Helmuth Berking

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Sociology of Giving

Helmuth Berking

Synopsis:
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 attribute rights and duties, to convey social messages to others and to classify our own status. Gift-giving is also a device to register honour and shame, to hierarchize and stratify, to show solidarity, to invent reciprocal forms of recognition, to equalize and to create intimacy.

This book decodes the ambivalence of gift-giving. It examines its socio-ethical and integrative potential. Following a short recollection of contemporary gift-giving, its motives, occasions and its rules, the reader is invited to travel back in time and space examining `sacrifice', `food-sharing', and `gift giving' as those basic institutions upon which symbolic orders of `traditional' society rely. The historical invention of hospitality is considered and paves the way to an analysis of the anthropology of giving.

Berking goes on to explore the transition from traditional society to the market, self interest form. He questions the view that our societies are dominated by individualism and explores the contemporary interplay between self interest and the common good. Berking conludes by sketching a moral economy beyond the rationale of the market place and a world caught in the grip of competitive possessive individualism.

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Other editions: Softcover - 2002, 1994, 1989, 1988, Hardcover - 1984