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Gift Giving, Reciprocity, and Exchange

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Health, Culture and Society

Abstract

Using Marcel Mauss’s foundational concept presented in The Gift, that exchanging gifts or services is an act motivated by developing social relationships, this chapter examines attempts made by skilled birth attendants to provide maternal health care to women of rural Indonesia, the rural women’s responses to the offered care, and the social results of those interactions. This chapter argues that by examining exchange and reciprocity important characteristics are revealed about how health care is given and received in contemporary society and how this impacts the health status of individuals. The conclusion is of particular interest for health researchers—how power and inequality are enacted in the health care encounter.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

    Vanessa M. Hildebrand

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Hildebrand, V.M. (2017). Gift Giving, Reciprocity, and Exchange. In: Health, Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60786-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60786-3_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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