The Good behind the Gift
Morality and Exchange among the Maneo of Eastern Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2559682 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James M Hagen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 361 |
| Publication date | 1999-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2661273 |
| OpenAlex | W2322578000 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 22 |
This study examines the way morality in Maneo shapes giving and receiving and frames the assessment of those actions by participants. Specifically, it applies an Aristotelian conception of morality that views practice as moral to the extent it is oriented towards others, and thus seeks to link it to broader changes and continuities in the system of marriage payments. Against other, normative conceptions of morality and society, and in contrast to most practice approaches which minimizes its importance, the study finds that moral agency represents a vital dimension to exchange that, while shaped by its social effects, is also irreducible to them. The Maneo of Seram live in a region in eastern Indonesia famous for its complex exchange practices (e.g., Fox 1980; Hoskins 1993; van Wouden 1968). Exchange features prominently in Maneo social life and the objects which circulate as marriage payments are highly coveted, sharing them is valued, and giving them is both necessary and confers certain benefits. Nevertheless, exchange often does not occur, and when gifts are not given local expectations suffer less than would be inferred from anthropological models which, like Mauss's (1967), treat exchange as obligatory. Recent scholarship has begun to identify shortcomings in Mauss's model regarding the agency and contingency of practice (Bercovitch 1994; Bourdieu 1990; Weiner 1992).l My contention is that these critics go too far in abandoning Mauss's concern with the relation between exchange and social solidarity, effectively turning Mauss on his head by reducing deliberation about whether to give to dispositions 'which do not allow for the possibility of behaving differently' (Bourdieu 1997: 233), or that they do not go far enough in questioning his moral ontology that exchange is necessarily obligatory. Instead, I will argue that sociality, what Weber calls 'mutual orientations' (1947: 118-23), is intrinsic to deliberation and not merely an effect of exchange, and that the contingencies of social life (e.g., the scarcity of objects) impinge on people's abilities without affecting their desires to give. This Aristotelian idea, that most people wishing to do well end up merely
Genealogy · Morality · Political science · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Asian Studies and History · History · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Consumption and Commodities
Kinship and the Social Order.
On the moral perils of exchange
The cultural biography of things
The Theory Of Social And Economic Organization
After Virtue
Gifts and Commodities
Introduction
In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Signs of Recognition
The Human Condition
The Fragility of Goodness
The Play of Time
Becoming Sinners
My Rice Field is My Child
Of Persons and Things
The Agent in the Gift
Twisting the Gift
Social Markers and the Evolution of Reciprocal Exchange
Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2014 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |