Actual and potential gifts: Critique, shadow gift relations and the virtual domain of the ungiven

IF 1.1 2区社会学 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropological Theory Pub Date : 2020-01-19 DOI:10.1177/1463499619894426

J. Copeman, Dwaipayan Banerjee

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引用次数: 4

Abstract

What is given may be evaluated in relation to what might have been given but was not. The central thematic of this essay is what we term the shadow gift relation (as distinct from the more standard anthropological gift relation among exchange partner dyads) between the gift that is given and that which remains ungiven—with the latter, both present and not present, coming to haunt and unsettle the former. The potential of the gift is key for it is intimately related to critique: we explore how the relation between the virtual ungiven and what is actually given may come to form the basis of social criticism. This essay, then, defines a kind of ‘keeping while giving’ that is related to but different from that famously elaborated by Annette Weiner, for what is kept back, in the cases we discuss in this essay, are virtual (imagined) forms of gift. Giving is a technology of the imagination because it is a process that precipitates the imagination of a relation between an actual gift and a double that is virtual but nonetheless real because it exists in the form of a manifold of potentials for how the gift could be.

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实际礼物和潜在礼物：批判、影子礼物关系和未给予者的虚拟领域

可以根据可能已经给予但没有给予的内容来评估所给予的内容。这篇文章的中心主题是我们所说的“影子礼物关系”（不同于交换伙伴二人组中更标准的人类学礼物关系），介于被给予的礼物和未被给予的东西之间——后者，无论是在场的还是不在场的，都会困扰和扰乱前者。礼物的潜力是关键，因为它与批评密切相关：我们探讨了虚拟的未给予和实际给予之间的关系如何形成社会批评的基础。因此，这篇文章定义了一种“在给予的同时保留”，它与安妮特·韦纳著名的阐述有关，但不同，因为在我们在这篇文章中讨论的情况下，保留的是虚拟的（想象的）礼物形式。给予是一种想象力的技术，因为这是一个过程，它沉淀了对实际礼物和替身之间关系的想象，这种关系是虚拟的，但仍然是真实的，因为它以礼物的多种潜力的形式存在。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Anthropological Theory ANTHROPOLOGY-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Anthropological Theory is an international peer reviewed journal seeking to strengthen anthropological theorizing in different areas of the world. This is an exciting forum for new insights into theoretical issues in anthropology and more broadly, social theory. Anthropological Theory publishes articles engaging with a variety of theoretical debates in areas including: * marxism * feminism * political philosophy * historical sociology * hermeneutics * critical theory * philosophy of science * biological anthropology * archaeology