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In the modern gift literature an anti-utilitarian and a utilitarian view on the gift can be distinguished. From the anti-utilitarian perspective, the freedom of the gift is seen as one of its main characteristics, while the idea that gifts are caught in a cycle of reciprocity is downplayed. In the utilitarian approach, assumptions about rational actors weighing their preferences according to some utility are predominant. In the first approach, reciprocity is seen as undermining 'genuine' gifts. The utilitarian approach does take reciprocity into account but fails to analyse why the principle of reciprocity is so effective. This article attempts to provide such an explanation. By illuminating both the variety of the forms of the gift and the universality of the underlying principle, it is argued that gifts reflect a multi-purpose symbolic 'utility' that transcends both utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do things come to embody meaning? In much anthropological and sociological writings, things have mainly been considered in two ways: either as commodities or as gifts. Correspondingly, people's relationships to things and to other people seem to fall in two broad categories, often regarded as mutually exclusive, either as impersonal, economic or market relationships with strangers, or as personal gift. relationships with intimates, friends or relatives. The 'social life of things', however, is more varied. Drawing on Alan Page Fiske's theory of the four fundamental models of human relationship, four ways in which people may relate to each other and to things are distinguished; these models are applied to empirical data from a study on the giving of gifts in the Netherlands. Complications may occur when the parties to the transaction do not share the same frame of mind with respect to each other and to the things that are being transferred. Things may have conflicting social lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the sociological significance of informal giving in the Netherlands is addressed. Does informal giving in any way compensate for the failing efficacy of official politics to counteract social inequality? Empirical results are. presented from a study about informal giving in the Netherlands. Material as well as immaterial gifts were distinguished: presents, money gifts, food, shelter, care or help, and blood and organs. The data showed informal giving to be ruled by reciprocity: gifts are followed by return gifts in most cases. However, reciprocity appeared to have a positive as well as a negative side: those who give many gifts, receive many gifts in return, but those who do not give much -- often because their social and material conditions do not allow them to do so -- are also the poorest receivers: the unemployed and the elderly in our sample. It is concluded that informal giving does not compensate for existing social inequality. Informal giving mainly benefits those who already receive much; those who need it most, receive the least. Reciprocity, then, may be considered 'a principle of exclusion'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gift exchange has mainly been studied by anthropologists. Their work suggests a relationship between the closeness of social relationships and the 'purity' of the gift (the extent to which it is given as an expression of 'pure' sympathy and without concrete expectations of returns). This article presents some results of an empirical study about gift giving in Western society. An 'emotional hierarchy' of different social relationships was constructed on the basis of an analysis of feelings underlying gift giving. The results show that gifts to the family are less 'pure' than gifts to friends; bonds between friends seem to have become more important than family ties. However, the stability of giving within a 'family culture' is greater than is the case within a 'friends' culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]