Gifts and Reciprocity

Complexity of Gift Exchange

However, the force of reciprocity in gift giving is certainly not confined to mythical tales or what might be thought of as “sentimental” occasions, such as holidays and birthdays. The notion of give and take and the “special” relationships this can generate are central to the understanding of power, and of political and military alliances. In the field of new reproductive technologies, we speak of the giving or donation of sperm and eggs; but where the individuals, biotechnology companies, or nation-states concerned seem to be acting solely in economic terms, their activities are widely condemned and sometimes judged illegal. In the realms of everyday leisure and entertainment, the force of giving, sharing, and reciprocating is vitally important. What is given often cannot be measured, certainly not by the abstract system of money: when a friend cooks a meal for you, the “value” of this act cannot be calculated in terms of cost of ingredients, cost of heating and lighting, and cost of labor devoted to the production of the meal. In reciprocation, you may cook a meal for your friend, but you might do any number of other things, such as listen to their troubles or forgive them for their perceived role in a preceding event: persons, [Page 658]objects, and feelings seem to merge or travel together in gift exchange. The complexity and ambivalence of these reciprocal relations seem to persist even in the most high-tech forms of virtual social networking where photos, videos, and stories are exchanged with an expectation of reciprocation, though the sanctions protecting this expectation are largely eliminated by the distance afforded by the technological medium. To what extent new technologies might curtail, transform, or even enhance moral relations of reciprocity is a hotly contested issue that will motivate further research in the humanities and social sciences.

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