Gift

The term ‘gift’ and the accompanying act of giving were born in the context of early twentieth-century symbolic anthropology. However the ‘gift’ as an object and as social obligation partook in the development of sociological theory that is applicable to micro- (intersubjective), meso- (family reciprocities) and macro-social (political recognition) phenomena. The entry explores all three levels of social experience, highlighting the ways the term enriched as diverse debates as those in political sociology, tourism and digital culture.