Reconsidering recipocity and capitalism

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dc.contributor.authorRudnyckyj, Daromir
dc.date.accessioned2025-06-04T15:55:07Z
dc.date.available2025-06-04T15:55:07Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstractFor nearly a century, anthropologists have been preoccupied with the gift. So much so, that one of the signature contributions of the subfield of economic anthropology has been to remind the human sciences at large of its importance, not only in non-industrial societies but in contemporary settings as well. By illuminating the importance of gift-giving in KwakwakaŹ¼wakw potlach ceremonies to understand social and political relationships, the discipline was able to cast a reflection by which it could better grasp the role that reciprocity plays in the contemporary world. Thus, the role of Christmas or birthday presents in forging social relations or the ostentatious white tiger and cheetah furs (later determined to be fakes) presented to former US president Donald Trump on his first diplomatic visit with the Saudi royal family could be understood through the optics afforded by attention to the gift. The central insight that the foregrounding of gift exchanges generated was that not every transaction, even in liberal market societies, could be reduced to rational economic calculations. Rather, social or political systems were produced through material-semiotic relationships mediated through gift exchange.
dc.description.reviewstatusReviewed
dc.description.scholarlevelFaculty
dc.identifier.citationRudnyckyj, D. (2023). Reconsidering recipocity and capitalism. Ethnography, 24(3), 450ā€“453. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381231180069
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1177/14661381231180069
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/22331
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherEthnography
dc.subjectcapitalism
dc.subjectgifts
dc.subjectreciprocity
dc.subjectmarkets
dc.subjectglobalization
dc.subjecttransnationalism
dc.titleReconsidering recipocity and capitalism
dc.typePostprint

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