Why has the concept of exchange proven such a useful tool in anthropology?

Authors Avatar

Why has the Concept of Exchange Proved Such a Useful Tool of Analysis in Anthropology?

                                                                        

Seeking to uncover what material things, cultural practices and social relations signify to people through extensive research of exchange practices in ‘archaic societies’, Marcel Mauss stood in the centre of the great ethnographic wave that took off in the early thirties of the 20th century.  Although his work was in many ways a calculated attack on the then contemporary political theory of utilitarianism his ethnographic work on the North-American potlatch opened a space for comparative analysis of not only the pre-capitalist economics, but gave birth to the idea that the classification of phenomena in every society is a rational expression of the collective consciousness and that grand institutions of reciprocal gift exchange have significant explanatory value in revealing this. Malinowski’s classic study of the kula will be assessed along with the potlatch in order to reveal how exchange has proven to be a useful analytical tool of holistic and comparative anthropological research.

One of the first novelties that Marcel Mauss introduces is the break-off from radical evolutionist interpretations of society, all the while not dismissing arguments that are in favour of the theory of development of modern societies from those that are primitive. As Mauss stated in the famous text, ‘Primitive Classification’, written with Durkheim (1963), there is rationality in primitive thought thus leading him to believe that analysis of the organization of reality in archaic societies sheds a light on the role of the collective consciousness in the shaping of society (Durkheim, Mauss 1963, p. 81-88). This collective consciousness is abundant in meaning, and as a result it introduces sense and purpose into the social which can then be read in the thoughts and actions of the individual.  During his study of the Eskimo way of life and the rhythmic variations in the level of socialization that are a variable of season change and social regulation, Mauss came upon the idea of the existence of certain compensatory mechanisms in society, an idea that he further developed in his famous work ‘The Gift.

Join now!

While examining gift-giving ceremonies among tribal societies, Mauss noticed that utilitarian, economic exchange was secondary to and a consequence that followed compulsory gift-giving and receiving which bound individuals, families, clans and even whole tribes according to a principal that takes the shape of potlatch. This festivity represents a ceremonial competition between clans and their leaders and includes gift-giving and the destruction of food, blankets or copper objects according to a set of rules, of which three have the greatest power – to give as the necessary basic first step necessary for the establishment of social bonds, to receive in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay