The Gift is everywhere: notes on the 100th anniversary of Marcel Mauss’ masterpiece

Abstract

In this essay, I try to highlight the relevance of Marcel Mauss’s The Gift, originally published almost a century ago. In particular, I try to draw attention to some of the major debates on the work, as well as to reflect on developments in this classic of anthropology. This text does not intend to be exhaustive and is aware that there may be more fruitful analyses of the author’s theoretical contributions. It is, however, an invitation to reflect on the importance of Marcel Mauss’s masterpiece. By re-reading The Gift and analyzing commentators and works in different areas of anthropology, I try to draw attention to the relevance of Mauss’s work for the theoretical understanding of aspects in the field of law, kinship relations, political organization forms, issues on to the economy, religion, feast and popular culture, among other themes. In other words, it is a work whose boundaries and interdisciplinary influences continue to expand. At the same time, it remains a central reference for understanding different aspects from the perspective of anthropology and guiding us as a community in these bewildering times in which we live. In other words, even after almost 100 years of criticism, debate, and repercussion, the theoretical contribution and totalizing dimension of The Gift remain undeniable, and its influences are everywhere.