ANTA02H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Marcel Mauss, Gift Basket, Ecological Anthropology
Document Summary
Debbie durham asking for gifts isn"t really about getting stuff, but as a way to jokingly instigate a social conversation (practice) Why people give gifts and do not give gifts back goes back to marcel mauss. He wrote essai sur le don, or, the gift: form and reason for exchange in archaic. Structuralist: social and cultural systems have elements that are functionally related: phase in anthropology where structuralist, believed all social systems that are functionally related to each other. Society is like an organism; when one part changes, the rest adapts too: saw culture as a holistic thing. Essai sur le don, or, the gift: form and reason for exchange in archaic societies: Focused on the exchange of objects can build up on social relationships not economic exchange, but giving something freely where there is no reciprocity (do not have to pay the person back)
