Mauss and the Princes of Serendip
Parlebas, Pierre
Mauss and the Princes of Serendip - 2015.
79
Studying the practices of archaic societies, Marcel Mauss showed how the triple obligation of giving, receiving and rendering was at the heart of the functioning of the social. Acceptance of this constraint is manifest in the potlatch namely, a ceremony in which the protagonists battle and provoke each other by giving sumptuous presents. In this resounding article published in 1924, Mauss states that play is a form of potlatch. Ten years later, in another ground-breaking article, the same author shows that body techniques are profoundly embedded in social representations. How are we to understand that the latter does not speak about the role of the gift and ignore the function that exchange and sharing play out in the praxis of acquiring and performing body techniques? The world of sports and traditional games constitute a formidable manifestation of the Maussian triple obligation. The most notable example is that of paradoxical games whose ambivalence illustrates in a spectacular manner the processes of gift and counter-gift.
Mauss and the Princes of Serendip - 2015.
79
Studying the practices of archaic societies, Marcel Mauss showed how the triple obligation of giving, receiving and rendering was at the heart of the functioning of the social. Acceptance of this constraint is manifest in the potlatch namely, a ceremony in which the protagonists battle and provoke each other by giving sumptuous presents. In this resounding article published in 1924, Mauss states that play is a form of potlatch. Ten years later, in another ground-breaking article, the same author shows that body techniques are profoundly embedded in social representations. How are we to understand that the latter does not speak about the role of the gift and ignore the function that exchange and sharing play out in the praxis of acquiring and performing body techniques? The world of sports and traditional games constitute a formidable manifestation of the Maussian triple obligation. The most notable example is that of paradoxical games whose ambivalence illustrates in a spectacular manner the processes of gift and counter-gift.
Réseaux sociaux