to the experience of food insecurity and accessing food support respectively. Development of these two scales may provide an important first step towards measuring stigma. developing interventions which reduce this psychological burden, and working to promote psychological wellbeing within populations experiencing food insecurity.
... Until his arrival in South Africa in his early twenties when he finally gains official status as a refugee, Asad has no legal documents entitling him to be anywhere. 1 The nature of Steinberg's account resonates strongly with the earlier sociological and anthropological work of Abdelmalek Sayad (1991Sayad ( , 1999, who, with the support of Bourdieu (outlined in Bourdieu and Wacquant 2000) and drawing on Mauss (1990), argued that migration needed to be studied as a "total social fact." By this Sayad meant that it needed to be understood ethnographically but also sociologically, anthropologically and historicallya total social fact informs and organises quite distinct practices and institutions. ...
... Cheal (2015) stresses that gifts are a universal social phenomenon. As established in 1925 (Mauss, 1990), even Malinowski's Melanesian observations suggested gifts being associated with social exchange systems including not just giving but more importantly receiving and reciprocating (Lévi-Strauss, 1969) and thus no "free gifts" (Carrier, 1991). While gifts are voluntary, they are given and repaid under obligation (Panoff, 1970) in a dyadic exchange relation and create a dependency-like relationship that requires a continuous exchange to sustain as otherwise the giver or recipient may suffer (Gouldner, 1960;Homans, 1958). ...
Gifts, gratuities, and hospitality are commonplace in industry and more so in the financial sector. They are often offered without any mention of their intention. However, they raise controversial and non-detectable reciprocity expectations. We investigate brokers and lenders in the UK’s alternative real estate lending sector. Unlike the rest of the financial market, the alternative real estate lending sector is on a rapid growth path and at the same time broadly unregulated, thereby providing a breeding ground for transactional graft. This is the first analysis of gift-related behaviour in this sector. Based on an online survey of 108 professionals, we identify their corporate gift policies and gather their views on what they believe these policies should be when it comes to monetary limits. We contrast these reports with the hypothetical choices these professionals make in personalized and isolated scenarios to assess their individual moral cut-offs. For the moral value consistent subjects (comprising 72% of the surveyed population) who report a single cut-off of monetary limits below which they accept gifts but above which they do not, we find that their monetary acceptance limits have no connection either with the policies of the corporations that they belong to or with their views about what such policies should be. This suggests that employees’ views about policies in their corporations are merely social constructs for their measure of morality which is different from the same measure of their individual morality when applied in isolation. This research informs policy and corporate decision-making to promote the impact of nudging on the role of an individual as an identity in an act of perceived graft rather than simply as a member of an organization.
... Sacrifice lies at the core of moral hierarchies and socio-political orders. Unsettling the ancient notions of sacrifice as a gift to God, earlier anthropological theories contend that there is no such thing as a free gift (Mauss 1992). Gift-giving and sacrifice initiate relationships based on moral and social indebtedness; "there is perhaps no sacrifice that has not some contractual element" (Hubert and Mauss 1981, 100). ...
What happens when sacrifice is imagined in terms of a debt that can be repaid? In the ongoing conflict begun in 1984 between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Turkish state, Kurdish revolutionary discourse has characterized death as the required price for liberation. After 2002, a shift away from revolutionary violence and an increase in civil politics with more diverse actors allowed for public recognition of sacrifice other than death. This ethnography in Diyarbakır conceptualizes “the afterlives of revolutionary sacrifice” to unearth the multiple temporalities of revolutionary struggle. Rather than viewing sacrifice through the lens of the revolutionary sacred, the article rethinks revolution through the vulnerabilities, relationships of care, and hopes that such temporalities entail. It highlights the afterlives of sacrifice to complicate the traditional narratives of heroism and martyrdom, sheds light on everyday struggles, affects, and relationships, and questions how we value sacrifice for political change. ÖZET Bedelin geri ödenebilecek bir karşılığı tahayyül edildiğinde ne olur? Kürdistan İşçi Partisi ile Türkiye devleti arasında 1984 yılında başlayan ve halen devam eden çatışmada, Kürt devrimci söylemi ölümü özgürlük için ödenmesi gereken bir bedel olarak nitelendirmiştir. 2002’den sonra devrimci şiddetten uzaklaşılması ve daha çeşitli aktörlerin yer aldığı sivil siyasetin oluşması, ölüm dışındaki bedellerin de kamuoyu tarafından görülmesini sağladı. Diyarbakır’da geçen bu etnografik çalışma, devrimci mücadelenin çoğul zamansallıklarını ortaya çıkarmak için «devrimci bedelin sonraki yaşamlarını» kavramsallaştırıyor. Makale, bedeli devrimci kutsalın merceğinden görmek yerine, devrimi bu tür zamansallıkların barındırdığı kırılganlıklar, ihtimam ilişkileri ve umutlar üzerinden yeniden düşünüyor. Geleneksel kahramanlık ve şehitlik anlatılarını karmaşıklaştırmak için bedelin sonraki yaşamlarını vurgulamakta, gündelik mücadelelere, duygulara ve ilişkilere ışık tutmakta ve siyasi değişim için bedel nasıl değer verdiğimizi sorgulamaktadır. KURTE Çi dibe dema bedêl wek deynekê tê xeyalkirin ku paşê dikaribe bê dayîn? Di şerê navbera Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê û dewleta Tirkiyeyê de ku di 1984an de destpêkirî û hê jî berdewam e, gotara şoreşger a kurd mirinê wek bihayeke ji bo azadiyê lazim wesf kiriye. Piştî 2002yan, dûrketina ji şîdeta şoreşger û bi geşbûna siyaseta sivîl ya bi aktorên cihêtir, rê li ber vekir ku derveyî mirinê jî bedelên din ji aliyê raya giştî ve werin dîtin. Vê xebata etnografîk a li Diyarbekirê, ji bo derxistina holê ya pirhejmariya wextînî ya têkoşîna şoreşger, “jiyanên paşê yên bedêlên şoreşger” têgînî dike. Gotar, di dewsa dîtina bedêlê ya ji rojika pîroziya şoreşgerê de; şoreşê bi rêya şikestinbarî, têkiliyên îhtîmamê, hêviyên ku wextîniyên vî cureyî dihewînin ji nû ve difikire. Ji bo tevlîhevkirina vegotinên şehîdî û qehremaniyên kevneşopî, bal dikişîne ser jiyanên piştî bedêlê, ronî dide ser têkoşîn, hest û têkiliyên rojane û pirsiyar dike ka ji bo guherînên siyasî em çawa qîmet didin bedêlê.
... Recognition, as defined in Roman law, was not only about acknowledging property rights but also about validating status and authority. Over time, the concept has evolved to encompass both legal and social aspects of recognition, with scholars like Mauss (1990) highlighting its role in shaping economic relationships and community bonds. In contemporary contexts, recognition serves as a stabilizing force, promoting loyalty and reducing turnover. ...
This paper explores the transformative potential of integrating intellectual property (IP) and intellectual property rights (IPRs) into Kenya’s tourism strategy to promote traditional knowledge (TK), traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), and geographical indications (GIs). Drawing on Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the Tourism Act of 2011, the study examines how tourism can serve as a platform for showcasing the nation’s agricultural and cultural wealth, which contributes over 40% of GDP. By linking culinary tourism, cultural festivals, and synchronized hotel services with IP protections, the paper proposes a system where menus trace ingredient origins, recipes are copyrighted, and harvest festivals celebrate GI-tagged products. Case studies from Italy, India, and Thailand illustrate the success of similar models. The study emphasizes the need for policy reform, community training, and institutional support to align IP frameworks with tourism, ultimately creating a sustainable, heritage-driven economy that positions Kenya as a global leader in authentic, value-based tourism.
... Surrogacy is frequently analysed through two frequently conflated lensesgift-giving and altruism -especially in the realm of 'bodily gifting' (exchanges of organs, tissue, and fluids) (Berend, 2016). It is important to disentangle the two: surrogates were motivated by altruism, as they were involved in an intentional undertaking not motivated by external reward, and they viewed surrogacy as a gift, triggering a relational chain of reciprocal obligations (Mauss, 2002). Surrogates described their participation as a gift; this metaphor served two distinct purposes. ...
... One of the powerful manifestations of beliefs in Hinduism is engendered through daan (ritual gift) culture. Marcel Mauss (1990) has argued that gift objects themselves are 'in some degree souls and gift exchangers operate as 'things' in these interactions'. Drawing on the works of Mauss, Graham argues that gift exchanges are integral to relational definitions of personhood and central to debates about ontology (2005, p. 12). ...
“Contemporary animism” or what is often termed as “new animism” has emerged as one of the most powerful perspectives to understand and decolonize the indigenous cultural practices and knowledge systems in recent years. Brahmanical Hinduism (or neo-Brahmanism) is considered as a cultural-religious practice that still carries undercurrents of animism in India.2 Animist beliefs have remained strongly embedded in Brahminical religious and cultural practices, such as belief in the existence of soul, persona and so on. This article argues that the ethos of neo-Brahmanism is not only antithetical to the perspectivism of contemporary animism, it rather offers a model that can be termed as ‘inverted animism’ or the cultural practices that tend to colonize the radical potentials of animism. Such Hinduism as hegemonic cultural practices disrobe the environment from its personhood, even fetishizes the person, and turns them into objects. It is an ‘animism’ that goes against its own spirit by colonizing the personality of the object, materials and other entities.
... Los planteamientos académicos más importantes sobre lo comunitario que se emitieron en la naciente ciencia social, de Marx (2015), Durkheim (1987), Tönnies (1947), Weber (1964) y Mauss (1990), establecieron una interpretación sobre la comunidad que la concibió como una estructura asociativa antigua de diversos grupos humanos reducidos en número, basada en las relaciones inmediatas, fundamentada en valores compartidos profundos y en el intercambio generador de obligaciones recíprocas entre sus miembros, y con sistemas de dominación y poder propios y limitados a su interior, aunque en relación de subordinación con otros marcos de autoridad. Tales elementos propios de las formas comunitarias de organización social, a juicio de quienes los concibieron, revelaban su imposibilidad para dar cauce al acelerado despegue del capitalismo industrial, a la integración de la economía mundial a partir del comercio internacional y a la necesidad de formas de organización social capaces de encauzar a dichos fenómenos, como los estados nación. ...
El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la forma en que se relaciona actualmente el orden social comunitario microlocal del estado de Tlaxcala con su orden político municipal y de reconocimiento de derechos indígenas. Existe un complejo comunitario en este estado de la República mexicana que no está visibilizado debido a la ausencia de un movimiento indígena que lo haya reivindicado, el cual está parcialmente cristalizado en las figuras políticas submunicipales denominadas presidencias de comunidad, cuyas facultades se encuentran definidas en la ley orgánica municipal estatal, entre las que destaca actuar con voz y voto en las sesiones de cabildo. De esta manera, la estructura del ayuntamiento tlaxcalteca de nuestros días incluye regidores de mayoría relativa, de representación proporcional y de pueblo o comunidad. El trabajo reconoce las posibilidades y debilidades de las presidencias de comunidad, que se pueden caracterizar como la vía tlaxcalteca para el reconocimiento de las estructuras comunitarias que existen en dicho estado. La metodología empleada fue de corte cualitativo, y consistió en la revisión crítica y en el análisis de fuentes teóricas, institucionales, histórico-contextuales y de experiencias locales.
... That is; some form of "free gift" s received by participants who are proposed to be complete equals in the gallery (in contrast to within society at large); creating an event in which new forms of relations can take place. Anthropologists would however argue that there are still hierarchies between for example artist and participant (Strathern, 1988;Mauss, 2002;Sansi-Roca, 2015). Although there is an exchange 'without hierarchy', value resides around the artists themselves, as they remain 'authors' of the event. ...
This study focuses on the tribal socialization of children as a violation of their rights in Pashtun tribal society. An ethnographic approach was adopted to explore tribal socialization. The data was collected in six months from the parents and grandparents in the ethnographic field through in-depth interviews to learn about the socio-cultural and political aspects of tribal socialization. The qualitative data were analyzed in light of different discourses. It reveals that Pashtun’s Indigenous community has a different understanding of male and female children’s socialization. Colonial and post-colonial history, family, and kinship groups have significantly influenced the socialization of children in Pashtun tribal society. Male children socialize violently to survive in Pashtun tribal society in the absence of state institutions. It is revealed that the British in colonial and Pakistan in the post-colonial period exploited their resources but deliberately did not curtail structural violence in Pashtun Tribal society. Family inculcates masculine traits and reinforces patriarchy while keeping in view their experience in Pashtun society. At the indigenous level, male children prepare to protect their family, clan, or sub-tribe from violence or aggression of other fellow Pashtun which violate their rights.
... Gift theorists have long suggested that giving is an act of deep social meaning. As Marcel Mauss (1990) argued in his seminal essay, giving establishes consequential social bonds between givers and receivers. These bonds, which are produced through seeming generosity, commonly and somewhat paradoxically (Derrida, 1992) include an obligation to reciprocity. ...
This paper explores the social meanings of monetary research incentives and the ramifications of their use in interview research. I argue that monetary incentives produce complex social meanings that significantly and diversly shape the relationship between interview researchers and participants and, as such, impact the types and volume of data that interviews produce. I discuss three distinct social meanings that emerged in my qualitative research interviews with forty-four low-wage freelance refugee interpreters in Canada. First, I show that in research with low-income workers, incentives can be interpreted as symbols of cross-class allyship that place the researcher in trusting and highly cooperative relationships of solidarity with participants. Second, the use of research incentives may also, and somewhat paradoxically, deepen socio-economic hierarchies by placing researchers and participants in relations resembling those between employers and employees. Third, research incentives may also be used by participants to resist social hierarchies and establish relations of benevolent and charitable equivalence in the interview encounter. Thus, the various social meanings of monetary incentives are productive of distinct interpersonal dynamics that shape the process of data collection as well as recruitment.
... That is; some form of "free gift" s received by participants who are proposed to be complete equals in the gallery (in contrast to within society at large); creating an event in which new forms of relations can take place. Anthropologists would however argue that there are still hierarchies between for example artist and participant (Strathern, 1988;Mauss, 2002;Sansi-Roca, 2015). Although there is an exchange 'without hierarchy', value resides around the artists themselves, as they remain 'authors' of the event. ...
This study focuses on the tribal socialization of children as a violation of their rights in Pashtun tribal society. An ethnographic approach was adopted to explore tribal socialization. The data was collected in six months from the parents and grandparents in the ethnographic field through in-depth interviews to learn about the socio-cultural and political aspects of tribal socialization. The qualitative data were analyzed in light of different discourses. It reveals that Pashtun's indigenous community has a different understanding of male and female children's socialization. Colonial and post-colonial history, family, and kinship groups have significantly influenced the socialization of children in Pashtun tribal society. Male children socialize violently to survive in Pashtun tribal society in the absence of state institutions. It is revealed that the British in colonial and Pakistan in the post-colonial period exploited their resources but deliberately did not curtail structural violence in Pashtun Tribal society. Family inculcates masculine traits and reinforces patriarchy while keeping in view their experience in Pashtun society. At the indigenous level, male children prepare to protect their family, clan, or sub-tribe from violence or aggression of other fellow Pashtun which violate their rights.
Keywords: Tribal Socialization; Cultural Discourses; Violence; Family Responsibilities; State; Child Rights
... In many cultures, it is customary to give gifts whose value cannot be directly computed. This allows a sort of never-ending chain of gift-giving in which the debt can never be perfectly evened out (Carmichael & MacLeod, 1997;Graeber, 2012;Mauss, 1925;Fiske personal correspondence). Future studies could ask whether young humans make different inferences depending on the size of the inequality allowed in repeated interactions, which would imply that they are computing something about the size of the imbalance in an equality matching relation. ...
In the human mind, what is a social relationship, and what are the developmental origins of this representation? I consider findings from infant psychology and propose that our representations of social relationships are intuitive theories built on core knowledge. I propose three central components of this intuitive theory. The purpose of the first component is to recognize whether a relationship exists, the purpose of the second is to characterize the relationship by categorizing it into a model and to compute its strength (i.e., intensity, pull, or thickness), and the purpose of the third is to understand how to change relationships through explicit or implicit communication. I propose that infants possess core knowledge on which this intuitive theory is built. This paper focuses on the second component and considers evidence that infants characterize relationships. Following Relational Models Theory (A. P. Fiske, 1992, 2004) I propose that from infancy humans recognize relationships that belong to three models: communal sharing (where people are ‘one’), authority ranking (where people are ranked), and equality matching (where people are separate, but evenly balanced). I further propose that humans, and potentially infants, recognize a relationship's strength which can be thought of as a continuous representation of obligations (the extent to which certain actions are expected), and commitment (the likelihood that people will continue the relationship). These representations and the assumption that others share them allow us to form, maintain, and change social relationships throughout our lives by informing how we interpret and evaluate the actions of others and plan our own.
... An important theme of ethnographic studies on debt, which is quite relevant to the findings of this study, is the examination of the dual role of money as the basis of the credit theory of money, which establishes the relationships between subjects in the context of global financial debt. At the level of values, morals and ethics, it always refers, on the one hand, to social and politicaleconomic relations based on gifts, kindness and obligations (Mauss, [1954] 2002), exchange and hierarchy (Graeber, 2011). On the other hand, it is driven by desire and violence (Girard, 2007;Simmel, 2011), intentions, promises and expectations, calculation, speculation and manipulation that drive stability and instability. ...
This study examines the moral and value-based framing of credit cards as an important tool of Indonesian financial perceptions and practices. By exploring the concept of 'moral alchemy', the transformation of cultural values and ethical perspectives on debt and credit is embodied and materialized in credit cards. Using a dynamic mix of multisite ethnography and netnography, I examine how credit card communities in Indonesia are reshaping the use of credit cards from a symbol of risky privileges to tools for financial empowerment. This research combines three areas of interest: Cultural economics, sociocultural perspectives on ethics, and value theory to provide a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon. My findings show how consumers who are part of the largest community of credit card users in Indonesia actively reshape their moral beliefs to adapt to new financial practices, illustrating the complex interaction between global financial products and local cultural contexts. Such communities represent more than just the adoption of new financial instruments. They also represent a fundamental shift in how consumers and businesses interact with modern financial instruments. This research makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on financial and economic practices based on socio-cultural perspectives and offers interesting insights into how innovative financial products are adopted and reinterpreted based on moral preferences and values that enable financial returns.
... The transcultural understanding of ethical judgement is based on Peebles' (2010) indivisible dyadic framework, influenced by Mauss (2002), and on the extensive pedigree of exchange practises in anthropological research in this area. The main aim of this research is to explore the notion of temporality associated with the meaning of debt and credit by outlining the overarching process of financial indebtedness that includes credit cards as a tangible reality in the age of financialisation. ...
This article presents an anthropological study on credit card use in Indonesia. It focuses on cultural and social knots that mutually influence financial knowledge and experience using the concepts of performativity and temporality in relation to the rapid process of financialization. By focusing on the credit card community in Indonesia, this article explains how they strategize their financial algorithms in the credit card management cycle. This article contributes to anthropological research on the unequal impact of credit card use by exploring the complex relationship between access to financial and ethical justice, variations in cultural contexts, and social hierarchies. The research examines how financial temporality is created through material and institutional practices. The findings presented in this article underscore the importance of considering credit card activities within a broader framework of financialization and complex social dynamics in contemporary Indonesia and other similar contexts. This study contributes to theoretical discussions on the social and cultural elements of financialization by providing an in-depth and specific narrative analysis of credit and debt.
... The first instance of the concept of gift being employed for analyzing social phenomena can be found in "The Gift" by Marcel Mauss-he states that a gift comprises three obligations: "to give presents, to receive them, and to repay [the] gifts received" (Mauss 1950(Mauss [1990, 39-42), and because reciprocation is an obligation, gifts inevitably include the sense of an exchange (Mauss,46). Through his essay Mauss aimed to clarify the reasons why people fulfill these three obligations and, above all, the meaning of gifts given in return. ...
The activities of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) can be described as an act of giving to “others (local people)” with the goal of improving their problems and issues through the skills and knowledge of JOCV volunteers or necessary material things, while at the same time confirming the aspect of growth of the volunteers themselves. In other words, the act of volunteering, which appears to be a “pure gift”, is not limited to material goods, but also has the reverse vector of “giving in return” in the sense of exchange. In this chapter, based on interviews with JOCV participants, the experiences of former JOCV participants, and the results of research on international volunteering, I will examine the common phrase of JOCV participants, “I was taught (given) many things,” or in other words, the narrative that they received “gifts in return” from local people. I will use this to clarify what was ultimately given to them as a result of practicing the gift of cooperative action.
... In confronting narratives about the natural evolution of capitalism, scholars interested in cooperative forms of social and economic organization often trace the emergence of cooperative practices to pre-modern societies. From the significance of gift in the pre-industrial societies (Mauss 2002) to the current platform cooperatives (Scholz 2016), and from Robert Owen's and Saint Simon's cooperative projects to Kropotkin's (2021) mutual aid and Proudhon's economic theory on mutualism (Proudhon 2003), researchers underline how values and practices that characterize cooperative formations are in sharp antithesis with the idea that human beings are selfish and competitive subjects that act to fulfill their private needs and interests. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) defines a cooperative as an "autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise''(I.C.A). ...
This chapter critically evaluates practices and politics of cooperative media in Greece, drawing on document research and qualitative interviews with members of two worker-owned media cooperatives, Efimerida ton Syntakton and AltherThess. The chapter devises political discourse theory in naming and explaining implicit and explicit norms and values embodied in their cooperative practices. The authors show how cooperative media can offer an alternative form in the organization of media labor based on collective decision-making and principles of horizontality, equality, and collective responsibility. Considering that media ownership in Greece is controlled by few business oligarchs, the chapter also reflects on how cooperative media can play an instrumental role in covering issues that would not play in mainstream platforms, by drawing equivalences among marginalized and excluded identities and demands. In doing so, the chapter attempts to expand conceptions of a politics of class able to incorporate the experience of political cooperativism and offer an understanding of how worker-owned media practices can contribute towards a post-capitalist strategy.
... Examples include reciprocity as opposed to a market economy (Polanyi, 2001;Sahlins, 1972) and political ecology (Cole and Wolf, 1974). As discussed later in this section, anthropologists found non-monetary transactions embedded in the domain of distribution, such as the Trobriand Islands' Kula ring described by Malinowski (1984) and the gift-giving theory formulated by Mauss (2001), which help create community ties. ...
We reassess the research on the impact of climate change on society and propose examining the social dimensions of climate change from a perspective of community well-being. We argue that to better understand community dynamics in the Arctic, it is helpful to shift the research focus from the environment and view the environment and climate change as a backdrop to social phenomena. Specifically, we consider the increasing living standards and expanding basic needs that fall under consumption, one of the three domains of economic activity. This represents a shift from the conventional anthropological perspective, which focuses solely on production (food procurement, subsistence) and distribution, to a more balanced consideration of the three economic domains and their intricate relations. This shift also involves moving away from the conventional anthropological theory, which posits that the relationship to the environment influences, organizes, and shapes people's lives, to the reverse: people's increasing needs reshape, rearrange, or alter the human–environment relationship. The perspective of community well-being considers the interplay between the environment, social (local assets), and economic domains (consumption and increasing needs) of community dynamics. To illustrate this perspective in Arctic studies, we draw on two examples from our experience in Greenland: sheep farming in South Greenland and Greenland halibut fisheries in North Greenland.
In this chapter, I join my colleagues to link storytelling with scenarios as a way to foster critical systemic thinking, emotional intelligence and changes in the way in which we relate to one another including our links with the rest of nature as a living system. Storytelling and ceremony can be used as a means to support distributive leadership particularly when it is linked with art forms such as dance to build and energise change.
Modern popular music is closely linked to the 'traditional' heritage – intangible and material – of which artist-musicians have, in a way, usufruct. This Element examines the relationship between (cultural) heritage and the transformation of popular music in Côte d'Ivoire. It views heritage from a dynamic and innovative perspective as a constantly evolving reality, informed by a multitude of encounters, both local and global. It frees itself from the sectoralization and disciplinary impermeability of the sector – in places of music performance to understand how the artistic-musical heritage is transmitted, imagined and managed and the complex process of transformation of popular music in which it registers. It appears that heritage, far from being frozen in time, is rather activated, deactivated and reactivated according to the creative imagination. In addition, the work highlights a minor aspect of the heritage subsumed in popular intellectuality at work in popular music.
This article challenges prevailing national interpretations of solidarity by examining its colonial dimensions. Employing the Durkheimian school as a historical lens, I demonstrate how the colonial context during the Third Republic shaped the emergence and application of solidarity as a scientific concept. Informed by colonial ethnographies, solidarity was not merely a sociological self-description within European nations; it also formed part of political agendas beyond Europe. I illustrate how Durkheim’s concept was utilized to enhance scientific understanding of colonized societies, aiding French colonial administrators in promoting developmentalist reforms. As national models extended internationally, solidarity evolved from social cohesion to economic integration within the international legal order. This progression toward modern solidarity—and the injustices it entailed—appeared inevitable, masking political struggles for self-determination. By critically recontextualizing solidarity, this analysis contributes to contemporary political theory debates, demonstrating its application in supporting an inclusive legal-economic agenda while failing to systematically confront colonial injustices.
Este artigo orbita a promessa da Sociologia e apresenta a sociologia das promessas -- ou, mais precisamente, a ciência das promessas, destinada a tratar todas as curiosidades sociológicas e a abranger tudo o que é sociológico. Ao introduzir a Teoria Social Geral dos Compromissos (TSGC), uma moldura de pensamento projetada para superar a fragmentação das teorias sociais tradicionais e enfrentar suas limitações na explicação do comportamento social, um avanço é apresentado em oito principais pontos que são simultaneamente ontológicos, epistemológicos e teóricos: (1) os poderes coercitivos sociais derivam da agência real ou virtual; (2) a agência virtual deriva de promessas; (3) toda raiva e decepção derivam de promessas quebradas; (4) promessas estão sempre em conjuntos recíprocos e dinâmicos chamados compromissos; (5) os compromissos são dispositivos heurísticos subjacentes a todas as relações sociais; (6) todos os fenômenos sociais envolvem compromissos; (7) explicar é descrever relacionamentos; e (8) a explicação sociológica, portanto, deriva da descrição dos compromissos e de sua história. Os princípios acima começam a delinear um arcabouço poderoso e coerente, e sua devida apreciação certamente terá um impacto profundo na Ciência Social. Enfatizando a novidade teórica e poder heurístico superior, evitando sínteses confusas de teorias concorrentes, o autor defende bases conceituais e teóricas claras para permitir uma explicação completa e integrada dos fenômenos sociais. Com essa abordagem inovadora, o artigo convida estudiosos a se engajarem criticamente com a TSGC e a explorarem seu potencial para unificar e aprimorar o conhecimento do mundo social e suas complexidades.
Contemporary biomedical technologies surrounding deceased organ transplantation raise urgent issues regarding the temporalities of the living and the dead, the disturbance of distinctions between self and other, and the question of absence and presence. There is no stable futurity, but rather a host of ontological, epistemological, and ethical issues that trouble both organ recipients and donor proxies. My claim is that heart transplantation in particular marks a fluid assemblage and intertwining of self and other at both the biological and ontological level, where personal identities and the conventional limits of life and death are deeply problematized. Nonetheless, those disturbing challenges to conventional binaries are rarely explored within the authorised narrative of the clinic.
In place of the techno-utopian promise to recipients of a restoration to the self, a reconfigured imaginary of heart transplantation might signal an entry into incorporeal co-existence in which the personal event of the donor’s death marked the revitalization of life in other forms. Welcoming the enmeshment of living and dying does not diminish present suffering or grief but suggests another dimension where the breakdown of binaries no longer disturbs, and the concept of life escapes its temporal constraints to point towards the horizon of a flourishing future.
Two largely separate schools of sociological theory seek to explain to whom we turn in times of need. The first argues that we turn to network members who occupy socially important roles, highlighting how support behaviors cluster in certain social roles (i.e., role effects). The second argues that we turn to network members possessing relevant resources and with whom we have strong ties. The authors unite these perspectives, examining how role effects on living kidney donation behavior are explained by role groups’ endowments of situationally relevant resources and tie strength. The authors analyze two original data sets: a sample of kidney transplantation patients reporting on their social networks ( n = 70 patients and 1,421 ties) and a separate sample surveying kidney disease patients’ family members ( n = 1,560). The authors find that role effects on living kidney donation behavior are largely explained by the conjunction of relevant resources and tie strength, which offers several key lessons for medical support-seeking research.
This paper offers an analysis of the development, transmission and reception of selected Icelandic folk legends about bears which share features in common with legends of elves (Icel. álfar) and hidden people (Icel. huldufólk). We explore the ideas, attitudes and motifs underpinning representations of bears in this sub-set of legends in a historical and narrative context and offer a close analysis of six selected tales. We address how narrators develop on pre-existing narrative conventions to portray the bear in a new light and touch upon the responses that these portrayals may evoke among a domestic and international audience.
“There is war.” This finding, which may sound so trivial in view of almost omnipresent warlike violence that it could be taken for a tautology, or at any rate for a platitude—isn’t there always war?—may hold a few insights after all. For it could also be read as if war dominates our imagination to such an extent that we are hardly able to imagine alternatives to it, as if war simply governs everything, a “totally unsocial fact,” so to speak. This, in turn, would make it difficult for us to recognize how people, even under the most adverse conditions of war, still resist, do not simply submit, but engage themselves against belligerent violence and for more peaceful relations. This contribution is intended as a contribution focusing on a philosophical theory of social practices of (potentially) nonviolent resistance. The starting point of the following lines of thought is first of all Hannah Arendt’s consequent differentiation between three kinds of activities and their respective relation to what she calls the “common world,” whereby violence—and especially armed violence—can be understood as that which tends to disrupt world as an index of relational experiences, which can cause destruction up to the state of worldlessness. In a second step, in the context of a consolidation of the recent arguments of Elsa Dorlin on Self Defense and Judith Butler on The Force of Nonviolence, passages between violence and nonviolence will be discussed that could be relevant for an understanding of resistance that is able to transcend existing relations of violence—not least armed ones. And finally, the findings will be related once again to the finding that there is war, and a re-orientation will be proposed.
The concept of extractivism describes social processes when the least protected social groups of society protest against the activities of companies in the process of resource extraction. In many countries, the raw materials economy is predominant, and in the territory where resource extraction takes place, the dominant society and the indigenous population are opposed. In the Kingiseppsky District of the Leningrad Region, the indigenous population are the peoples of the Finno-Ugric language group (Vods and Izhora), whose main occupation in the past was fishing. The aim of the study is to consider the conflict between the residents of the Ust-Luga rural settlement and the port of Ust-Luga from the point of view of the concept of extractivism. Beginning in the 19th century, the traditional economy underwent significant changes, but until the construction of the port in Ust-Luga in the 1990s, the local population continued to work at the cannery. After the construction of the coal and oil terminals, the cannery was closed, and migrants from other regions began to work at the terminals. The article presents recommendations for the implementation of a special policy by the Ust-Luga company, including improving the infrastructure of villages, financing tourism activities, including those related to museums of the Vot and Izhora culture, and carrying out activities to preserve the historical and natural heritage of the territory.
The chapter explores reconfigurations of berry assemblage for revaluing wild Arctic berries as superberries and sustainable foraging jobs. While the berries were successfully re-coded into superberries for global health markets, transforming foraging into ethical jobs was less successful. It would have required reconfiguring labor, workers, and salary relationships and challenging capitalist logic.
Goodwill-value is an intangible asset that helps to generate more value-added benefits for socioeconomic development if well planned. The goodwill value of a community can act as an agent that makes this community become a source of preference and trust. In this paper, we investigate the goodwill-value of Africa using Rwanda and its communities as a reference. The Rwanda's strategic initiatives post-genocide is examined to realise how they all played a role in enhancing the country goodwill-value, making it a model for other African nations. Through a holistic approach, the research highlights the importance of investing in social assets, cultural heritage, and environmental conservation to build goodwill value. The study concludes with a proposed framework for building goodwill value in African communities, emphasizing the importance of social assets, education, quality of life, cultural heritage, social cohesion, and environmental conservation. This framework aims to guide other African communities in enhancing their goodwill value to achieve sustainable development and improve the well-being of their populations. The findings suggest that cultivating goodwill can lead to sustainable development, economic growth, and improved community well-being across Africa.
The idea of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) has received widespread attention in the last decades, due to its radical proposal to distribute real freedom. Hence, central to the debate on UBI are the values of freedom, non-paternalism, and individualism. However, the debate has relegated discussions on community and interdependence, often reinforcing the concerns of those who oppose the idea of UBI on the grounds that there is a tension between enhancing individuals’ freedom, and upholding obligations of reciprocity. The intention of the six articles that, together, constitute this dissertation, is to help solve this tension. This dissertation analyses the objection of reciprocity to UBI and explores the most common replies to the objection. It argues that all of them are limited in how they look at the tension between freedom and reciprocity, given that they either accept it, or disregard it. Hence, it is proposed that we reframe our view of reciprocity and assume its multifaceted nature. For the project of this dissertation, a form of generalized reciprocity is endorsed, which includes the idea that we should encourage civic reciprocity, aiming at fostering relationships of civic friendship, where returns do not have to be proportionate, immediate, or direct. Such a view still requires that a significant number of people ought to contribute, according to their abilities and preferences, and therefore it is further claimed that when it comes to economic reciprocity, we should promote the value of autonomous reciprocity, as the possibility to participate in cooperative production in a non-dominating way, and in equal standing with others. A UBI is argued to be the best mechanism to promote both civic reciprocity and encourage the value of autonomous reciprocity. It is claimed that UBI is experienced as a gift by those who receive it, which in turn generates a moral obligation to reciprocate. The mechanisms through which this happens are twofold: a sense of indebtedness and a felling of gratitude. The conclusion is that a UBI does not embody any tension between freedom and reciprocity, but rather allows us to reconcile it, by granting everyone the freedom, the capacity but also the incentive (and positive motives) to cooperate to the social product.
https://hdl.handle.net/1822/92380
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