A Relational Approach to Gift-Giving: China's Aid Exchanges in the Global South

Abstract

Abstract This article expands gift-giving theories by shifting the focus of international relations scholarship from Euro-American-centric views on foreign aid to South–South perspectives to gift exchanges. It does so by recentering relationality and analyzing gifts as encompassing favors, symbolic gestures, support in international arenas, and intangible expressions of solidarity as can be seen in China–Africa relations. Building on work in critical theories in international relations and revisiting Marcel Mauss’ work on gift-giving, this article develops a tripartite relational framework to examining foreign aid and gift-giving from Global South perspectives. The elements of the framework are (1) recentering reciprocity as a necessary element (or norm) in gift exchange, which helps break the rigid donor versus recipient binary; (2) capturing nonmaterial modalities of aid by accounting for solidarity gestures; and (3) expanding the temporal horizon of reciprocation by accepting that the circulation of gifts, favors, and solidarity does not have to occur on a tight timeline of immediate transaction exchanges. Together, these three moves go beyond stigmatizing developing states as chronic “recipient” states and highlight how they engage in mobilizing agency to reciprocate aid in ways other than material.