Marcel Mauss

Le concept de nation chez M. Mauss comparé à la question actuelle des identités nationales et culturelles en Europe. À partir d'études de cas de l'histoire politique contemporaine, aussi différents l'un de l'autre que la formation des nations balkaniques, au tournant du dernier siècle, et la situation des immigrés en France ou des migrants en Europe, j'essaie de montrer que les concepts de 'nation', 'nationalisme' et 'citoyenneté' doivent être appréhendés autant comme des constructions identitaires que politiques et juridiques. Il importe donc de concilier les approches historique, sociopolitique et anthropologique de l'idée de nation et essayer de comprendre la construction des identités, des relations interethniques et des valeurs interculturelles dans le monde actuel, que ce soit en Europe, en ex-Yougoslavie ou au Maghreb.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that roman patronage, as antiutilitarian phenomenon, fairly follow the gift theory by Marcel Mauss.
In the first part of the paper, I will briefly explain the evolution of the patronage phenomenon inside the roman society. Following the studies of Richard Saller we can observe that the Roman patronage is a dependence relationship between people, in which there is a reciprocal exchange of goods and services that persist through the time. Furthermore, this relation must be absolutely asymmetric, in the sense that the two parties must come from two different social classes and they must offer appropriate goods and services according to the position that they occupy in the society. If we assume this definition, we can identify four different kind of patronage rapports in the roman society: patronus-cliens, patronus-libertus, the juridical patronage and the collective patronage. Therefore, in this first part I will explain all of these different kind of relationships.
In the second part, I will try to define the social role of patronage in the Roman Empire with the help of the histoire comparée postulate, inter alia, by Marc Bloch. This method also permits an anthropological approach to the topic, since dependant relationships are inborn in every human society. Here, for example, I will compare the social role of potlatch in the Kwakiutl communities of the North America, well described by Franz Boas, and the patronage relationships in the Roman society. I will explain the similarity of the both systems: for example they are strongly based on the idea of reciprocity and they are mainly out of the codified laws of the two societies.
In the third and last part, I will conclude that different phenomena regulate the role of the people inside the human societies, but all this phenomena mainly follow the guidelines postulated by Marcel Mauss in his work essai sur le don: give-receive-reciprocate. In this paper, I choose to compare the Roman patronage with the potlatch system, but we can find similar phenomena in every societies for example in the feudal system or in the Mafia model or even more in the kula ceremony. In this way, I will try to define the important social role that the patronage relationships had in the Roman society. Maybe this approach could be advantageous also to inspect the general human behaviours.

The concept of a “total social fact” is, regardless of how it is theorized, a bold proclamation indeed. What does ‘totality’ range over? What do we mean by ‘fact’? How do either of these apply to whatever the ‘social’ is? In this paper I present what I see as Marcel Mauss’ case for the (gift as a) total social fact, which follows in large part from his intellectual forebearers in Durkheim and broader French sociology in the early 20th century. I will then argue that taking more seriously the question of the similarity/contrast between gifts and commodities, rather than taking their existence and rich sociocultural imbrications as somehow pre-given or a priori, needing no continuous scholarly inspection, offers a better path forward. Offering a few examples from economic and semiotic anthropology, I will offer that more nuanced discursive-interactional and material-semiotic approaches help to better articulate the means and paths by which things acquire and bestow ‘value’, reflexively and upon members of society, particularly when keeping in mind that things themselves have biographies which contain social meanings and facilitate social actions. The takeaway will be that objects taken to be gifts or commodities are constituted as such primarily in/through discursive-interaction, thus requiring that social participants engaged in production, circulation, exchange, consumption, etc. share a common code for articulating a thing’s status and what that signifies.

Was feiern wir an Weihnachten? Dass es sich bei dem christlichen Feiertag in den westlichen Gesellschaften längst nicht mehr um ein bloßes Zelebrieren der Geburt Jesu Christi handelt, ist offensichtlich. Der scheinbare Widerspruch zwischen dem christlichen Ursprung des Festes und seiner Verschränkung mit einer hochgradig säkularen Konsumkultur (und ihrer Manifestation in den Akten des Kaufens und Schenkens) wird immer wieder öffentlich diskutiert. Fraglich ist dabei, ob das westliche Weihnachtsfest überhaupt noch als christlicher Feiertag behandelt werden kann, denn die christliche Religion scheint in den meisten der mit Weih- nachten verbundenen Riten und Glaubenssätze keine wirkliche Rolle mehr zu spielen.

Repositioning speech, whether it is rhetorical speech or performative utterance, in its context, its space and its dynamics help us determine its scope and limitations and identify related elements. Through the prism of American interactionism or French anthropology, the study of the effectiveness of «speech acts» in their actuality (and not as pure linguistic category) brings out two major elements. Firstly, the necessity of speech to inscribe itself (in dual mode) in a situation or milieu, and secondly, the importance of proof in establishing and maintaining the efficiency of the language. Complementing speech, the physical dimension must also be fairly reconsidered, because it plays a key role in the system, by overcoming the «impotences» of speech.

Depuis 2015 Jean-Michel Servet voit dans le “partage au sens de bien
commun” une forme du principe de réciprocité dont il conteste l ’assimilation au don.
Il rejette aussi la conception de la monnaie qui la rapporte au concept de dette de vie,
car elle occulterait l ’existence du partage. Le chapitre discute ce point de vue en en
récusant avec minutie l ’argumentation. Il montre que le partage ne saurait être assimilé
à la réciprocité telle que la définissent R. Thurnwald, B. Malinowski, M. Mauss et K.
Polanyi.

Lorsqu’on évoque le « socialisme », on croit savoir de quoi il est question, alors même qu’aujourd’hui tout repère se dérobe qui pourrait nous aider à préciser le sens attaché à ce mot. L’épuisement de l’élan réformiste, tout comme l’effondrement des espérances révolutionnaires, ont fini par vider le socialisme de toute substance, à tel point qu’il se trouve aujourd’hui confiné dans l’espace très étroit d’une alternative prévisible au sein du jeu qui structure le champ de la représentation politique. Les critiques soulignent alors la crise idéologique des partis et la fin de ce conflit des forces sociales où la société démocratique est censée prendre forme. On n’ajoutera pas, ici, une autre voix au concert de ces critiques: il est peut-être temps de décaler le regard et d’envisager le socialisme autrement, à savoir comme une question des sciences sociales, et plus précisément comme un problème sociologique. Si un tel déplacement peut être opéré, c’est que le socialisme a accompagné la naissance même de la sociologie au XIXème siècle, s’imposant comme un objet où elle pouvait reconnaître l’anticipation, sur le plan de l’action, de sa propre réflexion sur la société.

Las expresiones del pensamiento mágico abundan en el mundo contemporáneo y se han multiplicado durante la pandemia. Desde políticos que muestran públicamente sus escapularios hasta sectores de la población que atacan al personal de salud. La mayoría de nosotros tampoco puede negar mencionar a veces la “mala suerte” o la “buena fortuna”. Nadie está exento de caer en las lógicas específicas del pensamiento mágico, lo cual, como nos lo muestra este ensayo desde el punto de vista de la antropología, ofrece interesantes enfoques sobre nuestras maneras de entender el mundo y sobrellevar la angustia.

This article offers a new interpretation of Marcel Mauss's The Gift. It situates Mauss's argument within his broader thinking on the politics of sovereign debt cancellation and the question of German reparations paid to the Allies after World War I. Mauss applauded the policies of reparation and debt cancellation proposed by the French " solidarist " activists who were responsible for inclusion of reparations provisions in the Versailles Treaty. But Mauss was also aware that their legal mobilization could not by itself restore a sense of solidarity among European peoples. Broader systems of political alliance and anthropological norms of gift-making were also necessary. In Mauss's writings on war reparations, as in The Gift, he described the legal, political, and macrostructural dynamics at work in the settlement of reparations and sovereign debts, which he differentiated from the dynamics at work in the speculative logics of financial capitalism. In doing so, Mauss provided insights into the settlement of sovereign debt crises, which still agitate the international community today.

L’artiste donne-t-il plus à la communauté lorsqu’il élabore des stratégies d’attaque d’un ennemi identifié (le détournement du spectacle, selon Debord) ? Lorsqu’il met directement en circulation des images « émancipées » (le partage du sensible, selon Rancière) ? Ou lorsqu’il réfléchit sa propre projection fantasmatique de l’autre dans le regard – et la voix  – qu’il reçoit (la traduction de la parole des subalternes, selon Spivak) ? Ses trois esthétiques et leur circuit du don respectif peuvent bien sûr se compléter l’une l’autre. Ainsi, chercher à conjoindre une stratégie de reconfiguration sensible et politique à long terme et à portée globale à de nouveaux partages du sensible hic et nunc semble un projet intéressant à soutenir. Ou encore, développer des scènes d’échange où le « recevoir » de l’autre – sa réception – est toujours attendu comme un contre-don qui permettra au donateur de se « revoir », de réfléchir son propre regard et d’amender ses jugements, semble un défit important à relever. D’autant que ce dispositif du « re-se-voir » ne vient pas remplacer les deux autres, mais, à certains égards, intègre le don par détournement, par négation de la négation, et le don par mise à disposition d’un tissu sensible égalitaire.

L’article prolonge les travaux d’Alain Testart et de François Athané, reprenant l’idée qu’une société sans État n’est pas pour autant une société sans droit et que le critère de l’exigibilité s’avère universellement valide afin de caractériser les différents transferts de biens. Revenant sur la définition de l’échange obligatoire et sur la classification des transferts illégitimes, il explore ensuite les situations intermédiaires entre les formes pures de transferts, qui avaient motivé la réflexion initiale de Marcel Mauss. Il distingue les cas d’indétermination (privilégiés par l’Essai sur le don), des cas de combinaison. Plusieurs exemples historiques et ethnologiques sont examinés, en particulier celui du tee de Nouvelle-Guinée, qui se révèle constituer une articulation originale d’échange et de don.

Die Sache der Reziprozität findet sich in alltäglichen Phänomenen wie dem des Grüßens und des Sich-Verabschiedens, des Dankens und des Schenkens. Um sie auf den Begriff zu bringen, wird ihr in diesem Lehrbuch zunächst exemplarisch nachgespürt, indem Protokolle der alltäglichen Phänomene mit der Objektiven Hermeneutik analysiert werden. So wird ein erster Begriff struktureller Reziprozität entwickelt. Mit diesem Begriff im Gepäck wird sodann eine Reise durch die Explikationen von Reziprozität durch M. Mauss, C. Lévi-Strauss und M. Hénaff unternommen. Sie entwickeln anhand ethnographischen Materials und philosophischer Reflexionen Begriffe von Gabe und generalisiertem Tausch. Diese Begrifflichkeit wird nach einer Re-Analyse des Materials und nach argumentativer Überprüfung der Reflexionen mit den zuvor gewonnenen Erkenntnissen konfrontiert. So wird ein empirisch gesättigter und theoretisch plausibler Begriff der strukturellen Reziprozität gewonnen. Im Verlauf der Darstellung wird immer wieder auf leicht zugängliche Phänomene hingewiesen, die den Lesern des Lehrbuchs Forschungsmöglichkeiten zur Prüfung und Anreicherung der Argumentation bieten.

Book chapter in WORK, SOCIETY, AND THE ETHICAL SELF
Chimeras of Freedom in the Neoliberal Era, available from Berghahn Books https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HannWork

Rather than accept formal commodity-like contractual definitions of ‘free’ labor, this chapter reflects on the ambivalence in Mauss’s concept of “prestations totales” (‘total services’) to reconsider the ‘voluntary character’ of work. It discusses Vanuatu’s colonial and unfree labor history, as well as the impact of overseas labor migration on attitudes to work in contemporary Vanuatu. It shows how the meaning and value of ‘free work’, both in terms of working without payment, or working autonomously, depends on the worker’s standpoint within their social and political relations, and how they confront their social obligations.

Based on life history interviews with successfully retired drug dealers, this article examines opportunities and challenges in the suburban underground economy. "Friendship" is key. Suburban drug dealing occurs exclusively through networks of friends, kin, and the acquaintances thereof. Friends are functionally necessary for the suburban illegal drug business but also economically inconvenient in that they require sharing drugs, spending time, "hanging out," and "partying." Friends represent "transaction costs" in conventional economic terms. The ambivalence produced by this, in profiting from friends and mixing sociality and commerce, is best understood via insights from economic anthropology, preeminently Marcel Mauss. For Mauss, gifts and self-interest, generosity and profit, are, and ought to be, conceptually inseparable. Dealers vividly demonstrate this entanglement.

Folgender Beitrag ist das Resultat einer Auseinandersetzung mit sozio-sowie religionssoziologischen Revolutionstheorien. Als Grundlage meiner Ausarbeitungen dienten mir (1) Jack A. Goldstone, Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory (2001), (2) Bruce Lincoln, Notes toward a theory of religion and revolution (1985), (3) Carlos Marroquin, Die Religionstheorie des Collège de Sociologie (2005) und (4) Wolfgang Eßbachs, Religionssoziologie I (2014). Innerhalb der amerikanischen Theoretisierung von Revolutionen, so Jack Goldstone 2001, haben erst im "letzten Jahrzehnt Kritiker struktureller Theorien die Notwendigkeit argumentiert, Führerschaft, Ideologie und Prozesse der Identifikation mit revolutionären Bewegungen als Schlüsselmomente in der Produktion von Revolution zu integrieren." 1 Mein Argument lautet, dass die Religionssoziologie über eigenständige Theorien und Methoden verfügt, die dazu beitragen, gerade diese Leerstellen nicht nur beschreibend, sondern auch erklärend zu füllen. Grundlegend geht es hierbei darum, die Rolle von kollektiven Stimmungen sowie sozialen Bedürfnissen im Rahmen von gesellschaftlichen Wandlungsprozessen in Rechnung zu stellen. Religion wird hierbei als jegliche Form von Ideensystemen konzeptionalisiert, die Handlungen von Gruppen legitimieren. I. Revolution, Religion und Soziologie: Obgleich das Verhältnis zwischen Revolution und Religion seit der Begründung der Soziologie als akademische Fachdisziplin Anfang des 20. Jh. reflektiert wurde, ist dieser Zusammenhang durch den Einfluss von linearen Modernisierungstheorien weitestgehend ins Hintertreffen geraten. Erst die Iranische Revolution 1977-1979 nötigte Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen wieder vermehrt dazu, die Auffassungen über den Verlauf der Geschichte der Moderne zu reformulieren. Bruce Lincoln konstatierte 1985 angesichts dieser Tatsache, dass die bislang verfügbaren Modelle zu Revolution und Religion nicht in der Lage waren, die Ereignisse im Iran adäquat zu erfassen, dass "die Möglichkeit, dass Religion eine wahrlich revolutionäre Rolle spielen kann […] in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten selten in der gelehrten Literatur an die Oberfläche trat." 2 Lincoln setzt die Frage, welche Rolle Religion in 1 Goldstone Jack A., Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory, in: Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2001/4, 139-87. 2 Lincoln Bruce (Hrsg.), Religion, Rebellion, Revolution: An interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collection of essays (Honk Kong 1985), S. 5.

The author in her article investigates the rules, norms and practices of gift-giving at weddings in Ghimeș (Romania). She presents local people’s experiences about gift exchange at weddings and the way they interpret the process of gift giving and reciprocation, what calculations precede the compilation of guest lists, what factors are taken into consideration when people accept or reject wedding invitation and in what way they calculate the proper sum of money to be given as gift to the young couple. The return of gifts does not take place automatically in each case, the indebted party is not always asked to reciprocate, and not every indebted guest accepts invitation and returns the gift. The author has reconsidered the local norms of gift-giving at weddings relying upon Marcel Mauss’ model of gift exchange (1925). She wondered to what extent this model elaborated on premodern societies can be applied to societies in the 21st century. She observed gift giving at weddings on her
fi eld site in Ghimeș between 2007 and 2016, and points out that beyond the trinity of giving, accepting and reciprocating fixed by Mauss, some other factors also have to be taken into consideration as not all practices and norms of local gift exchange at weddings can be described with these three acts, which might call for a supplementation and further elaboration of the model.

Les nouvelles technologies font l'objet aussi bien de discours technophobes que de discours technophiles. L'humanité serait sur le point de connaître soit sa destruction, soit sa transformation transhumaniste. Malgré leur opposition, leur point commun est leur résonance théologique, d'inspiration millénariste. Dominique Lecourt a souligné combien ces discours procèdent par confusion entre technologie et technique, et entre science et technique. Ils reposent également sur l'idée de nature humaine.
A partir des éclairages et des pistes de renouvellement conceptuels de Dominique Lecourt, je propose de sortir de ces visions prophétiques pour demander si les nouvelles technologies appliquées au domaine de la sexualité, considérée comme intrinsèque à la condition humaine, engagent une révolution anthropologique, ou plus modestement des possibilités créatives de l'être humain, en utilisant notamment les concepts de techniques du corps de Marcel Mauss et de techniques de soi de Michel Foucault.

In this paper (published five years after I wrote it) I attempt to show that, through his reading of Proudhon in The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), Lévi-Strauss aimed at solving the well-known dilemma put forth by Hobbes and Rousseau: was there at the dawn of humanity human competition, or peaceful commonality? With this purpose, I analyse two key passages in chs. 3 and 21 of Lévi-Strauss’s doctoral dissertation which heretofore have not received due attention. Read side by side, these passages prove, first, that Lévi-Strauss was deeply familiar with Proudhon’s thought. Secondly, they show that Proudhon’s ideas influenced his own concepts considerably, to the point that their respective views can be said to intertwine. Lastly, they make patent that Proudhon’s influence on the founder of structural anthropology touches on the very fundamental problem to which the latter consecrated his life and career as an anthropologist. Additionally, I provide some insights into Lévi-Strauss’s early writings, his reading of Mauss, and the work of Pierre Clastres.

PASTHENIE e perkthimit shqip te Georges Bataille, "Erotizmi", IDK, Tirane 2006
POSTFACE à la traduction albanaise de Georges Bataille, "L'Erotisme".
AFTERWORD for the albanian translation of Georges Bataille, "Erotism. Death and Sensuality"

Cuốn Luận về biếu tặng của Marcel Mauss (do Nguyễn Tùng dịch) là một công trình " khảo cổ học về bản chất của các giao dịch của con người " nhằm đi tìm những chiều kích nhân văn vốn tồn tại trong các mối quan hệ trao đổi giữa các cộng đồng cổ sơ. Khái niệm " sự kiện xã hội tổng thể " cũng như lối tiếp cận lý thuyết từ quan điểm của người bản địa của Mauss đã tạo ra một thứ hệ hình mới mẻ, dẫn đến một bước ngoặt quan trọng trong tư duy khoa học xã hội trong thế kỷ XX, và cho đến tận ngày nay vẫn còn tiếp tục gây ra cả sự hứng thú lẫn sự tranh luận trong nhiều công trình nghiên cứu nhân học và xã hội học.

Norbert Elias’s project in The process of civilization (1939) involved reconstructing invisible movement—both the slow tempoof long-term historical change and the modification of psychic structures and embodied dispositions. To do this, he resorted to uncommon devices: treating historical texts as constituting a series amenable to a rudimentary discourse analysis, he constructed an imagined ‘curve of civilization’ serving as an approximation of the hidden process of change. Elias’s curve was not supposed to represent single past states, but movement itself, its direction and pace. This novel concept of historical representation was related to the perception of cinema as a new medium making actual movement visible. But beyond making it possible to imagine how one could telescope long-term historical process, cinema also held the promise of serving as a microscope, making the minute movements of the human body, gestures and manners available for close inspection. While anthropologists were devising ways of using the new medium to document fleeting gestures and bodily postures, it was used by popular audiences as a source for remodelling behaviour and acquiring polite manners and body techniques, as noticed by such acute observers as Marcel Mauss and Joseph Roth. Hence, popular appropriation of the cinema gave rise to a heightened awareness of the historicity of gestures and the changing modalities of their transmission. Cinema was itself part of the accelerated motion of history, of a perceived change of pace in the process of civilization, which in its turn shed light on its historical antecedents and played an essential role in rethinking the notion of civilization and culture.

En este ensayo se intenta identificar el surgimiento y la evolución de uno de los objetos de investigación más importantes en la obra de Marcel Mauss: el intercambio. Del análisis cronológico de sus textos puede inferirse que éste aparece, en una primera instancia, como instancia social de las categorías del entendimiento humano de relación primero, la de causalidad, y luego la de comunidad o reciprocidad. En el marco el grupo de trabajo dirigido por Émile Durkheim —que constituye también el equipo editorial de la revista L’Année Sociologique—, Mauss construye en una primera etapa una obra que es producto de la división del trabajo intelectual bajo la cual se ha conformado el grupo; encontrar los diversos fundamentos sociológicos de las categorías del entendimiento humano es uno de los objetivos principales de dicha empresa.

Emile Durkheim, ícone da Sociologia, foi o precursor dos estudos com a utilização de pesquisas empírica e teórica e é considerado o pai da sociologia científica e fundador da escola sociológica francesa, juntamente com seu sobrinho, Marcel Mauss. Este artigo traz uma breve relação entre os dois pensadores e estudiosos que além de serem imprescindíveis para as Ciências Sociais, também compartilham um grau de parentesco.

Parto de cenário abrangente para olhar especificamente para determinado grupo: punks em situação de desemprego ou trabalho precarizado e intermitente. Com o objetivo de perceber relações e simbolismos envolvidos na produção e circulação de objetos, e mais especificamente de que forma tais práticas ocorrem, realizei etnografia com observação participante e entrevistas em Curitiba e região metropolitana de Porto Alegre, entre 2018 e 2020. Transitando entre o sentido do trabalho estruturado pelo capital e a centralidade do punk em suas vidas, estas pessoas, trabalhando como artesãos, cuidadores de carros ou entregadores de comida poraplicativo, não deixam de produzir e promover a circulação de camisetas, fanzines, adesivos, música, álbuns e shows.
A compreensão de Marcel Mauss sobre sistemas de trocas embrenhados em dimensões simbólicas fornece elementos para um diálogo com as transações encontradas em campo. Envolta em afetos, a circulação de objetos é mediada pela pertença, colocando o valor mercantil em segundo plano e situando as pessoas no próprio punk.

A Revista Piezas: en diálogo filosofía y ciencias humanas, uma publicação mexicana com direção editorial do sociólogo Jaime Torres Guillén, acabou de publicar um número com Dossiê sobre Alain Caillé, que contém uma entrevista inédita de Alain Caillé, uma introdução ao autor e à sua obra por André Magnelli, um ensaio de Paulo Henrique Martins sobre o antiutilitarismo do M.A.U.S.S. e um artigo de Guillén sobre o convivialismo de Ivan Illich.

Disponibilizamos em nosso site o pdf da Revista, convidando a todos que a conheçam e leiam não apenas o dossiê mas também o restante dos artigos de mais um excelente número de Piezas.

Resumo Este ensaio discute o turismo de base comunitária à luz da teoria da dádiva, buscando delinear pistas para o seu desenvolvimento em reservas extrativistas. Para tal, a reflexão foi ilustrada com a experiência da Reserva Extrativista da Prainha do Canto Verde-Ceará (Brasil). A metodologia se baseou, principalmente, em pesquisa bibliográfica e documental. Os principais resultados obtidos revelaram que os laços sociais e as alianças identificadas na circulação da dádiva, internamente à esta comunidade, tecem uma sociabilidade comunitária, que se dilata na relação entre visitados e visitantes, ensejando o TBC. Além disso, as dádivas que circulam entre visitantes e visitados reforçam a manutenção da sociabilidade comunitária, possibilitando novos arranjos de ação coletiva (interna e externamente) em um processo que se retroalimenta nos dois sentidos, propiciando a transformação social relacionada aos códigos culturais e a interpretação das diferenças no processo de interculturalidade. Palavras-chave: Turismo de base comunitária, Teoria da Dádiva, Prainha do Canto Verde, Reserva Extrativista. Introdução No contexto da crise civilizatória, o turismo pode representar uma das forças motrizes de transformação da sociedade pós-moderna, capaz de influenciar no redesenho das estruturas mundiais, no processo de globalização, na formação de grandes blocos econômicos e em mutações profundas do espaço geográfico (TRIGO, 1999). Essa abordagem envolve também certa idealização do turismo, que tende à sua supervalorização, em um contexto de riscos geopolíticos e incertezas de toda ordem.

This paper intervenes in the longstanding debate over modernism’s relationship to the market by taking the publication of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Marcel Mauss’s landmark essay, The Gift, in 1925 as a prompt to remap the historical and conceptual intersections between Anglo-American modernist literature, economic discourse, and twentieth-century theories of gift exchange. Drawing a crucial distinction between a modernist fascination with the gift and a modernist fascination with the primitive, I argue that Mauss uniquely conceived what John Maynard Keynes called the “end of laissez-faire’’ in terms of a shift in our collective thinking about gifts and exchanges. Via her sympathetic and critical characterization of Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf then figures this shift in terms of the emergence of a feminine ethos of hospitality. In furthermore establishing literature’s centrality to fostering this ethos, she also anticipates, while historicizing and gendering, the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss, one of Mauss’s primary heirs.

Questo articolo vorrà esaminare il concetto di dono in epoca moderna ponendo l’attenzione in primo luogo sugli aspetti principali studiati da Mauss nel suo Essai sur le don (1923-1924). Verranno poi analizzate le due principali economie del dono, Kula e Potlacht. Successivamente verranno introdotte alcune teorie moderne focalizzando l’attenzione sulla nuova concezione di dono per poi esporre inoltre le varie critiche al modello utilitarista compiute dal MAUSS (Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste en Sciences Sociales). Infine verranno proposte una serie di soluzioni analizzate da Giancarlo Provasi nel suo La lezione sempre attuale del «Saggio sul sono» di M.Mauss alla “crisi della modernità” ponendo l’attenzione sulle moderne pratiche del dono e come queste siano in grado di rivitalizzare i legami sociali e gli obblighi morali alla base della società civile.