The “gift” is one of the most enduring theoretical concepts in social sciences. Its primary meaning (understood as ‘giving without expecting reciprocation’) has evolved over many years of debate, particularly in anthropology.
This idea has been discussed through many types of transactions, such as exchange, transmission, collaboration, cooperation, offering, sacrifices, ... Because it is just in the middle of economics and social matters, and because it brings along normativity and intentionality, the gift is a conceptual tool which can constantly invent and re-invent itself.
Because of the increasing number of intermediaries in transfers, but also because of the commodification of numerous business areas (extended now to individuals or virtual realities for example), and the generalization of the tensions between the local and the global, the circulation and the connection of people and objects must adapt ceaselessly.
This symposium has been created to take a new look at the relationship between goods, people, and capital in circulation.
With great care taken to avoid too exclusively theoretical debates, the colloquium will focus on detailed descriptions of fieldworks and empirically founded data. It will also favour socially, historically or culturally situated analysis.