Marcel Mauss (jan 1, 1872 – jan 1, 1933)

Description:

About:
-Durkheim collaborator (and nephew)
-did not do fieldwork
-moved beyond "functionalism" into "structural functionalism"

Major Works:
-The Gift (1924)
→ argues that society is built on solidarity but/and also requires reciprocity for survival
→ solidarity based on a "triad of obligations"
1. the obligation to give
2. the obligation to receive
3. the obligation to repay
→ gift-giving represents a "total social fact": one practice that involves multiple dimensions of society--economic, social, religious, and legal
-The Techniques of the Body (1935)
→ one of the first anthropologists to examine how culture shapes the way individuals use their bodies
→ argues bodily behaviors, which might seem natural, are actually learned across societies
→ influential in the development of "embodied anthropology," and in the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and the work of Pierre Bourdieu

Critiques:
-didn’t do his own fieldwork
-Eurocentric logical analysis
-overemphasis on the idea of markets & reciprocity
-no attention to asymmetric power relations or inequality

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