Mostly, they are compulsory.Īfter introducing his subject, Mauss considers the phenomenon of “potlatch”, the practice of large-scale, competitive giving.

Only sometimes is a gift given voluntarily. A gift, he explains, is always given in return for another gift. The idea that gifts are voluntarily given without expectation of reward is a common fiction, but a fiction nevertheless. As he nearly says, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Mauss argues that gifts are a type of exchange. And indeed, its spirit is firmly Durkheimian, for it sees the prime role of the gift and the act of giving to be the cementing of the bonds of society. It was first published in the 1920s as a series of articles in L’Année Sociologique the journal founded by Mauss’s uncle, Émile Durkheim. I have found myself re-reading Marcel Mauss’s classic treatise on The Gift. He actively fought against anti-semitism and racial politics both before and after World War II. In 1931 he took up the chair of Sociology at the Collège de France. Like many other followers of Durkheim, Mauss took refuge in administration, securing Durkheim's legacy by founding institutions such as l'Institut Français de Sociologie (1924) and l'Institut d'Ethnologie in 1926. Durkheim had made changes to school curricula across France, and after his death a backlash against his students began. The postwar years were also difficult politically for Mauss. Many of his friends and colleagues died in the war, and Durkheim died shortly before its end. The years of World War I were absolutely devastating for Mauss. It was at this time that he began drawing more and more on ethnography, and his work began increasingly to look like what we would today call anthropology. Mauss took up a chair in the 'history of religion and uncivilized peoples' at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in 1901. He was particularly active in the events of the Dreyfus affair and towards the end of the century he helped edit such left-wing papers as le Populaire, l'Humanité and le Mouvement Socialiste, the last in collaboration with Georges Sorel.

Like many members of Année Sociologique Mauss was attracted to socialism, particularly that espoused by Jean Jaurès. His first publication in 1896 marked the beginning of a prolific career that would produce several landmarks in the sociological literature. Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée, however, Mauss moved to Paris and took up the study of comparative religion and the Sanskrit language. Mauss was born in Épinal, Vosges to a Jewish family, and studied philosophy at Bordeaux, where his uncle Émile Durkheim was teaching at the time and agregated in 1893.

Mauss essay on the gift