Marcel Mauss, successor of Emile Durkheim and one-time teacher of Claude Levi-Strauss, continues to inspire social scientists across various disciplines. Only selected texts of Mauss’s work have been translated into English, but of these, some, as for instance his ‘Essay on the Gift, ‘ have proved of key significance for the development of anthropology internationally.
Recently and starting in France, the interest in Mauss’s work has increased noticeably as witnessed by several reassessments of its relevance to current social theory. This collection of original essays is the first to introduce the English-language reader to the current re-evaluation of his ideas in continental Europe. Themes include the post-structuralist appraisal of ‘exchange’, the anthropology of the body, practical techniques, gesture systems, the notions of substance, materiality, and the social person. There are fresh insights into comparative politics and history, modern forms of charity, and new readings of some political and historical aspects of Mauss’s work that bear on the analysis of regions such as Africa and the Middle East, relatively neglected by the Durkheimian school and by structuralism. This volume is a timely tribute to mark the centenary of Mauss’ early work and confirms the continuing relevance of his ideas.
Table of Content
Preface
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
Chapter 1. ‘One of us’: Marcel Mauss and ‘English’ anthropology
Wendy James
THE SCHOLAR AND HIS TIME
Chapter 2. An intellectual self-portrait
Marcel Mauss
Chapter 3. Mauss’s Jewish background: a biographical essay
W. S. F. Pickering
FOUNDATIONS OF MAUSSIAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Chapter 4. A vague but suggestive concept: the ‘total social fact’
Alexander Gofman
Chapter 5. The Maussian shift: a second foundation for sociology in France?
Bruno Karsenti
Chapter 6. Derrida’s reading of Mauss
Tim Jenkins
CRITIQUES OF EXCHANGE AND POWER
Chapter 7. Uncertainties of the ‘obligation to reciprocate’: a critique of Mauss
Alain Testart
Chapter 8. Mutual deception: totality, exchange, and Islam in the Middle East
Paul Dresch
Chapter 9. Modern philanthropy: reassessing the viability of a Maussian perspective
Ilana Silber
Chapter 10. Mauss, Dumont, and the distinction between status and power Materiality, body, history
Jonathan Parry
MATERIALITY, BODY, HISTORY
Chapter 11. The category of substance: a Maussian theme revisited
N. J. Allen
Chapter 12. The study of techniques as an ideological challenge: technology, nation, and humanity in the work of
Marcel Mauss
Nathan Schlanger
Chapter 13. Form, movement, and posture in Mauss: themes for today’s anthropology
Claudine Haroche
Chapter 14. Mauss in Africa: on time, history, and politics
Wendy James
Select Bibliography
A: Reading Mauss in French
B: Work by Mauss available in English
C: Selected secondary sources
Notes on contributors
Index
About the author
After studying classics and medicine N. J. Allen (1939-2020) qualified in Social Anthropology at Oxford, undertaking fieldwork in Nepal. He was Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia at the University of Oxford.
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