Gift Exchange: The Transnational History of a Political Idea

Since Marcel Mauss published his foundational essay The Gift in 1925, many anthropologists and specialists of international relations have seen in the exchange of gifts, debts, loans, concessions or reparations the sources of international solidarity and international law. Still, Mauss's reflections were deeply tied to the context of interwar Europe and the French colonial expansion. Their normative dimension has been profoundly questioned after the age of decolonization. A century after Mauss, we may ask: what is the relevance of his ideas on gift exchanges and international solidarity? By tracing how Mauss's theoretical and normative ideas inspired prominent thinkers and government officials in France and Algeria, from Pierre Bourdieu to Mohammed Bedjaoui, Gr goire Mallard adds a building block to our comprehension of the role that anthropology, international law, and economics have played in shaping international economic governance from the age of European colonization to the latest European debt crisis. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Author: Grégoire Mallard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 03/14/2019
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.91lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.64d
ISBN: 9781108453486

About the Author
Mallard: - Grégoire Mallard is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He is the author of Fallout: Nuclear Diplomacy in an Age of Global Fracture (2014) and co-editor of Contractual Knowledge: One Hundred Years of Legal Experimentation in Global Markets (Cambridge, 2016). His publications focus on prediction, knowledge and ignorance in global governance.