ANT378H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Maurice Godelier, Marcel Mauss, Potlatch
Document Summary
Gifts as a stand in for violence page 10. Humans make offerings and gifts to beings they regard as superior fourth obligation that mauss does not elaborate on page 10. Charity is similar to potlatch with its secularizations. Passed from religious institutions on to non-for- profit organizations who carry it on. Page 11 (personal characteristic of a gift does not disappear if the two parties stop being in close personal relation to each other) Giving thus establishes a hierarchy in the act of it. If one already exists, it expresses and legitimizes it. We are a society deeply marked by an economy and moral code for market and profit. While gift giving societies are governed by the principle of gift giving. Non-agonistic: it is not individuals but collectives that impose obligations, what they exchange is not solely of property, the exchange is under the guise of voluntarism but under analysis, they become strictly compulsory.
