The Enigma of the Gift
The Enigma of the Gift
ISBN: 9780226300450
出版社: University Of Chicago Press
出版年: 1999-2-3
页数: 256
定价: USD 31.00
装帧: Paperback
内容简介
When we think of giving gifts, we think of exchanging objects that carry with them economic or symbolic value. But is every valuable thing a potentially exchangeable item, whose value can be transferred? InThe Enigma of the Gift, the distinguished French anthropologist Maurice Godelier reassesses the significance of gifts in social life by focusing on sacred objects, which are never exchanged despite the value they possess. Beginning with an analysis of the seminal work of Marcel Mauss and Claude Leacute;vi-Strass, and drawing on his own fieldwork in Melanesia, Godelier argues that traditional theories are flawed because they consider only exchangeable gifts. By explaining gift-giving in terms of sacred objects and the authoritative conferral of power associated with them, Godelier challenges both recent and traditional theories of gift-giving, provocatively refreshing a traditional debate. Elegantly translated by Nora Scott,The Enigma of the Giftis at once a major theoretical contribution and an essential guide to the history of the theory of the gift.
作者简介
Maurice Godelier is directeur d'études at the école des Hautes études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, head of the Centre de recherche et de documentation sur l'Océanie, and past scientific director of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His book Grands Hommes (1982) won the Prix de l'Académie Fran?aise.
目录
目录
Forgetting the fourth obligation mens gifts to the gods 29
Is the hau really the key to the mystery? or how Mauss 49
own accord 101
Substitute Objects for Humans and for the Gods 108
Sacred objects as gifts from the Sun the Moon or the spirits 115
Are sacred objects symbols? 121
The mens theft of the flutes 133
Baruya shell necklaces and valuable objects 141
What is the place of potlatch societies in history? 153
What is a valuable? 161
On the metamorphosis of an object of trade into a gift object or 167
and society 175
The Disenchanted Gift 200
Bibliography 211
Notes 222
Index 249