Marcel Mauss and “The Gift” theory.

credit: gullig

Do you think that making gifts is just a consumerist habit of which we are accustomed victims unable to come up against?
Well, here’s my gift for you: the renowned and really interesting vision of Marcel Mauss, French sociologist who – in 1923 – published his essay named precisely “The Gift”.

Mauss’s theory focuses on the fact that exchanging objects between groups builds relationships between humans. His theory drew on a wide range of ethnographic examples, especially on Maori tribes. Mauss decomposed the act of giving into three phases: giving (the first step in building social relationships), receiving (you can’t refuse the gift you received), and above all reciprocating (demonstrating social integrity): gifts, you should remember that, always imply a reciprocity. In his book, Mauss describes the Maori Hau, which means the “spirit of the gift”. This spirit was the source of reciprocity in exchange, enforcing a return of some kind. In Polynesia, failing to reciprocate means losing mana, the person’s spiritual source of authority and wealth.

However the gift is not an exchange profit-making. Not at all.
According to Mauss, the transactions between giver and receiver transcend the division between the spiritual and the material in a way that is almost “magical”. The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, since the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: “the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them”.

Fascinating theory don’t you think? Al least, next time we’ll have to make a gift, we can feel philosophers.