Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T03:41:45.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

25 - Favours

from Part IV - Intimate and Everyday Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2023

By
David Henig  and
Nicolette Makovicky
Edited by
James Laidlaw
James Laidlaw
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

What motivates gratuitous behaviour? What characterizes its expression? Who benefits from and who is excluded from our favour? In this chapter, we tackle the long-standing anthropological puzzle of how to attend to manifestations of spontaneity, free will to act, and sympathy – that is, manifestations of favour. We argue that acts of favour constitute a significant ethical dimension of social life. We show how favours perform the intermediary and balancing work between incommensurable values, interests, obligations, and ethical sensibilities that underpin our lives. Favours can mediate, for example, between the calculative values of the market and those of friendship and kin relations, between the divine grace and performing good deeds; or in the situations of radical distress, when the question of life and death is at stake. Ultimately, if human sociality is grounded in the exchange of sentiments and gratitude mediated by the ethical labour of favours, then favours need to be considered as one of the key articulations of the ethical condition of social life.

Keywords

actionfavoursgracegratuityincommensurabilityjudgementJulian Pitt-Riversperformative actsvalues
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics , pp. 629 - 648
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Paul. 2018. ‘“An Abundance of Meaning”: Ramadan As an Enchantment of Society and Economy in Syria’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 8(3): 610–24.Google Scholar
Beatty, Andrew. 2019. Emotional Worlds: Beyond an Anthropology of Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1969. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Berliner, David, Lambek, Michael, Schweder, Richard, Irvine, Richard, and Piette., Albert 2016. ‘Anthropology and the Study of Contradictions’. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(1): 1–27.Google Scholar
Bornstein, Erica. 2012. Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brković, Čarna. 2017. Managing Ambiguity: How Clientelism, Citizenship, and Power Shape Personhood in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Oxford: Berghahn.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candea, Matei and Giovanni, da Col. 2012. ‘The Return to Hospitality’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18(S1): s1–s19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrier, James G. 1994. ‘Alienating Objects: The Emergence of Alienation in Retail Trade’. Man, 29(2): 359–80.Google Scholar
da Col, Giovanni and Shryock, Andrew, eds. 2017. From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus. Chicago, IL: Hau Books.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary. 1990. ‘Foreword: No Free Gifts’, in M. Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Routledge: ix–xxiii.Google Scholar
Fassin, D. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fassin, Diddier and Rechtman., Richard 2009. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Graeber, David. 2011. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville House.Google Scholar
Gregory, C. A. 1982. Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Haller, Dieter and Shore, Chris, eds. 2005. Corruption: Anthropological Perspective. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Hart, Keith. 1973. ‘Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana’. Journal of Modern African Studies, 11(1): 61–89.Google Scholar
Hart, Kimberly. 2007. ‘Performing Piety and Islamic Modernity in a Turkish Village’. Ethnology, 46(4): 289–304.Google Scholar
Henig, David. 2016a. ‘A Good Deed Is Not a Crime: Moral Cosmologies of Favours in Muslim Bosnia’, in Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. (eds.), Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 181–202.Google Scholar
Henig, David. 2016b. ‘Fragments of Village Life and the Rough Ground of the Political in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina’, in Jansen, S, Brkovic, Č, and Celebicic, V (eds.), Negotiating Social Relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Semiperipheral Entanglements. London: Routledge: 46–59.Google Scholar
Henig, David. 2019. ‘Economic Theologies of Abundance: Halal Exchange and the Limits of Neoliberal Effects in Post-War Bosnia–Herzegovina’. Ethnos, 84(2): 223–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henig, David. 2020. Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Henig, David and Makovicky, Nicolette, eds. 2016. Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline. 1997. ‘Exemplars and Rules: Aspects of the Discourse of Moralities in Mongolia’, in Howell, S. (ed.), The Ethnography of Moralities. London: Routledge: 25–47.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline. 2012. ‘Favors and “Normal Heroes”: The Case of Postsocialist Higher Education’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(2): 22–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline. 2016. ‘A New Look at Favours: The Case of Post-Socialist Higher Education’, in Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. (eds.), Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 50–72.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline and Hugh-Jones, Stephen, eds. 1992. Barter, Exchange and Value: An Anthropological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Michael. 2008. Excursions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael. 2013. The Wherewithal of Life: Ethics, Migration, and the Question of Wellbeing. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipnis, Andrew. 2002. ‘Practices of Guanxi Production and Practices of Ganqing Avoidance’, in Gold, T., Guthrie, D., and Wank, D. (eds.), Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 21–34.Google Scholar
Kleinman, Arthur, Das, Veena, and Lock, Margaret M., eds. 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Koutkova, Karla. 2016. ‘“The King Is Naked”: Internationality, Informality and Ko Fol State-Building’, in Jansen, S, Brković, Č, and Čelebičić, V (eds.), Negotiating Social Relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Semiperipheral Entanglements. London: Routledge: 109–21.Google Scholar
Laidlaw, James. 2000. ‘A Free Gift Makes No Friends’. The Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, 6(4): 617–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laidlaw, James. 2002. ‘For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8(2): 311–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laidlaw, James. 2014. The Subject of Virtue: An Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michael., Lambek 2010. ‘Introduction’, in Lambek, M (ed.), Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Michael., Lambek 2015a. ‘The Ethical Condition’, in Lambek, M., The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person and Value. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press: 1–39.Google Scholar
Michael., Lambek 2015b. ‘Value and Virtue’, in Lambek, M., The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person and Value. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press: 214–41.Google Scholar
Layton, Robert. 2000. Anthropology and History in Franche-Comté: A Critique of Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ledeneva, Alena. 1998. Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ledeneva, Alena. 2016. ‘The Ambivalence of Favour: Paradoxes of Russia’s Economy of Favours’, in Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. (eds.), Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 21–49.Google Scholar
Makovicky, Nicolette. 2016. ‘The “Shadows” of Informality in Rural Poland’, in Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. (eds.), Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 203–24.Google Scholar
Marsden, Magnus 2005. Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsden, Magnus and Retsikas, Konstantinos, eds. 2013. Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. 1954. The Gift. London: Cohen & West Ltd.Google Scholar
Miller, Daniel, ed. 1995. Acknowledging Consumption. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mittermaier, Amira. 2019. Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 2006. Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power and the Acting Subject. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 2016. ‘Dark Anthropology and Its Others: Theory since the Eighties’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(1): 47–73.Google Scholar
Pardo, Italo and Prato, Giuliana B.. 2018. Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Parry, Jonathan, and Bloch, Maurice. 1989. ‘Introduction: Money and the Morality of Exchange’, in Bloch, M. and Parry, J. (eds.), Money and the Morality of Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1–32.Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, Julian. 2017a. ‘The Place of Grace in Anthropology’, in da Col, G. and Shryock, A. (eds.), From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus. Chicago, IL: Hau Books: 69–104.Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, Julian. 2017b. ‘Lending a Hand: Neighborly Cooperation in Southwestern France’, in da Col, G. and Shryock, A. (eds.), From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus. Chicago, IL: Hau Books: 211–26.Google Scholar
Peristiany, J. G. and Pitt-Rivers, J, eds. 1992. Honor and Grace in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reeves, Madeleine. 2016. ‘Giving, Taking, and Getting By: Help and Indifference in Moscow’s Temporary Housing Market’, in Henig, D and Makovicky, N (eds.), Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 73–95.Google Scholar
Robbins, Joel. 2013. ‘Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19: 447–62.Google Scholar
Robbins, Joel. 2015. ‘Ritual, Value, and Example: On the Perfection of Cultural Representations’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 21(S1): 18–29.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. Stone Age Economics. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Schielke, Samuli. 2010. Second Thoughts about the Anthropology of Islam, or How to Make Sense of Grand Schemes in Everyday Life. Berlin: Zentrum Moderner Orient Working Papers.Google Scholar
Shryock, Andrew. 2004. ‘The New Jordanian Hospitality: House, Host, and Guest in the Culture and Public Display’. Comparative Studies in History and Society, 46(1): 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shryock, Andrew. 2012. ‘Breaking Hospitality Apart: Bad Hosts, Bad Guests, and the Problem of Sovereignty’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18(S1): s20–s33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shryock, Andrew and da Col., Giovanni 2017. ‘A Perfect Host: Julian Pitt-Rivers and the Anthropology of Grace’, in da Col, G and Shryock, A (eds.), From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus. Chicago, IL: Hau Books: xi–xxxvii.Google Scholar
Smart, Andrew. 1999. ‘Expressions of Interest: Friendship and Guanxi in Chinese Societies’, in Bell, S. and Coleman, S. (eds.), The Anthropology of Friendship. Oxford: Berg: 119–36.Google Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn. 1992. ‘Qualified Value: The Perspective of Gift Exchange’, in Humphrey, C. and Hugh-Jones, S. (eds.), Barter, Exchange and Value: An Anthropological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 169–91.Google Scholar
Strickland, Michael. 2010. ‘Aid and Affect in the Friendship of Young Chinese Men’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16(1): 102–18.Google Scholar
UNDP Report. 2009. The Ties That Bind: Social Capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
Weiner, Annette B. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Widlok, Thomas. 2013. ‘Sharing: Allowing Others to Take What Is Valued’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3(2): 11–31.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 1996. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Mayfair. 1994. Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×