Ebook: Sociology of Giving ()
Author: Helmuth Berking
- Series: Theory Culture & Society
- Year: 1999
- Publisher: SAGE
- Language: English
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We all give and receive gifts. But few of us reflect on the risks and uncertainties inherent to this form. For example, to give means to acquire power, to effect a symbolic exchange, to initiate ties and alliances, to convey social messages to others and to classify our own status. Gift-giving is also a device to register honour and shame, to show solidarity, to equalize and to create intimacy.
This fascinating volumelooks at the ambivalence of gift-giving; contemporary gift-giving, its motives, occasions and its rules; examines `sacrifice′, `food-sharing′ and `gift-giving′ as those basic institutions upon which symbolic orders of `traditional′ society rely; and considers the historical invention of hospitality, paving the
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