Objecting Relations: The Problem of the Gift

Abstract

This paper focuses on informants' accounts of gifts displayed on their living room mantelpieces drawn from a recent study exploring domestic display in Cardiff. The mantelpiece is an ideal space for looking at a particular category of salient objects: gifts on show in the home. An interpretation of narrative accounts is located within existing theoretical and empirical studies of gift exchange to reconsider the complex enmeshment of this traditional relation in everyday practices. An equivalence between the mantelpiece and the 'gifts' it presents in the home as taken-for-granted, inherited practices and materials leads to a final discussion focusing on the apparently democratised yet still gendered character of everyday gift practices. In conclusion, a consideration of the gendering of the gift questions whether this traditional, problematic method of accounting for and maintaining relations is desirable.

Of gifts and grandchildren: American Holy Land souvenirs

“…While my inclusive approach results in some loss of specificity, it serves to highlight key cultural and lifecycle trends that affect Americans across confessional lines. Pilgrims often explain souvenir buying in ways that correspond to Daniel Miller’s characterization of shopping as a female ritual of sacrifice for loved ones: it gives expression to their perceived role as ‘gate-keepers’ of relational ties and repositories of family memory (Miller, 1998: 4; Hurdley, 2007: 138). For middle–old American women, this is related to another set of responsibilities: they feel principally responsible for speaking to God on behalf of their families, and they are the ones who fill church pews (Braude, 1997: 88; McDannell 1995: 38).…”

“…Women fielded nearly every question related to souvenir gifts and, while they evaluated object after object in Holy Land stores, their husbands often retreated to a corner where shopkeepers provided them with chairs and Gatorade (a sports drink). Although scholars acknowledge this gender imbalance, so far there has been no significant research about how giving (and displaying) gifts relates to notions of domesticity (Hurdley, 2007). Nor, despite a prodigious amount of scholarship in anthropology and tourism studies related respectively to gifts and souvenirs, is much known about why and to whom people give travel mementos.…”

Kutlama ve Armağanlarca Kuşatılan Annelik: Diş Buğdayı, Baby Shower ve Annelik Eksenindeki Diğer Ritüeller

“…Armağan tüketimi özelinde de benzer bir perspektif ile Godbout armağan dünyasını kadınların özel alanı olarak nitelerken; kadınları hediyelerden, hediye ambalajlamaktan sorumlu tutar ve ona göre kadının kendisi de başlı başına bir armağandır (2008,472). Hurdley (2007) ise armağanlaşma ilişkisini gündelik hayatta, özellikle oturma odasında sergilenen metalar bağlamında ele aldığı çalışmasında armağanın daha çok kadınla ilişkilendirildiğini vurgulamıştır. Bourdieu 2015armağan ve cinsiyet ayrımı arasındaki ilişkiyi özel alandaki iktidar şekli ile bağdaştırırken; erkeklerin evlilik hayatındaki simgesel iktidarını koruduklarını belirtmektedir.…”

Gifted Places: The Inalienable Nature of Belonging in Place

“…He does not seem to see Wigan or an identity as a Wiganer as a gift he wants to pass on to his grandchildren and does not position himself as responsible for the state of the town centre, as its moral custodian. All such curatorial relationships involve a choice; in this case Ian does not seem to want to pass on Wigan to his descendents, but his children could also have independently chosen not to accept the gift (Hurdley, 2007).…”