James G. Carrier

Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations: A Maussian View of Exchange

Sociologists have drawn on anthropological studies of gift exchange systems to help develop models of exchange in social life. This paper presents a reconsideration of the relatively neglected Maussian view of gift and commodity exchange, drawing on both MausssThe Gift and recent work by anthropologists who have extended his ideas. The Maussian model illustrates the partiality of some sociological models of exchange by showing that people, objects, and social relations form a whole that is created and recreated in different ways when people transact with each other in gift and commodity relations. The paper concludes with an illustration of the utility of Mausss model, showing how it can extend recent sociological discussions of the social meaning of objects.

Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts: Representing the Chambri in a World System.

Introduction: On writing the Chambri 1. The new traditionalism: tourism and its transformation 2. The initiation: making men in 1987 3. The town 4. Western representations at home 5. The written word 6. Negotiating the state Conclusion: interlocking stories, intersecting lives Appendix A: Godfried Kollys life story.