Gift Essay Plans
Gift exchanges create relations of power
mauss — potlatch, trying to outdo each other, helps reinforce hierarchy
dolan — fairtrade flowers, gifted aspects are the ones that create relations of power
hermann — garage sales, gifted aspects remove the relations of power created by the free market economy
power coming from reciprocity vs
dan — doesn’t leave them indebted but could you argue that because it doesn’t it is what creates that relation of power e.g. debt they can’t repay
Gift exchanges do create relations of power, even though the customs and expectations surrounding gift exchange vary significantly across cultures. It could be strongly argued that it is the feature of ‘indebtedness’ that comes from most exchanges that makes relations of power in the gift. However, while indebtedness is a feature of almost all gifts, the ways in which it creates relations of power vary culturally. Furthermore, anthropologists should not ignore gift exchanges where the principle of reciprocity is absent, and should look at the ways that these exchanges — by subverting the expectation of indebtedness — can also create relations of power. Therefore, gift exchanges do appear to create relations of power, even when they are seemingly ‘free’ gifts, and anthropologists can largely attribute these relations of power to the quality of indebtedness that most gifts seem to produce. However, that does not mean there is one universal way in which this idea of reciprocity creates relations of power.
could also argue that indebtedness, while tied to the principle of reciprocity, is a better way of understanding the power because reciprocity is not always demanded, but an idea of indebtedness is always there
To understand why gift exchanges make relations of power, it is important to understand the power gifts have to make their receiver feel indebted. this quality of the gift is closely tied to the claim that gifts come with a principle of reciprocity
idea forwarded by Mauss: observing different gift giving cultures, saw the ways in which gifts were expected to be returned e.g. Trobriand islands, necklaces and bracelets in the Kula are expected to be exchanged, and at equal value
forwarded idea of principle of reciprocity — gifts come with an expectation of being reciprocated — argued because they are imbued with the spirit of the person (Maori hau)
see it in the potlatch, expectation each tribe will reciprocate and importantly reciprcate in a better way
system of total relations — create social bonds — here they are creating bonds of hierarchy
expectation of return, and thus indebtedness produced by it, creates relations of power
Quality of indebtedness creates relations of power because it manufactures social bonds between people predicated on an expectation. I have argued that it is indebtedness, rather than reciprocity, that creates these relations of power because
Dolan: fairtrade flowers from Kenya — see the extra money as being ‘gifted’ rather than earned — naturalises inequality between North and South
principle of reciprocity does not function quite the way Mauss envisioned it as operating e.g. not expected to reciprocate exactly, also borderline between gift and commodity, the fact that the extra money/better pay coming from fairtrade holds a gift-like position and cannot be repayed creates indebtedness, naturalizes this power inequality
should understand indebtedness, underpinned by principle of reciprocity, as what causes social relations of power. However, some gift exchanges are absent of reciprocity expectation, and yet I would still argue that they create relations of power
laidlaw: jain almsgiving, alienated and so not reciprocated, comes close to Derrida’s conditions of a free gift, mixed together, not acknowledged as a gift — but it is the fact that the jain can sidestep this expectation of reciprocity, that applies to everyone else in society, that creates their hierarchical position of power
similar to Parry’s interrogation of the Indian gift: polluting, moral offloading from upper class individuals to lower class individuals, its the fact that they cannot reciprocate that reinforces a one way system of exchange and thus hierarchy
way of complicating this perspective, and acknowledging the nuances in gift exchange, is to look at forms of gifting that cross the boundary between gift and commodity, and where relations of power come into play there
had seen it a bit with Dolan’s fairtrade flowers
Hermann: garage sales — arguably create fewer social relations of power — do this in more than one way e.g. avoid exploitative expense of labour market but also do not create indebtedness the same way gift exchanges do — because it retains some features of the commodity market e.g. instant payment in a value fixed way that indebtedness isn’t created and therefore less social power is created