Marcel Mauss' "The Gift" Social Insurance Legislation

599 words - 2 pages

In Marcel Mauss The Gift the author shows us the ancient tradition of gift giving and receiving. He also explains the fundamental process that lies, surreptitiously below the surface of this basic human trait if it can be referred to as such. Mauss shows that there is something inherent and intangible within the giving of the actual gift. There is a sort of spirit within the actual gift itself and that spirit or hau, as it is called, must be returned to the original giver by way of a return gift.The hau of a gift is the driving force behind the feelings of reciprocity one has when giving or receiving said gift, any gift. If the hau is not returned to its rightful owner then there is a loss of honor and a sense of shame takes over. This works in the minutia and also on macro levels, from giving a child a birthday present to social insurance legislation.Social insurance legislation is the body of laws that doles out such things as Social Security and Medicare to our elderly, unemployment checks to the unemployed, and things like health insurance. They are the collective rights to social protections against sickness, old age, unemployment, and death.Mauss believes that these things are inspired by one thing, the worker has given his life and his labour, on one had to the collectivity, and on the other hand, to his employers.(p.67) The worker is paid wages to compensate for his gift of labor and that is the return of that hau. Social insurance legislation comes into play here because simply paying wages is not enough. The worker has actually given more than just his labor to the job, the workplace, the employer. He has given a grand portion of his...

Why have anthropologists insisted on the differences between "gift" exchange and "commodity" (or "market") exchange? How useful is the distinction?

1899 words - 8 pages intricately woven and lavishly presented baskets. Mauss (1954) provides another illustration when studying a complex system in practice in North America known as potlatch. The gift ceremonies involve high levels of competitive festivities; gifts would sometimes be piled in the centre, ready to be given to guests. Those with higher social status would make speeches and willingly pass on their gifts of artefacts and food to guests, sometime even

The Dancer's Gift and Sociology Essay

905 words - 4 pages “The Dancer’s gift” is a love story between a young man and woman, Marcel and Samantha. But this novel was written not only to call feelings about love and passion; the main goal was to introduce students to sociological concepts. Overall, the book includes more than 180 sociological terms that flow with the story and closely connected to happening events. Marcel, a black man, arrives from Martinique (an island in the Caribbean Sea), and

The Division of Labor in Society by Emily Durkheim

718 words - 3 pages Durkheim as follows: Marcel Mauss, Maurice Halbwachs, Célestin Bouglé, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Jean Piaget, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Clifford Geertz, Peter Berger, Robert Bellah, social reformer Patrick Hunout and others. Among the many great thinkers that he inspired, perhaps the most acclaimed is Ziya Gökalp, the founding father of Turkish sociology. The work of Durkheim provides

Charles Marius Barbeau’s Ethnography and the Canadian Folklore

4086 words - 16 pages by both his studies in England and France, and his work with North-American anthropologists. But his sometimes contradicting statements require a more precise study, so we will simply present his main positions, and state some of the opposing points without thoroughly analysing them. Marcel Mauss – whose classes Barbeau attended – concludes in a 1902 document on ethnographic method: « En somme, rester cantonnés sur le terrain des faits

A Study of Candomble Sacrifice Rituals

4635 words - 19 pages A Study of Candomble Sacrifice Rituals In Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions, Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss describe the rites and rituals usually surrounding sacrifice in a religious context. They attempt to create a method for studying sacrifice according to the consecrating rituals that surround the act itself. According to Hubert and Mauss, it is these rituals which define the sacrifice; a sacrifice without these rituals would indeed

Sikhism

4687 words - 19 pages Sikh to the world and family ties. Guru Granth Sahib hopes that the practicing Sikh works, earns an honest living and supports a family way of life doing so in all truthfulness and honesty. This essentially helps in the Sikh's way of life by giving him a path to attain nirvana (Mukti). One can see this is in Marcel Mauss book "The Gift" when the author talks about the individual's work ethics and balancing spirituality with day-to-day life."However

The Punic Wars

992 words - 4 pages civilization. Essentially, the conflict arose from the clash of economic interests. The Carthaginians wished to protect commercial basis of power, while the Romans committed themselves to expansion (Marcel Le Glay 2009, 73). Carthage would lose the First Punic War, the result of this loss would cause vast amount of reprirations paid to Rome and a social revolt amongst its own people. Rome on the other hand would grow even more powerful, gaining land

TRIBAL BODY TECHNIQUES, In relation to one or two instances of clothing styles or body decoration, show how the choice of certain body techniques and modes of conduct construct specific identities

2139 words - 9 pages choice of clothing, mannerisms, and defining actions. In his article titled "Techniques of the body", Marcel Mauss defines techniques of the body as being "the ways in which from society to society men know how to use their bodies." (1973; 70) Interestingly enough, every society is very different. This not only refers to dress and religion, but also customs and character traits that shape each individual society. There is still of course

Fasting and The Eucharist: Catholic Participation in the Sacrifice of Christ

3375 words - 14 pages participate in the sacrificial elements of the Mass. As changes have occurred in the liturgical structure of the Mass, and have allowed for a freer distribution of the host, fasting is no longer emphasized. Fasting, as a form of self-sacrifice, is no longer necessary, making new interpretations and uses of fasting available to Catholic communities. 1 Hubert, Henri and Mauss, Marcel. Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function. Chicago: University of

Fountain by Duchamp Analyze and illustrate by example the 'anti-art' nature of Dada. Who were they angry with and why?

1608 words - 6 pages an important role in many manifestations of Dada. Considered a culture's finest and most distilled product, art was to Dada the greatest illustration and support of the social sickness. Art became the bull's eye over the bourgeois heart and anti-art, a term said to be coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1914, was the weapon. By disrupting artistic and cultural convention, Dadaists hoped to disrupt the values that had brought about and supported the

The Effects of a Changing Environment on the Ju/'hoansi Lifestyle

1473 words - 6 pages described the Ju/‘hoan system of gift exchange, called hxaro, a far-reaching and ingenious mechanism for circulating goods, lubricating social relations, and maintaining ecological balance.(Lee, 2003) It is a delayed form of nonequivalent gift exchange between two or more tribes.(Lee, 2003) The aim of the practice is to maintain social relations between groups. Although material goods have become readily available in the lands of Dobe and

Medicare: The United States’ First Medical Social Insurance Program

908 words - 4 pages Merriam-Webster dictionary defines social insurance as, “protection of the individual against economic hazards (as unemployment, old age, or disability) in which the government participates or enforces the participation of employers and affected individuals” (1). The United States government operates several national social insurance programs. Medicare is the United States’ first medical social insurance program. This program was designed to

French Structural Anthropology Essay

1110 words - 4 pages believe in conflict but rather in a harmonic defined society. Durkheim studied social phenomena in the collective mind, the whole of society, and how society shaped the individual. His theories lead to shape structural anthropology and anthropologists that followed. Marcel Mauss was Durkheim student, as well as, nephew. He was born 1872, and was a French sociologist. He had a fruitful career, which included collaboration with him uncle, Durkheim

Techniques Of The Body Essay

6056 words - 24 pages bed, these are very ordinary, everyday techniques that we take for granted and perceive as something natural, but often they are technique’s we have been taught to do. Marcel Mauss in his work Techniques of the Body (1934) is regarded as the first piece of work to outline a systematic anthropology of the body (Synnott 1993). It aims to show evidence that most everyday body techniques differ between people raised in different environments, as

Reciprocity Essay

735 words - 3 pages strangers. Also according to Kottak, an example of negative reciprocity is in the 19th century, North American Plain Indians would steal horses from neighboring tribes (Kottak 2013:369). Generalized reciprocity in the Samoan societies levels the social hierarchies within the family and in religious ties. Among families, gifts are given depending on the recipient. If the gift is for a woman, then they are usually trinkets or something like marriage