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# The obligations of the gift 

## The obligations of the gift 

Ryan Schram

Social Sciences Building (A02), Room 410

ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

ANTH 1002: Anthropology in the world

Module 3, Week 1, Lecture 1

September 23, 2019

Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1002/2019/3.1.1

## The Kula Ring

{{url>https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d12201228.961331584!2d153.35986953923668!3d-12.52293378404623!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x691f758ed688b3c1%3A0xac9dd65609d2e8c9!2sNormanby+Island!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sau!4v1403749009918}}

## Bagi

{{:bagi.jpg|A bagi necklace}}

(Necklace [*bagi*], late 20th century, Pacific Ethnographic Collection #80.1/3369, American Museum of Natural History)

## Mwali 

{{:mwali.jpg|A mwali armband}}

(Armband [*mwali*], late 20th century, Pacific Ethnographic Collection #80.1/3409, American Museum of Natural History)



## Durkheim and Mauss




**[[:Emile Durkheim]]** is a founding figure of sociology and anthropology 

* He wanted to analyze [[:society|society]] as an objective fact
* Society is a collective consciousness, like the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29#Borg_Collective|Borg]], from *Star Trek* (yes). 




**[[:Marcel Mauss]]** was a nephew and student of Durkheim

* Applied a Durkheimian analysis to economic activity
* [[:Reciprocity]] is an obligation underlying many if not all transactions



## Western culture and social reality

At the risk of oversimplifying things, I would like to introduce a major division in types of society. 

### "Western" culture

* Western culture values individualism. 

* Children are taught to be individuals. 

* Society and its rules are always external infringements on personal freedom. 

### Social reality

* Every person is, by definition, a member of a group. Most people
  have very complex networks of ties to many people and groups. It's
  just part of being a person.

* No one can really be outside of society. There's no such thing as a
  wolf child, or a Robinson Crusoe. These are myths. 

## Gifts

In the islands of PNG, fishermen exchange fish for garden food with
gardeners. Fishermen always cook their food in fresh water, even
though they live by the sea. Inland gardeners cook their food in sea
water, even though they have fresh water nearby. **"Intoxicated with
great love of exchange, they exchange even the water of their
respective dwelling places and carry it home for the boiling of their
food"** (Fortune 1932: 206).

Many people throughout the world exchange things they don't need for
things they don't need. They even exchange identical things, like
water.

Why?




## Gifts create obligations

Mauss says: Because you have to. 

Gifts come with obligations because it is part of the system of total
services. Specifically, giving a gift involves **a triple
obligation**:

* The obligation to **give**
* The obligation to **receive**
* The obligation to **reciprocate**, or to give back to one who has
  given.





## Gifts have spirit

For Mauss, the Maori word *hau* means the "spirit of the thing given."
When someone gives a gift, they give part of themselves. "The *hau*
wishes to return to its birthplace" (Mauss 2000 [1925]: 12). 





## Total services

What, then, is society? Mauss says that the essence of society is a
"system of total services" in which everything one does is for someone
else, and other people do everything for you. It is a state of total
interdependence. 




## Reciprocity is everywhere 

Gift economies are not simply societies in which there's a lot of
gifts. A gift economy is a society in which reciprocity is a "total
social phenomenon."

Even societies which have created the possibility of individualism,
the the West, still have gifts and still have reciprocity.




## Moka is a competitive system

The *moka* and the *potlatch* are systems of total services of an
agonistic type.

Agonistic means that the sides in an exchange are competing to give
more services to the other, and to raise the stakes of reciprocity.

Competing for prestige versus gaining profit? 




## References

Fortune, R. F. 1932. *Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific*. London: Routledge.

Mauss, Marcel. 2000 (1925). *The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies*. Translated by W. D. Halls. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.