The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Gifts

RÉGINE SIROTA

Université Paris Descartes, France

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs134

In order to address work on gifts, one must engage with Marcel Mauss's famous essay “The Gift,” published in 1924. Mauss demonstrates the construction and maintenance of social ties through the cycles of exchange – giving, receiving, and reciprocating – which put at stake mechanisms of obligation and reciprocity. A gift can be considered as a total social fact, in the Durkheimian sense, in that it involves economic and social dimensions (i.e., emotional, religious, magical, utilitarian, legal, and moral) which place obligations on all involved. In German, “gift” can mean poison, pointing to the implicit social threat the gift relationship can pose to the making and breaking of social relationships. A gift thus can be considered as an analyzer of social relationships, on the one hand, and as an analyzer of consumer practices and circulation of things on the other hand. A circulating thing retains the “spirit” of the people among which it has circulated, thus preserving its history and relational origins.

While Mauss's demonstration was initially made by highlighting the competitive “potlatch” practices of indigenous societies from the West Coast of North America, numerous studies have since shown that the fundamental mechanism for building (and threatening) social links also applies to contemporary social practices and arrangements. The power and importance of gifts are particularly evident ...