----3. Worksheet: Gift & Kinship analysis

Why Gifts Matter

Part of being social in your culture means participating in a gift economy. But most of the time we’re hardly aware of it. We just do it: we give, receive, and reciprocate—following along with often invisible rules. But these rules matter. They shape who we care for, and who cares for us. They reveal hidden hierarchies, expectations, and affections. 

In this worksheet, you’ll observe how gifts move through your kin network and what that tells us about your own social world. As we explore care in this subject, this understanding will become central.

Gifts for the Dead






Gift-giving isn’t just for the living. Who are the recipients in the following examples?

 What do the dead receive in these moments?

Can we analyse these acts as gifts? Why or why not?


 Saludos & Remittances

Wee read about Salvadoran migrants who send remittances home, while those at home return the gesture with affectionate greetings (saludos). These are not just communications—they’re careful rankings of kin:Here are some of the principles of sending saludo:

each saludo involves a somewhat different ranking of distant kin. For instance, while Davíd’s saludo prioritizes consanguineal over affinal kin and makes no mention of children, Rosario and Camila group the distant relatives into two nuclear families, within which children tend to be mentioned before their mothers. While Luís and Patricio are consistently named, children are referred to with generational terms (granddaughter, girl), and their identities are inferred through reference to their fathers.

 

This is the order of greetings from the Martinez family 

What does the gift of saludo tell us about hierarchy and remittances?

Your more recent 'potlatch'

The term 'potlatch' has very special and significant meaning for the Kwakwaka'wakw people, but I'd like to borrow it for our own purposes. Let’s look at your own recent potlatch--large gift-giving occasion (e.g. birthday, Christmas, Eid, Diwali):

Who gave you presents?

 What were the patterns in terms of:

  • Generation: Were gifts mostly upwards (to elders), downwards (to children), or lateral (siblings, cousins)?
  • Gender: Were certain types of gifts given to men vs. women?
  • Kinship: Were gifts from blood relatives (consanguineal) or in-laws/spouses (affinal)?
  • More-than-human: Did pets give or receive gifts? Could we say that they are non-human persons in your kinship world?
  • Independent: Were some presents given or received by couples? Can we analyse these couples as individuals?

Wedding planning


You are planning on a big wedding for yourself, another family member, or a friend. You need to 100 family and friends. Your budget is 5,000.  Invitations cost $50/each. Do you send invites:
  • every individual person and child
  • lump familiies togther, if so:
    • whose name goes first on the invite? affinal or consanguineal kin
Do you expect presents from the children you've invited? 
Should these presents be bigger or smaller than their parent's presents?
What does this tell us about kinship and gift-giving

Conclusion

Gifts aren’t just tokens. They create obligations, mark hierarchies, and enact care. By analysing gifts, we start to see the invisible threads of kinship and obligation that shape our lives. You’ll be using this insight throughout the subject as we explore the anthropology of care.

Comments

Post a Comment