Michelle Bigenho: Gifts, Sex, and Commodities
This course was taught in Fall 1999.
What does it mean when power is achieved through giving things rather than through acquiring things? Contradictory to what we may follow as part of our common sense about economics, many societies have spent considerable time and energy in the process of large-scale gifting. In this mode Marcel Mauss discussed gifting as a total social fact, and in the spirit of this holistic approach to social phenomena, this course explores several branches of anthropological theory--not only economic anthropology--which have followed lines similar to those argued in The Gift. How does Malinowski's discussion of the kula fit within these discussions of gifting? How did Levi-Strauss adopt the ideas of gifting to the study of kinship and what were the critiques of this? How is time important in the gifting process? How is the gift gendered? How do social differentiations make gifts poisonous to some people and innocuous to others? Is it possible to give without expecting something in return? This course explores concepts of exchange within anthropological thought, while bringing these materials into contemporary cross-disciplinary theoretical debates. Some of the readings are also selected from: Taussig's The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, Yang's Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, Derrida's Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, Strathern's "Partners and Consumers: Making Relations Visible," Ragoné's "Chasing the Blood Tie: Surrogate Mothers, Adoptive Mothers, and Fathers" and Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice. Course units include: The Total Social Fact; Gifts and Gender; Gifts, Commodities and Money; Gifts and the Body; Gifts and States; Deconstructing the Gift.
This course is taught at the 200-level.