Marcell Mauss’s scientific contributions

... It occurred to me that perhaps this was because in a way my interview with several workers entered the gift economy of AMUMRA, which does not charge anything for its services to anyone seeking assistance there. I was under the impression that workers saw meeting with me for an interview as a way to reciprocate with the organization for what it had done for them, thus following the rules of giving, receiving, and reciprocating (Mauss 1954). With other interviewees, our rapport was friendly enough that I was under the impression that it felt illogical to them that I would offer them the SUBE card, as if I was trying to "pay them" for "chatting." ...

Reference:

Precarity as a methodological framework in the study of socially reproductive labor: insights from an ethnography with migrant women household workers and their advocates in the semi-periphery of global capitalism