An Anthropology of Begging

[Johannes Lenhard]

Hello OAC members,

I just joined the site and am really astonished of how interesting the discussions are - I am in this way really looking forward to getting involved in some of them!

However, I do have a current project myself, that I would like to discuss with you in some details and invite you to give me some feedback and just jot down some ideas you have regarding the issues I am raising below. 

I am looking at the act of begging at the moment (in an East London environment doing both, observation and interviews) and try do describe it as a gift.

So far, I have come across many possible differentiations and distinctions that all not properly seem to work out in terms of making sense of what I observe and what the beggars themselves are actually telling me.

The classic theory of the gift (Mauss, Malinowski, Boas) with its heavy emphasize on reciprocity is very hard to defend in the first instance. What are they giving back except for appreciation, a thank you? Might this already be enough to form a 'counter-gift' and in this way create a relationship? Are we to look at what I call a temporal fix - the counter-gift consists in the 'making-it-more-probable' to also get money being in the same situation anytime in the future? Might a 'good conscience' be valued as a counter gift? It additionally seems very problematic to not fall into the trap and perceive of reciprocity in a self-interest fashion - Gouldner's (1960) 'Norm' typology or Sahlin's (1974) continuum might be helpful here to clarify what one means. I am not really content with those ideas so far and none of them seems to hit the core.

So is the gift that one gives to a beggar not really a gift in the classical sense but rather something one might describe as a commodity in Gregory's (1980) words: as an alienable object that is reciprocally independent not creating any relationship in the sense a gift is able to? 

It seems as if the debate is again stuck in between the formalist/substantivist problematic that has been driving the discourse for years. But again the question in my particular case is similarly: in what way is it self-interest (as explained in the reciprocity argument above) that drives the giving, in which way is emotion of importance? Is it possible to follow Carrier (1991) and see the two as ends of a continuum in relation to giving to beggars? 

In a very general sense I am also intrigued by Weiner's (1985, 1992) idea of inalienable possessions: does one actually give (money, good etc) in order to keep more valuable things (credit cards, marriage rings, a way of life) back? Might this be the 'inalienable possession' in this case? It seems also to link up in a certain way with another distinction that I came across in the course of the research: a beggar's regulars (people that see him regularly) and his one-offs (people that he sees once). Regulars don't always give money, but rather fulfill certain wishes (often in terms of food) or simply spend some time with the beggar and devote some thought to his well-being. In this way, one might be able to argue, a more enduring and lasting social bond can be created through acts of giving (of time, talk and wishes). Such a regular also does not hold back - to nevertheless keep with Weiner, his gifts can still be inalienable (taking the distinction she draws in her earlier paper Inalienable Wealth: keeping-while-giving (as is the case with the regular) and giving-for-keeping) and contain a part of the owner (just think of time / talk in this way - you present yourself etc). On the other hand, the one-offs often give money and don't care about the beggar in a way a regular does. It might be here where one can introduce the presented notion of inalienable possessions: giving-for-keeping (as also Godelier (1999) puts forward) - they are giving in order to keep the more valuable possessions.

Does this notion seem completely far-fetched for you in this context?

A further issue is obviously the role money plays in this whole process - 

what difference does it make that it is money that beggars mainly get? Is it right as again Gregory (1980) or also Cheal (1987) point out that money destroys gift economies (in the particular sense that he defines them) and is an expression of 'disembodied interest'? 

Just so far for the moment - there might be some further issues coming up over the next couple of days/weeks I am definitely going to share with you!

Looking forward to your thought!

Best,

Johannes

[Kate Wood]

This is an interesting question. I was thinking about it last summer while wandering around Asia, about what kind of gift it is and why we give it (assuming it's a gift at all), and how it can be compared.

It seems like in the US and to a lesser extent in the UK, beggars are required to explain themselves by reference to morality and undiscoverable misfortune, but we don't want to see obvious misfortune. So they make a sign that they've got cancer or five kids, but it has to be accompanied by information like they're "clean" - we want to be assured they're not spending the money on booze or drugs. The sign must of course be made of torn cardboard, because to spend money on a more durable material would be a sign of unacceptable profligacy. Better still, they should be working for the money - selling Big Issue or Spare Change, or busking (even if they can't actually sing or play an instrument).

In Hong Kong, the beggars that I saw were mute, and their bodies spoke for them - no signs, just children or elderly people, preferably maimed in some recognisable fashion, to make it clear that they couldn't work, in no uncertain terms. One young man in the passageways above the street in Tsim Sha Tsui, where we were staying, looked from the distance like he was planking (which was still a fad at the time). Moving closer, it was clear that it wasn't intentional - his arms and legs had been amputated, and his handlers (whoever they were, it wasn't obvious) had placed him on his stomach in the passage, in front of a paper plate meant to catch coins. His mere bodily presence was enough to proclaim that he deserved the gifts made. This would, I think, be treated as horrific in London.

Notably, there were absolutely no beggars I saw in Singapore. It's probably illegal there.

I'm not sure what the theoretical implications of this are, and I haven't really thought about it in a while, but I do think that giving to beggars is considered a gift - and what you receive in return is the virtue accrued to those who help the worthy (no matter how they proclaim their worthiness). I think what varies is how worthiness in poverty is perceived.

[Keith Hart]

Thanks for sharing this rich post with us, Johannes. Mauss wrote The Gift to refute the bourgeois ideology which opposes self-interested contracts with the free gift. Much recent anthropological discussion of gift economies opposed to market or commodity economy repeats the ideology that Mauss intended to contradict. He also only mentions reciprocity twice in his essay. This focus was introduced later by Levi-Strauss and Sahlins for their own purposes. See articles by Lygia Sigaud (2002) and myself (2007) on this subject. He did discuss begging or what is called in the English translation alms as an example of a stratified society where, in the absence of a material return, the recipient gives back spiritual deference. His main aim in discussing the archaic or heroic gift was to highlight possibilities for an economic movement from below, a consumer democracy built on professional associations, mutual insurance and cooperatives.

David Graeber offers the most sophisticated and scholarly treatment of reciprocity in chapter 5 of his book on Debt (2011). There he identifies three moral grounds for economic relations which are universal, but combined differently in particular places under the influence of the dominant economic principle, capitalism in our case. These are everyday communism (baseline sociality), hierarchy and reciprocity (exchange). the first is based on spontaneous sharing, the second on permanent debt and third on temporary debt which the receiver expects to pay back. The western middle classes train their children to say please and thank you as a way of limiting the debt through immediate reciprocation. One source of confusion is that hierarchy is often represented as a form of reciprocity (you give me your crops and I don't beat you up), but the unequal relations continue indefinitely.

Incidentally, Weiner's (and Godelier's) argument about inalienable gifts rests on references in a footnote of Mauss's essay whose contents Graeber has discovered to be non-existent or false. The problem with the contemporary anthropology of the gift is that it rests on weak scholarship and the bourgeois assumption that exchange is the dominant economic principle, that reciprocity is universal, taking two forms, the market contract and the gift which are in some sense opposed. This is extended to whole societies structured as here and there, now and then.

I could also go on to dispute, on the grounds of my own research, the view that money is always impersonal (see the article posted at the top of the Human Economy Group here). But I'll leave it for now. One problem with the OAC site is the plethora of new discussions and difficulty of finding relevant old ones. The chapter by David Graeber that I mentioned above may be found here as an OAC Press working paper and online seminar. We'll have to work on making navigation easier, but in the meantime I greet all the members who have joined recently and welcome your suggestions for improving this and other features of our community.

[Kate Wood]

Keith, under Graeber's framework would you suggest that money given to beggars is a hierarchical exchange? I haven't read the book yet, as it's backed up behind my dissertation work, but I'm most interested in it. 

[Keith Hart]

Kate, you can read Graeber's argument through the link I provided in the last paragraph. His three principles, like Polanyi's (which are similar, but not the same) are ideal types. Real social relations often combine them. Thus sharing is indispensable to capitalism in the sense that, when one worker says to the other "Pass me the hammer, Bill", Bill doesn't say "What's in it for me?", but gives the hammer to the guy who needs it. It is always problematic when anthropologists identify what they are studying as "beggars" or "farming" then proceed to use some fashionable theory.  Looking at Johannes's descriptions, I would say that all three of Graeber's principles operate in different times and places or simultaneous combination. What is not there is a "gift economy", that is an ideological construction.

[Johannes Lenhard]

Thank you both very much for your detailed answers! I will get back to them in the time of the day.

Picking up your last point, Keith, I wondered who you follow talking about a 'gift economy'. Is it Cheal's notion (paper of 1987, book of 1988: p12ff), where he defines a gift as a 'redundant transaction' constructing 'voluntary social relationships'?

If yes - I believe you are right - redundancy is obviously not a topic with beggars, although his second point about social relationships is something that I thoroughly follow in my fieldwork. Going back again to the notion of regulars, here we do have something like a construction of the like. Regulars give time, talk (sometimes money) and construct a relationship to the beggar - even thought just a temporary one (until the beggar or the regular move), but still.

If not - what exactly do you mean by 'ideological construction'? I am heavily struggling in my reading with a) the various notions of gift (is it a free gift (as for example Gudemann, 2001, would have it with his initial 'gift' before reciprocity) or a reciprocal gift (as Levi-Strauss, Sahlin would have it)) as well as the various notions of b) gift economy / moral economy / market economy.

[John McCreery]

I would be careful about choosing any one explanation for your observations. What you see may be overdetermined by multiple considerations. Thus, when I am moved to give to beggars, or more often here in Japan people soliciting charitable donations for causes like earthquake victims, guide dogs for the blind, or the education of children orphaned in traffic accidents, I could be fairly described as salving a liberal conscience, recalling the Good Samaritan but unwilling to go that far, magically evoking Buddhist notions of merit and karma, conscious all the while of warding off the collapse of the comfortable bubble that is my current life. I am certainly not aiming to create an enduring personal relationship with the persons to whom these casual donations are made. I am more, to borrow other imagery, treating them as hungry ghosts are treated in Chinese popular religion, using small offerings of money (in Chinese religion spirit money) to prevent their interfering with things more important to me. That bothers my Lutheran, liberal, anthropological conscience, but not enough, it seems, to make me change my habits.

[Keith Hart]

Johannes, I applaud your desire to get specific citations. In my case, referring to an economy as being of the gift-type rather than market-type is very widespread within anthropology and more generally (for example in discussions of internet transactions). I didn't have Cheal in mind specifically. Apart from Gregory's opposition of gift and commodity, which he never intended as an ethnographic classification, Marilyn Strathern proposed the commodity/gift pair in The Gender of the Gift as typifying a contrast between "Euroamerican" and "Melanesian" cultures.

I like to go back to the classical sources. People often refer to Mauss's idea of the gift, but rarely read him and, when they do, often find him obscure. Mauss in turn wrote the essay as a follow-up to his uncle Emile Durkheim's polemic against English utilitarian economics in The Division of Labour in Society. The latter held either that a propensity to exchange was synonymous with being human (Adam Smith) or that society had evolved from primitive altruistic communism to selfish individualistic markets which were nastier but more efficient (Herbert Spencer). Spencer was very popular when Durkheim wrote his book in the 1890s. He argued there that market contracts were only superficially individualistic since there is a vast body of social custom, law, history and culture (the non-contractual elements in the contract) supporting the institution invisibly. The sociologist's job was to show how society works in the background of our self-centred worlds.

Mauss took up this argument by showing that gifts were never free, but always interested in some sense. Archaic gift-giving concealed rivalry, conflict, domination and inequality. The gift is therefore a model, taken from archaic societies, of modes of economic relations that have been repressed, marginalised or obscured by the dominant ideology and institutions of capitalism. It is therefore ideological to imagine that Christmas presents, for example, are a free gift in capitalist societies; but they do indicate that principles other than profit operate in our societies. He argues that  capitalist relations like rent and wages have elements of the gift in them: we pay rent before occupying and work beofre being paid. The welfare state creates class antagonism between donors and recipients. His aim, like Durkheim's, was to highlight the plurality of social mechanisms that sustain capitalist markets, so that we could build non-capitalist alternatives on that basis. Note that the method aims at constructing a better world, building on what is there already. Isolating the pure gift as a real ethnographic phenomenon is therefore ideological in Mauss's terms, a way of disguising our interdependence in market relations by projecting its antithesis onto a unrealistic fantasy of society.

I find all this more stimulating than what passes for economic anthropology in the past few decades. Anglophone anthropologists in particular have confused matters considerably by repeating bourgeois myths without being aware of it and then claiming Mauss as an authority. In classical social theory (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) there was always an explicit political agenda underpinning the sociology. Latterday anthropology (with the exception of a few like Graeber) has no apparent political agenda and is content just to describe what is; but in doing so they perpetuate myths that underwrite our economic system by making it seem to be inevitable. Again I have not named names in any detail here, but my academic publications make these arguments fully. See for example, the book I wrote with Chris Hann, Economic Anthropology (2011).

[Johannes Lenhard]

Thank you, John, for your warning. You are hitting the point that lurches in the back of my thinking. I might not have made it explicit, but what I am lacking is especially this: a multi-dimensional explanation (even a multi-dimensional theory). Somehow, most 'classical' scholars mentioned in the thread so far seem to have been urged to choose a side (self-interest vs altruism). What I am trying to do is looking at certain 'ideal types' of people (regular vs one-off) in order to depict them within an 'ideal type' typology. This typology as a whole, however, will be (almost) 'all-encompassing'. To put the argument very sharply: the gift (as a whole) as exemplified as a gift to beggars is neither ... nor ... - but rather both. In certain instances it is about self-interest (where also inalienability / giving-for-keeping enteres the argument), in others about help, altruism and the like. All of those instances together, have to be thought as the 'gift-nexus'. I would like to argue that most of the scholars so far have (wrongly) focused on particular aspects in favor of others - even the concept of 'continuum' (Gouldner, 1960; Sahlins, 1974) doesn't pay enough attention to this. It seems definitely not adequate to put the gift in an opposition towards the commodity - the two share certain features, don't they (for a 'commodity'-biased account see Offer, 1997)

A second point: You say: "I am certainly not aiming to create an enduring personal relationship with the persons to whom these casual donations are made. I am more, to borrow other imagery, treating them as hungry ghosts are treated in Chinese popular religion, using small offerings of money (in Chinese religion spirit money) to prevent their interfering with things more important to me." 

This for me implies:

A You personally don't want to relate to the beggars - the result of the gift-relationship is no inclusion of the beggar in a dyadic relationship. Do you think this is just a personal matter or would you generalize this? If yes, what do you think is the problem? That the relation can never be (self-interested) reciprocal? How would in your eyes such a relationship be constituted (because scholars argue, that the gift is as such the basis of society - constructing dyadic relationships and keeping them up over time - why not in this case?)?

B You are giving to a certain extent out of self-interest - in a way that refers to Weiner's notion of inalienable gifts (the distinction drawn in the earlier paper 'Inalienable Wealth' rather than the book, though - and taken up by Godelier): if I take your image as it is, you give in order to 'calm the beggars' down and 'protect things that are more important to you'. Doesn't this exactly correlate with Weiner's claim that some things are given in order to keep others back, i.e. protect others (=more valuable) things? You are actually the very first (if I got your comment correctly) to say something like this - unpromptedly in a certain way! I would like to put this thesis forward as well - although the validity is obviously very much limited to certain circumstances. (Most people who are afraid of beggars / disturbed by them simply don't give anything - why being bothered even with giving in order to keep them out of one's own life? This for me is the most pressing problem here!) 

I am excited to hear your ideas on those reflections!

John McCreery said:

I would be careful about choosing any one explanation for your observations. What you see may be overdetermined by multiple considerations. Thus, when I am moved to give to beggars, or more often here in Japan people soliciting charitable donations for causes like earthquake victims, guide dogs for the blind, or the education of children orphaned in traffic accidents, I could be fairly described as salving a liberal conscience, recalling the Good Samaritan but unwilling to go that far, magically evoking Buddhist notions of merit and karma, conscious all the while of warding off the collapse of the comfortable bubble that is my current life. I am certainly not aiming to create an enduring personal relationship with the persons to whom these casual donations are made. I am more, to borrow other imagery, treating them as hungry ghosts are treated in Chinese popular religion, using small offerings of money (in Chinese religion spirit money) to prevent their interfering with things more important to me. That bothers my Lutheran, liberal, anthropological conscience, but not enough, it seems, to make me change my habits.

[Johannes Lenhard]

Thanks again for this, Keith. I would also like to reply to your earlier post today. 

 

A Mauss: As you mentioned in both posts, many people confuse the classical account of the gift with self-interested reciprocity (see for example also Liebersohn's otherwise very helpful overview (2011)). So the first cardinal error is to put forward the distinction of unreciprocated, free gift vs self-interested commodity markets. Might we be able to situate Mauss in the following now: as you write ('Marcel Mauss: our guid to the future', 2006): it is in any case both the unity AND the society, freedom and obligation, interest and concern for others that drive giving. This might also be (as I discussed in my last post in reply to John) my very own attack on the 'black-OR-white' logic (with the example of begging). Did I get this correctly?

(I would furthermore be very interested in the reference to begging in Mauss - I was unfortunately not able to find it by browsing the text…; concerning your own paper (I did read Sigaud), you mean: 'Marcel Mauss - In Pursuit of the Whole', right?)

 

B Graeber: I read this chapter - and am aware of the possible importance for my analysis. However, I am surprised that you favor his thinking in such a major way. Thank you very much for pushing me in this direction in this way, though! 

How do you assess the possibility of spelling out giving to beggars with the tripartite 'Communism, hierarchy and exchange' typology as well?

Some clarifying questions:

1. The underlying principle of communism is 'from each according to their ability to each according to their needs'. This does not hint in the direction of reciprocity - presupposes an (eternal) relation, however (p. 100). This relation is the outcome of communism rather than a presupposition isn't it? Communism creates society in this way. (And plays a role in any transaction!, p.102) This might in the end be the most common form of giving-to-beggars - spontaneous sharing of passers-by seeing the beggar for the first and last time.

2. Exchange is all about equivalence (p.103) - here the goods are commodities, and exchange is understood commercially. The main point here is that as soon as reciprocal exchange of tit for tat happens, hierarchy is equalized (p.108) - might this also be an interesting point in relation to beggars? If we depict the giving in this way - money/food/time/talk/wish vs thankfulness/good conscience/God's grace etc - we are not only creating a 'bond' but also an 'equal bond'? This might be the form the regulars somehow take and prefer (obviously not in a pure way - keeping the one I on the fact that the three spheres normally mix in every situation). Obviously problems of how to measure equivalence are not looked at in this argument - but how is it possible to compare material with non-material, grace with money etc?

 

C Weiner / Godelier: I see your point on the 'weak scholarship' concerning the Maussian footnote, but somehow wonder where Weiner got her material from. In the end, she herself was in Melanesia collecting data, wasn't she? Apart from that, in what way do you see her running into the one-way street of oppositions with her argument about inalienability? Would you completely dismiss her point of making a distinction between objects to give and objects to keep? It seemed to be a valuable road to go in order to illuminate the difference between one-offs and regulars…

 

D Money: I will read you article in no time - just one comment: if we take for granted that money is always impersonal, would this imply that it is problematic to engage in a relationship with the beggar giving money? 

In regards to Kate's question: it seems to somehow fall out of the 'framework' to place a particular gift in it - doesn't it put more emphasize on the relationship of donor and recipient rather than the nature of the gift as such? I find it difficult to see money in one or the other - it could in different situation be in this (to pick up my example again: a one-off gives some coins to a beggar - this might be communism) in another in that way (a regular talking to a beggar possibly (abstrusely) out of religious reasons - rather reciprocity).

 

E Commodity/Gift (later post): Taking what we just said serious, it is a problem to classify anything in this way (which is also exactly what among others Cheal, 1987 or to a certain extent Carrier, 1991 argue). As I already said above, even the continuum argument doesn't seem to go far enough. I just read a fairly new account by Gudeman (2002, part of 'Postmodernism, economics and knowledge') that puts forward the argument of a 'dialectic' between the two. Even though he calls them gift and reciprocity what he means is very close to what we are talking about. Has anybody read the account and might share a thought on this - as a solution to the paradox of the opposition in the classification?

F Mauss (2): You put forward a very sensitive argument that is exactly what I am searching for. Let me try to get your point. Again it is important to not think in a 'black-or-white' logic, but rather in a 'black-AND-white' logic (more generally: formalists vs substantivists are following the former - and are somehow both on a wrong, undecidable road…). This is Mauss point - it is neither all self-interest or profit-orientated nor altruistic. Most 'exchanges' are related to a plethora of reasons/motivations/ideas. This does on the other hand also mean that the 'pure gift' as it were, does not exist! When one looks at it in isolation, one is purely following 'ideal types' then. In terms of a description (and embedding in theory) begging, this is also important as I tried to make clear above. 

I, however, can still not really follow your point about ideology. By isolating one tool/realm in favor of the other, one puts forward a political agenda - automatically. In this way, one advertises a certain idea, so to speak. This is what you think is lacking in anthropology - did I get follow you correctly here, Keith? So, transferring this to the begging example, it might be necessary to take into account that the argument as such has political (possibly even policy) implications - what does it mean in the end for the beggar writing about him in this or that fashion? 

Re your book is already ordered ;)

Thanks a lot for all your ideas - very very helpful indeed and very much appreciated!

[Keith Hart]

Johannes, I wonder if I could step back for while and consider all these points, then return later. I am in fact on holiday and had not bargained for so intense and detailed a discussion. There are times in the above when I feel we really are pointing int he same direction, but then at others I feel that empirical analysis is fighting dialectic and that is always a tough one to resolve neatly.

My general point taken from Mauss is, as you say the unity of self and society, freedom and obligation etc in a whole array of economic relations, not just the gift. What I am arguing against is reifying the gift as a type of transaction distinct from market contracts and extrapolating from that to classify whole economies. I don't say you are doing that.

I do not buy Graeber's argument wholesale, but I do approve of a method that he shares with Mauss and Polanyi, namely seeing economic life as the interplay of plural economic principles. I would not suggest that your study of begging will benefit from using his typology.

Compression clearly did no favours to my references to theory, ideology, politics, description and the rest. Our discussion has become rather prolix and I carry a lot of the blame for that. Another good reason for a pause, but don't worry, I'll be back.

There is a lot more to discuss, but maybe it would be better first if others feel there is some space left to insert their own thoughts and opinions.

[Johannes Lenhard]

This might indeed have been a little bit too much for only one day - please, Keith, take as much time as you would like to and get back to it as soon as you want! Thanks a lot for your time, anyway, so far! It really helps discussing this with the forum!

I, however, wholeheartedly appreciate further comment from other members as well!

Keith Hart said:

Johannes, I wonder if I could step back for while and consider all these points, then return later. I am in fact on holiday and had not bargained for so intense and detailed a discussion. There are times in the above when I feel we really are pointing int he same direction, but then at others I feel that empirical analysis is fighting dialectic and that is always a tough one to resolve neatly.

My general point taken from Mauss is, as you say the unity of self and society, freedom and obligation etc in a whole array of economic relations, not just the gift. What I am arguing against is reifying the gift as a type of transaction distinct from market contracts and extrapolating from that to classify whole economies. I don't say you are doing that.

I do not buy Graeber's argument wholesale, but I do approve of a method that he shares with Mauss and Polanyi, namely seeing economic life as the interplay of plural economic principles. I would not suggest that your study of begging will benefit from using his typology.

Compression clearly did no favours to my references to theory, ideology, politics, description and the rest. Our discussion has become rather prolix and I carry a lot of the blame for that. Another good reason for a pause, but don't worry, I'll be back.

There is a lot more to discuss, but maybe it would be better first if others feel there is some space left to insert their own thoughts and opinions.

[John McCreery]

Johannes, you ask if my not wanting to form an on-going relationship with the beggar is just a personal matter. On reflection, I don't think so. I know many people who behave in ways similar to myself. I suspect that the reason has to do with early indoctrination to religious attitudes toward giving. In my own case, a pious Lutheran upbringing included the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus saying to the rich young man that if he wished to go to heaven he should sell all he owned and give the proceeds to the poor, lots and lots of that sort of thing. Even noticing that people did not always act in the way that the Bible says they should did not erase the guilt that always accompanies calculated indifference.