Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss (Épinal May 10th 1872 - Paris 1950) is often regarded as the “ father of the French Ethnologie ”.
Biography
Marcel Mauss was nephew and raises Durkheim, it is especially known for a certain number of great theories to which belonged that of the gift and against gift. Among the others we can quote the concept of Fait social total and its famous studies on the techniques of the body, the Religion or the Magie (nearer according to him to the mechanisms of the science than of the religion). He is also regarded as one of the fathers of the Anthropologie.
One says of Mauss that it never went on the ground and is based only on observations of other people. One however finds in his works certain numbers of direct observations as in “the techniques of the body” where he speaks about what he could see when he was in the army or in this text even where he quotes examples of his childhood in Touraine. Moreover, it encouraged its pupils much to go to the site for the observations. Its professional path starts with an aggregation of philosophy in 1885. It turns quickly then to religious sociology and studies with the practical Ecole of the high studies where it will become, 5 years later, person in charge of the teaching of “the history of the religions of the not civilized people”. In 1901 it joined the team of the Sociological Year , re-examined biennial created by his uncle Emile Durkheim. This one will die in 1917 and Mauss will be seen falling of the posthumous work of publication of his/her uncle. Finally in 1925, it founds, with Levy-Bruhl and Paul Rivet the institute of ethnology in Paris.
During all this time, Mauss was militant a Socialiste always faithful to its convictions also and especially in its work.
Work
Nephew and disciple of Durkheim, Mauss takes part in the durkheimienne team, joined together around the review the sociological Year , but it keeps a certain independence. It creates in 1925 the Institut of Ethnology . Marcel Mauss founds with Jean Jaurès the newspaper Humanity (before it passes between the hands of the Communists) and gives passionately an opinion for Dreyfus. Pacifist convinced, it publishes a great number of articles in various reviews, of which the Sociological Year . Of his rare Monograph S, one retains especially the Essai on the gift .
Mauss does only few field studies (contrary to Malinowski, for example), but it however has the concern of seizing realities in their totality: it works out in this direction the concept of “Fait social total”. According to him, a social Fait always comprises economic dimensions, nuns or legal and cannot be reduced to only one of these aspects. Mauss also chooses to apprehend the human being in its concrete reality, under physiological triple point of view of, psychological and sociological.
It is interested in the social significance of the gift in the tribal companies, like with the phenomenon religious: the magic is regarded as a social phenomenon which can be in particular explained by the concept of Mana .
While creating Social link, the gift is agonist (it “obliges” that which receives, which can be released only by a “counterpresent”). For Mauss, the gift is essential in the human society and comprises 3 phases: 1) obligation to give 2) obligation to receive 3) obligation to return.
| Random links: | Jacques Blanc | Vagueness | Anatoli Vassiliev | Patrick Malone | Hyborie |