Soliciting Gifts and Negotiating Agency: The Spirit of Asking in Botswana

Durham, Deborah

doi:10.2307/3034231

Cited by 52 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Although most shoppers purchase goods from those of equal or higher status, the presumed equality of the transactors and the usual payment of money in the garage sale mitigates much of the inequality of the exchange. As Mauss noted for Western exchange generally, the parties are relatively equal; this is also the case in Botswana, where those of equal status, even strangers, can playfully "demand" gifts and services (Durham 1995).…”

Section: "It's Just Giving"mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…It is a testament to the power of Mauss's classic essay The Gift (1967[1925]) that it is still the starting point for most discussions of gift exchange, although his text has been subject to considerable comment and elaboration (e.g., Carrier 1990aCarrier , 1991Durham 1995;Gregory 1980Gregory , 1982Hyde 1983;Parry 1986;Sahlins 1972;Thomas 1991;Valeri 1994). Mauss speaks of a giver and recipient who are bound together through the objects or services given in an interdependent relationship.…”

Section: Gift and Commoditymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?

Herrmann

1997

American Ethnologist

117

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The U.S. garage sale incorporates elements of both gift and commodity exchange in a dynamic tension, one that complicates traditional characterizations of gift and commodity as oppositional and mutually exclusive. Despite its apparently marketlike mechanisms, much of garage sale exchange also partakes of the character of gift giving. The elasticity in pricing in this home‐based exchange allows sellers to take social relations into account, so that objects that change hands become hybrid varieties of “inalienable commodities.”

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Section: "It's Just Giving"mentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Gift and Commoditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?

Herrmann

1997

American Ethnologist

117

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“…Who gets what money, and from whom, is the outcome of contingent and uncertain relationships which are continually remade. The ability to choose when and how one gives money to another person is a source of power and a negotiating position in a situation where individuals are perpetually enmeshed in overlapping obligations (Durham : 116; Guyer ). To say that a person has uwezo (capability) is a way of saying that he or she has money.…”

Section: Cash Contributions and Co‐operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scripting development through formalization: accounting for the diffusion of village savings and loans associations in Tanzania

Green

2018

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) are a form of self‐organized savings association which has been successfully promoted by development agencies across the Global South. This article examines the increase in VSLAs in Tanzania through an investigation of the practices through which they are organized. Self‐organized savings associations use extreme formalization to enact the social and financial discipline which enables members to count on one another. Anthropological theories of ritual as disciplinary practice shed light on the organizational practices of savings associations and their expansion. Such associations adopt the organizational properties of ritual to generate and sustain autonomous local institutions. Ritualization has added value for systems of financial ordering as a ‘framing’ device through which the financial order of saving can be delineated. Whereas sociological theorizations of institutional diffusion perceive ritualization as empty copying, ethnographically informed anthropological analysis demonstrates the productivity of formalization where detachment from ordinary relations is a sought attribute of organization

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“…Marital status, parenthood, inheritance, and succession to office were in the past, and are today, topics of dispute in the court system and are argued for (and against) on a variety of rule-described but contradictory grounds (Comaroff 1975;Comaroff and Roberts 1981). Such everyday occurrences as asking for money or material objects involve constant testing and establishing of relations of hierarchical dependencies or egalitarian independence (Durham 1995). Age status, too, is something that is claimed and tested in various contexts, often shifting from site to site for the same person.…”

Section: Locating Youth In Botswanamentioning

confidence: 99%

Disappearing youth: Youth as a social shifter in Botswana

Durham

2004

American Ethnologist

Self Cite

141

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In this article, I explore the discourses of youth in Botswana, focusing the analysis on 1995 protests over the murder of a student. I argue that youth should be examined as a social shifter: When invoked, youth indexes sets of social relationships that are dynamic and constructed in the invocation. As people argue over who youth are and how they behave, they index shifting relationships of power and authority, responsibility and capability, agency and autonomy, and the moral configurations of society.

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Soliciting Gifts and Negotiating Agency: The Spirit of Asking in Botswana

Cited by 52 publications

References 9 publications

Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?

Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?

Scripting development through formalization: accounting for the diffusion of village savings and loans associations in Tanzania

Disappearing youth: Youth as a social shifter in Botswana

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