7/4/2023 0 Comments The Gift by Marcel Mauss![]() ![]() ![]() Thus, the potlatch becomes a total service of an agonistic type according to Mauss, who sees the act of gift giving via the potlatch akin to a game of chess. This often results in competing interests, status challenges, and hierarchies amongst the giver and the receiver. As systems of “total services” (7), Mauss uses the potlatch as a metaphor of how relationships between people and groups must be constantly fed and consumed to maintain balance and peace. ![]() In his introduction, Mauss discusses how social scientists must draw from positivist research, ethnology, history, and sociology to better understand how gift giving functions within society. Whilst Mauss made many notable contributions to the field of sociology and anthropology, it is his work on the potlatch (Northwest Coast Indigenous Americans’ gift-giving feasts) and gift giving that helped develop the way that social scientists explored and understood the nature and function of economy, kinship, and religion (xix). The gift exchange involves ulterior motives and is a complicated and intricate process that requires a priori knowledge of the person(s) or group(s) who partake in this ritual. It attempts to distinguish between commerce as it is understood in Western countries from the act of gift giving, which acts as a catalyst for enhancing solidarity and obligation between the gift giver and the gift receiver. ![]()
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