What Gifts Engender

Gift exchange plays a crucial role in the social and political organization of Mendi in Papua New Guinea. This book reveals how considerable light can be shed on Mendi society, particularly on its political economy, by examining both the well-known ceremonial exchange festivals and the hitherto relatively little-studied everyday gift-giving practices. The author shows that the latter are crucial for understanding inter-group politics, the process of leadership, male-female relationships and the status of women, and the production, distribution and circulation of wealth. Currently the only book available on this society, the work offers an unusual combination of a social structural analysis with a study of local history and change. It is also of interest for its integration of the study of gift exchange and politics with the study of gender roles and relationships.

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? In The 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 Lévi-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 Gift is at once a major theoretical contribution and an essential guide to the history of the theory of the gift.

The theme of the gift can be located at the center of current discussions of deconstruction, gender and feminist theory, ethics, philosophy, anthropology, and economics: it is, simply, one of the primary focal points at which contemporary interdisciplinary discourses intersect. Into this context comes a new, indispensable volume. The Logic of the Gift offers several important essays on gifts and gift-giving that are often referred to but seldom read, and adds to them new essays written especially for this collection.

“A scholarly, many-angled examination of what gratitude is and how it functions in our lives” from the bestselling author of The Rituals of Dinner (The New York Times). Known as an “anthropologist of everyday life,” Margaret Visser has won numerous awards for illuminating the unexpected meanings of everyday objects and rituals. Now she turns her keen eye to another custom so ubiquitous that it often escapes notice: saying “Thank you.” What do we really mean by these two simple words? This fascinating inquiry into all aspects of gratitude explores such topics as the unyielding determination of parents to teach their children to thank; the difference between speaking the words and feeling them; and the ways different cultures handle the complex matters of giving, receiving, and returning favors and presents. Visser elucidates the fundamental opposition in our own culture between gift-giving and commodity exchange, as well as the similarities between gratitude and its opposite, vengefulness. The Gift of Thanks considers cultural history, including the modern battle of social scientists to pin down the notion of thankfulness and account for it, and the newly awakened scientific interest in the biological and evolutionary roots of emotions. With characteristic wit and erudition, Visser once again reveals the extraordinary in the everyday. “An anthropological and philosophical account of how and why we give thanks. . . . All delivered in elegant, clear prose. A book to be thankful for—sympathetic to human foible, deeply learned and a pleasure to read.” —Kirkus Reviews “A delightful and graceful gift of a book, for which any fortunate recipient will be thankful.” —Publishers Weekly

Edward LiPuma presents an ethnography of Maring social organization in order to develop a generative theory of Highland societies.

A detailed ethnographic and historical analysis of how traditional Tongan values continue to play key roles in the way that Tongans make their way in the modern world.

This astonishing story links first-contact encounters in New Guinea with laboratory experiments in Bethesda, Maryland; sorcery with science; cannibalism with compassion; and slow viruses with infectious proteins, reshaping our understanding of what it means to do science.

In China, at a time when few girls are taught to read or write, Ruby dreams of going to the university with her brothers and male cousins.