Why Do Anthropologists Study Gift Giving? Essay Example

Crown Jewels are worth a lot of money, one would want these for their value and not just their symbolic status, so I would compare the exchange more to a trophy, which the winner keeps until the next competition (i.

e. , football) and then the trophy is passed on to the next winner, which helps us understand our own culture a little more as we ourselves keep ‘gifts’ and trophies for prestige, to show that we have achieved something, which in the case of the islanders would be the achievement of a lifelong friend and position in the Kula Ring.The Kula connects islanders and their economies. It secures the peoples’ politics, reinforces peace between the islanders and creates good feelings among the people.

As well as this, it resolves interbreeding within their own communities as romances may occur between the women and the men that would visit their village. But what has the anthropology of gift giving shown us about western societies? We have no formal system of reciprocity such as the Kula, but yet we generally expect gifts in return if we are to give one.If we give an expensive gift we generally assume to receive an expensive present in return. In his 1924 essay ‘The Gift’, Marcel Mauss writes that we are obliged to give gifts, receive them and then to repay them, the general statement of the essay is ‘there is no such thing as a free gift.

’ Mauss argued that the gift that is given represents the giver and that by accepting the gift you also accept the association of the gift with the giver. To maintain the relationship

between the two, the receiver must reciprocate the gift or the relationship as it was, will end.Much like the Kula, gift giving works as a cycle, such as Christmas presents, and this has helped us understand an essential way in which humans sustain social relationships, i. e. reciprocity shapes social relations. Allain Testart has criticised Mauss for exaggerating the obligation of gift giving, saying that other than legal obligation (as in court cases) reciprocity cannot be enforced.

He argues that there are ‘free gifts’ such as donation, or giving money to a beggar, the donator does not except anything in return and the beggar receives the gift knowing he will never be able to return one.However, this transaction does not create a relationship between the two and I still believe that the receiver gains some reward for doing this ‘selfless’ act, though through self reward, the act is not selfless and may even earn the giver some recognition, i. e. from friends and charities, and as such I personally believe there is no such thing as a free gift. Reciprocity is very important in Pakistani communities.

As covered in A. Shaw’s ‘A Pakistani Community in Britain,’ the term lena-dena literally means ‘taking and giving’ and itself implies the obligation of exchange.In Pakistani communities, the receiver will write a note of what they were given so they can return a similar gift. However, the returned gift must be worth slightly more. The idea is not to close the debt, but to create a further one and continue the relationship; this is how a lena-dena is inherited.

Similar to a Kula partner, a lena-dena partner can be

anybody in the Pakistani community that you wish to have a bond with, indeed even an English woman that may have married into the family. As gifts are given on occasions such as birthdays, dinner parties etc, the gift exchange can occur over a long period of time.Religious events, such as khatmi-Qur’an also calls for an occasion of lena-dena, as well as weddings, in which the bride’s family can expect all of their gifts to be in return of gifts given in lena-dena. There is also an amount of prestige involved; the gifts received in a wedding are displayed in a ledger for guests to look through to indicate the family’s standing among its friends and relatives. If there are inexpensive or few gifts of certain members then this is considered shamaeful.

A reason for holding a khatmi-Qur’an, other than its religious value, is to show off.The host cooks more food; invites more guest and buy more expensive presents than their predecessor. Although quite dated (1988) I am very fortunate to be living with a Pakistani (who himself lives in London) and he has confirmed that the traditions are still strong, and more and more British women are being included in his family’s lena-dena, so in this case, the study of gifts in Pakistani communities can prove to be very useful to those unfamiliar. Anthropology has helped us realise the difference between gifts and reciprocity in different situations.Marshall Sahlins identified three forms of reciprocity in ‘Stone Age Economics’ (1972): Generalised reciprocity – Open giving.

This is when good are shared without the expectation of anything in return. As mentioned earlier, the exchange in this trade

is the ‘warm feeling’ the giver receives, this sort of reciprocity happens between parents and their children for example. Balanced reciprocity – Gifts or favours in which the giver expects something in return in future. Failure to do so will result in the receiver attaining a reputation as solicit or a ‘sponge’ and will find it harder to receive gifts or favours in future.

Negative reciprocity – Barter. Goods or labour must be repaid immediately as part of economy. This type of reciprocity does not need to involve either trust or social closeness as failure of repayment can often lead to legal punishment. A lot of attention has been paid to the importance of reciprocity, but not as much on the free gift. One notable mention is Jonathan Parry’s essay ‘The Indian Gift,’ (1986) which focuses on free gifts in India.

‘How could exchange ever begin in the first place? Only, the Orokaiva myths tell us, by an original free gift of the primal ancestors. (1986, p446) This excerpt suggests that free gifts must have existed at some point, Parry’s essays discuss the gifts known as dan. He tells us that these gifts are unreciprocated. This idea governs them to the existence of an industrial economy and a fair religion (1986, p446 – 449). Parry also argues that asymmetry and not reciprocity is the key issue of the problem in returning gifts in India.

He says that if the receiver is of lower status, he is not allowed to return the gift, as to confirm the power of the gift giver.As the ritual of gift giving is so different in different cultures, the study of gifts

has helped us to become more familiar with these traditions, though I very much doubt I will ever be travelling to the Trobiand islands, we can see through their rituals how their relationships are built, the importance of prestige and how this relates to ourselves and other communities. The study of gifts also helps us understand the economy, J. Davis estimated in ‘Gifts and the UK Economy’ (1972) that 4. 3 percent of consumer expenditure in 1968 was spent on gifts.Although this is quite an old study, modern anthropologists are now able to broaden on his research, with advanced technology, such as internet resources, in order to make an estimation on how much we might be spending today, which can tell us a lot about today’s economy.

In the case of Shaw’s writing of Pakistanis in Britain, westerners can appreciate a lot from the study of gift giving in their society, should they ever be in a situation where that may have to give or receive a gift, as failure to do the appropriate thing could cause embarrassment or anger. Word Count 1,556