Knowra Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist whose studies of gift exchange, sacrifice, and bodily practices shaped modern social theory.
Émile Durkheim : Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who helped establish sociology as a discipline and studied social facts, religion, and solidarity. Mauss’s uncle and intellectual mentor, Durkheim shaped his approach to social facts and collective life.
The Gift : The Gift is Mauss’s 1925 essay arguing that gift exchange binds people through obligations to give, receive, and reciprocate. This essay presents his best-known account of how exchange creates social ties.
Henri Hubert : Henri Hubert was a French sociologist and historian of religion who collaborated extensively with Marcel Mauss. Their joint studies of sacrifice and magic show Mauss’s collaborative method at work.
Techniques of the body : Techniques of the body are culturally learned ways of using the body, such as walking, swimming, and sleeping. Mauss used this concept to show how bodily skills are acquired through social transmission.
Structural anthropology : Structural anthropology studies the underlying relations and systems of difference that organize cultural practices and meanings. Lévi-Strauss developed structural readings of exchange from questions Mauss had opened.
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life : Émile Durkheim’s 1912 book analyzes Australian Aboriginal religion to explain how collective life produces sacred categories. Mauss extended Durkheim’s account of religion through his own studies of sacrifice and ritual.
Gift economy : A gift economy organizes transfers through social relationships and obligations rather than prices as the primary measure of exchange. Mauss’s analysis helped establish gift exchange as a major alternative to market-centered explanations.
Robert Hertz : Robert Hertz was a French sociologist whose studies of death, sin, and bodily symbolism drew on Durkheimian social theory. Hertz belonged to the intellectual circle Mauss helped sustain around the journal L’Année sociologique.
Sacrifice : Sacrifice is a ritual act in which an offering is consecrated or destroyed to establish or transform relations with sacred powers. Mauss and Hubert analyzed sacrifice as a structured process linking human and sacred participants.
Economic anthropology : Economic anthropology studies how production, distribution, and exchange are organized within social and cultural life. Mauss’s analysis challenged explanations that treat economic exchange as separate from social obligation.
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