Gift Cycle Research Articles

Life’s potentiality as multispecies gift

Contemporary political ecological problems reduce possibilities for future human and non-human life. These problems are the result of modern capitalist humans’ attempt to break away from multispecies bonds and turn non-humans into resources to be appropriated. These bonds are crucial for the continued generation of life, which can only result from intergenerational and interspecies shared time, effort, and energy. By expanding the works of Mauss’ intellectual heirs and Levinas towards multispecies interactions, this gift of life can be better understood. Life received by newborn humans entangles them in a multispecies gift cycle that obligates them to reciprocate the gift of life’s potentiality. This requires acknowledging humans’ ethical responsibilities for all others, human and non-human, currently alive or potentially born in the future. In turn, this responsibility can only unfold as political ecologically sustainable actions that keep multispecies communities healthy enough to keep giving life’s potentiality to future generations.

The Gift Paradigm: Towards a Science of “total social facts”

Abstract In this essay I argue that Marcel Mauss’s “Essay on the Gift” (1925) is not only intended to inaugurate a new paradigm on the terrain of ethnology and anthropology, but at the same time to make the gift a kind of novum organum of the social sciences and of moral and political philosophy itself. In the first part, I reconstructed the critique that M. Merleau-Ponty and C. Lefort have made to Lévi-Strauss’s “structuralist” reading of Mauss, and, in a second part, I emphasised the importance that M. Hénaff assigned to the ceremonial gift of traditional societies as an intentional procedure of public mutual recognition between groups. But, using some of A. Caillé’s indications, I explain that this device of mutual recognition and alliance, characteristic of the gift cycle (giving/receiving/ reciprocating) also applies in modern societies whenever legal-political institutions become sclerotized and lose their legitimacy in the face of new actors in political action (newcomers or new arrivals, to use the Arendtian category of natality in a broad sense).

The Gifts of Erasmus

Abstract The article is a short introduction to the life-long gift-practice of Erasmus—the gifts he received, the gifts he gave, and the symbolic and moral meaning of the gift cycle of reception, gratitude, and reciprocation that pertained to a wide range of exchanges—from small objects to casks of wine to large gifts of money. His book dedications also belonged to that same gift cycle. His management of gifts was driven in part by necessity, as he needed funds and sometimes protection in order to pursue his studies and writing outside the normal framework of institutional structures. Gifts were a sign of his capacity to flourish within the community of friends (and donors) that he was able to draw around himself.

‘We help them, and they help us’: Reciprocity and relationality in Chinese aid to Africa

AbstractThis paper applies Marcel Mauss' Gift Theory in conjunction with Qin Yaqing's Relational Theory to Chinese foreign aid. It proposed that this approach allows to conceptualise Chinese aid to Africa as a continuous gift cycle initiated in Bandung and has been going uninterrupted till today. The paper argues through the language of reciprocity and relationality, China symbolically affords the recipient status in a way that Northern aid does not. The real existing power asymmetries between China and Africa do not per se translate into unlimited influence as China can never be sure of reciprocity and is obliged to keep giving continuously.

Hypermoderne, pléonexie et nouvelle économie psychique : éléments de réflexion pour une nouvelle écologie des liens

ContextThe advent of hypermodernity, promoted by neoliberal ideology, was accompanied by changes in the social bond that had major consequences in terms of psychic economy and of the ecology of relationships. In this, based on a social bond whose motor is no longer desire but envy, and where the Real appears to be evacuated in favor of an injunction to maximum jouissance, this construction has come to radicalize the so-called pleonexic tendency identified by Plato and classical Hellenist philosophy. In this sense, it tends to promote a way of living where having and appropriation predominate. GoalsWe try to highlight how these aspects, which various authors have identified in terms of psychic economics and relational schemes, are essential to an understanding of the climate crisis and the subject of hypercomplex research that it represents. MethodFrom a socio-historical analysis and from our position as practitioners of micropolitics, we identify the terms of hypermodernity, and we show how it comes to radicalize humanity's natural pleonexic tendency. We emphasize how this strengthening of having deflects the exchange, and more generally the “gift cycle,” by promoting an ecology of relationships focused on the mimicry of appropriation and on the symmetrical logics of accumulation. Finally, in the light of these elements, we analyze the elements of observation that can be identified around the climate issue. ResultsOur developments highlight how hypermodern pleonexic subjectivity turns out to be a relational and systemic deadlock, leading to a loss of flexibility in the bond between subject and environment. ConclusionFrom the analysis of this particular link to the environment, it is our way of being there, of being with, and of living that is put to the test. We point out, in the face of emerging ecological issues, the importance of strengthening the collective and mimetic logics of collaboration in our supporting micro-political practices; in this, we seek to promote a commons of the intelligible, rather than that of the uniformity inherent in neoliberalism.

Pedagogía del don. Relación y servicio en educación

espanolApoyandonos en la teoria del don de Marcel Mauss, se presenta una manera de entender el lazo social que nos ayude a explicar la formacion de las personas como sujetos morales. Tras exponer los interrogantes que subyacen en nuestra reflexion, se indican los metodos que nos han permitido elaborar la propuesta. El objetivo del articulo es dar a conocer y contribuir a incorporar los dinamismos del don –la relacion y el servicio a la comunidad– en el ambito educativo. Este se desarrolla a partir de dos ideas: que el don es un dinamismo formativo esencial y que una educacion completa requiere un doble ciclo de don: de los educadores a los educandos y de estos a la comunidad. Por ultimo, se presenta una propuesta metodologica apropiada para trabajar cada ciclo de don: la tutoria y el aprendizaje servicio. EnglishBased on Marcel Mauss’s theory of the gift, a way of understanding the social bond which helps to explain the formation of people as moral subjects is presented. After presenting the questions that underlie our refl ection, the methods used to prepare the proposal are explained. The aim of the article is to raise awareness and contribute to the incorporation of the dynamisms of the gift –its relationship and service to the community– in the field of education. This is based on two concepts: that the gift is an essential formative dynamism and that a well-rounded education demands a two-way gift cycle: from teachers to students and from the latter to the community. Finally, an appropriate methodological proposal is presented to work on each cycle of the gift: the tutorial and service learning.

Gift and Reciprocity at Work? Using Mauss to Explore Justifications for the Solidarity Day in the Aftermath of the 2003 Heatwave

The August 2003 heatwave resulted in an additional 15,000 deaths in France, mostly among the very old. In the aftermath of the disaster, an annual Solidarity Day (Journée de Solidarité) was introduced as part of the reform process. By cancelling a public holiday, the French government sought to raise 2 billion euros to finance healthcare for the elderly and disabled. The first such day in May 2005 led to confusion, with opposition from unions, demonstrations by public sector employees and considerable uncertainty among the workforce as to its legal status. This article seeks to analyse this public policy experiment through the lens of Marcel Mauss' theory of gift and reciprocity, exploring potential normative justifications for the French state's organisation of the day—and therein the constraints—while examining the moral and political obligations placed upon workers, the elderly and the Republic through the engineering of collective solidarity. It seeks to test the relevance and limits of the gift cycle as a tool for contemporary political and social analysis of the modern welfare state.

Gendering Reciprocity

Theories of reciprocity have been surprisingly gender-blind. We develop a gendered account of reciprocity using qualitative data from Russia. We focus on gifts of unpaid task assistance, where gender differences are particularly visible. In our data, women’s gifts of labor involve greater time and effort than men’s, but women report nonreciprocation, while men do not. Paradoxically, the most onerous gifts are those least likely to be reciprocated. We show how this puzzling finding relates to the gendering of reciprocity. We define four stages of the gift cycle—giving, (non)recognition, (non)reciprocation, and givers’ responses to (non)reciprocation—detailing how each is gendered. We argue that reciprocity is a socially embedded phenomenon that cannot be considered in isolation from gender norms. This insight has implications for research employing reciprocity as a framework, and for debates in relation to issues such as care work and family relations.

Thick prescriptions: toward an interpretation of pharmaceutical sales practices.

Anthropologists of medicine and science are increasingly studying all aspects of pharmaceutical industry practices--from research and development to the marketing of prescription drugs. This article ethnographically explores one particular stage in the life cycle of pharmaceuticals: sales and marketing. Drawing on a range of sources-investigative journalism, medical ethics, and autoethnography--the author examines the day-to-day activities of pharmaceutical salespersons, or drug reps, during the 1990s. He describes in detail the pharmaceutical gift cycle, a three-way exchange network between doctors, salespersons, and patients and how this process of exchange is currently in a state of involution. This gift economy exists to generate prescriptions (scripts) and can mask and/or perpetuate risks and side effects for patients. With implications of pharmaceutical industry practices impacting everything from the personal-psychological to the global political economy, medical anthropologists can play a lead role in the emerging scholarly discourse concerned with critical pharmaceutical studies.

Elevated level of follicular fluid vascular endothelial growth factor is a marker of diminished pregnancy potential

Objective: To evaluate whether differences in follicular fluid vascular endothelial growth factor (FF VEGF) concentrations are observed between women achieving a clinical pregnancy and those failing to conceive. Design: Retrospective chart review and analysis of FF VEGF concentrations. Setting: University teaching center. Patient(s): Fifty-seven women ≤42 years of age undergoing follicular aspiration in preparation for IVF or GIFT. Intervention(s): Analysis of FF VEGF concentrations and chart review of a single IVF or GIFT cycle. Main Outcome Measure(s): Follicular fluid VEGF concentrations, clinical pregnancy rate, age, ampules of gonadotropins used, oocytes retrieved, peak estradiol serum concentrations, day 3 FSH levels, and fertilization rate. Result(s): Women who did not conceive had higher FF VEGF concentrations than women achieving a clinical pregnancy (4,409 + 2,387 versus 2,793 ± 1,180 pg/mL: P < .001). A negative correlation was observed between FF VEGF concentrations and peak estradiol levels and number of oocytes retrieved. A positive correlation was found for FF VEGF and patient’s age and ampules of gonadotropins used. Conclusion(s): Elevated FF VEGF concentrations are associated with poor conception rates after IVF or GIFT.

Predicting success of gamete intrafallopian transfer

To examine seminal parameters predictive for success in a cycle of GIFT and to construct an algorithm using pertinent seminal data as well as easily obtained historical data to predict pregnancy and viable pregnancy rates. A retrospective study of 544 cycles in 376 couples. A private IVF-ET and GIFT center. Couples in a GIFT program with a mean of 53.6 months of infertility who had failed to conceive with other therapies. Gamete intrafallopian transfer. Pregnancy as a function of laboratory historical data with emphasis on seminal parameters. Motility was the only seminal parameter that was predictive. Success was correlated with the number of oocytes returned and inversely related to female age. An algorithm to predict pregnancy in a GIFT cycle as well as viable pregnancy was constructed. Motility is the only seminal parameter predictive for success in a GIFT cycle. An easily programmable algorithm can be constructed to help patient and physician decide on the appropriateness of GIFT for each couple.

Successful treatment of failed AID cases by use of gamete intra-fallopian transfer using donor semen (GIFT (D))

Over a 13-month period in a newly opened assisted conception unit at the Women's Hospital, Liverpool, gamete intra-fallopian transfer using donor semen, GIFT (D) was offered to eighteen couples who had failed to conceive after numerous cycles of treatment with artificial insemination by donor semen (AID). The indication for the use of donor semen was either azo- or severe oligoaesthenospermia, and, in addition, the female partners have been exhaustively investigated with no major cause found to account for the couple's infertility. Using a basic clomiphene citrate and human menopausal gonadotrophin protocol it was possible to achieve a pregnancy rate of 56% per GIFT (D) cycle. As a consequence of these results it is now our policy to treat couples whose infertility is due to an unresolvable male factor with AID for 12 cycles only. If they have been unsuccessful in achieving a pregnancy after this time, they are offered GIFT (D).

In vitro fertilisation and allied techniques. The initial experiences of the first Irish service.

Since 1986 in vitro fertilisation and allied techniques have formed a part of the fertility service at St. James's Hospital. By June 1988 using routine methodology, IVF or GIFT has been attempted at least once in 94 women with a further 17 having one repeat procedure and 4 two repeat procedures performed. Although embryos were cultured from 54% of oocytes in which fertilisation was attempted, no pregnancies were achieved during that period with IVF. Ten pregnancies had occurred during a GIFT cycle (9 at first attempt, 16%) 60% of these are on-going. Also continuing were pregnancies where ovulation induction was abandoned on day 8 (1) and where conception occurred spontaneously whilst on the waiting list for the procedure (8) and in untreated cycles following the procedure (4) (16%). Seventy percent of patients who failed the first time expressed a wish to try again.