Skip to content

Marcel Mauss

10 May 1872-10 February 1950

Definition.com

The Body is at one and the same time the original tool with which man shapes his world and the original substance out of which the human world is shaped.

Definition.com

The Body is man's first and most natural instrument. Or more accurately, not to speak of instruments, man's first and most natural technical object, and at the same time technical means, is his body.

Definition.com

The Body is the product of man, rather than man being a product of his body. The body is that which man has, at all times and in all places, been able to turn into a product of his techniques and his representations.

Definition.com

Ethnography is a matter of putting forward a number of hypotheses, each of which taken alone carries little weight, but which, when considered together, may be found to have some significance.

Definition.com

Food is a 'total social fact' in that it sets in motion the totality of society and its institutions.

Definition.com

Food is an object often exchanged in establishing, reproducing, and nurturing social relations because when one gives food, one gives one's own substance to the other and vice versa. Food is the substance that makes a person. While a person is what he or she is eating, food also substantially binds persons to each other through the sharing of the same substance.

Definition.com

Food is, in its nature, something to be shared. To fail to give others a part is to 'kill its essence,' to destroy it for oneself and for others.

Definition.com

Food is one of the 'proto-notions' of substance. It is the basis of 'matter' and 'substance'.

Definition.com

A Gift economy is characterized by three interrelated obligations: To give, to accept, and to reciprocate.

Definition.com

Gift giving is a way to prove one is favored (and possessed by and also possessing) good fortune by sharing it out and humiliating others by placing them 'in the shadow of his name'.

Definition.com

Homme total is man considered as both a social and psychological phenomena, not as one or the other in isolation (i.e. Holistically).

Definition.com

Kula is a melanesian ritual practice whereby the tribes, the sea journeys, the precious objects, food and feasts, were caught in a ring around which they kept up a regular movement in time and space.

Definition.com

The Kula is an aristocratic trading circle reserved for the chiefs and distinguished from everyday exchange.

Definition.com

Magic is contrasted with religion on the basis that in a religious rite, the individual is subordinated to social forces outside his or her power, but in magical rites, the individual appropriates the collective forces of society for his or her own ends.

Definition.com

Man is that being which at all times and in all places has been able to turn his body into a product of his techniques and his representations.