LARTS 316 — Unwrapping the Gift: Anthropology of Reciprocity and Indebtedness

3 credits
Fall
Priya Chandrasekaran

Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . Have you ever received a gift that had strings attached or realized that one you had given was not seen the way you intended? Are nature’s gifts “free”? This anthropology course will examine “gift giving” from multiple thematic perspectives, including ritual, care, exchange, humanitarianism, aid, debt, and reciprocity. Students will discuss how diverse cultural practices, such as the ceremonial potlatch and #GivingTuesday, embody social relations through “things” in motion. Course materials in anthropology, sociology, literature, and film will expose students to how giving sutures bonds, reinforces difference, offers freedom, and creates obligation. Students will learn to use their own ethnographic observations to look for patterns and decipher the meaning of “gift giving” in the world around them. As we will see, “gifts” are “wrapped” in a thick social fabric of family, community, economy, and globalization.