gift exchange

gift exchange, the transfer of goods or services that, although regarded as voluntary by the people involved, is part of the expected social behaviour. Gift exchange may be distinguished from other types of exchange in several respects: the first offering is made in a generous manner and there is no haggling between donor and recipient; the exchange is an expression of an existing social relationship or of the establishment of a new one that differs from impersonal market relationships; and the profit in gift exchange may be in the sphere of social relationships and prestige rather than in material advantage.

The gift-exchange cycle entails obligations to give, to receive, and to return. Sanctions may exist to induce people to give, disapproval or loss of prestige resulting from a failure to do so. Refusal to accept a gift may be seen as refusal of social relations and may lead to enmity. The reciprocity of the cycle rests in the obligation to return the gift; the prestige associated with the appearance of generosity dictates that the value of the return be approximately equal to or greater than the value of the original gift.

The French anthropologist Marcel Mauss made the first extended application of the idea of gift exchange to various aspects of social life, stressing the social concomitants of the exchange rather than its economic functions. A gift exchange may not only provide a recipient with what amounts to credit for a period but also validates, supports, and expresses a social relationship in terms of the status of those concerned. The concept of reciprocity behind gift exchange has been extended into the field of ritual and religion. Thus, some sacrifices may be viewed as gifts to supernatural powers from which a return in the form of aid and approval is expected. Reciprocal social relations, as in the transfer of women in marriage between kin groups, is similar in terms of obligations and types of relationships to gift exchange. Gift exchange such as the potlatch (q.v.) of the Northwest Pacific coast Indians has also been analyzed as an adaptive subsistence aspect of a socioeconomic system allowing for redistribution of surplus wealth and food in certain ecological settings. See also kula.