Marcel Mauss

 
Disciplines > Sociology > Marcel Mauss
The Gift | Body techniques | See also
 
Marcel Mauss (1872 - 1950) was a French Sociologist and Anthropologist and nephew of Emile Durkheim.
The Gift
In 'The Gift', Mauss (1924) explores gift-exchanges in various cultures and highlights the reciprocal nature of gifts
and the obligation of the receiver to repay the debt.  The object that is given carries the identity of the giver, and
hence the recipient receives not only the gift but also the association of that object with the identity of the giver.
Mauss describes the Maori hau, which means the "spirit of the gift". The hau demands that the gift be returned to
its owner. In Polynesia, failing to reciprocate means losing mana, the person's spiritual source of authority and
wealth.
Gift-giving is thus a critical mechanism for creating social bonds. Mauss describes three obligations:

 Giving: the first step in building social relationships.

 Receiving: accepting the social bond.
 Reciprocating: demonstrating social integrity.
Prosocial gifts
Critics of Mauss point to prosocial behavior where no immediate exchange is made. Derrida describes four criteria
for a free gift:

 There is no reciprocal giving back of a return gift

 The recipient does not perceive the gift as a gift or him/herself as a recipient
 The donor must not consider the gift as a gift
 The gift does not appear as a gift
Body techniques
Mauss describes 'techniques of the body' as highly developed body actions that embody aspects of a given
culture. Techniques may also be divided by such as gender and class (for example in the manner of walking or
eating).
These include such as eating, washing, sitting, swimming, running, climbing, swimming, child-rearing, and so on.
The techniques are adapted to situations, such as aboriginal squatting where no seats are available. Techniques
are thus a 'craft' (Latin: habilis) that is learned.
The teaching of these methods is what embeds the methods and the teaching is embedded within cultures and
schools of teaching. A pupil who becomes a teacher will likely teach what they are taught.
Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu developed the ideas further in habitus, the non-discursive aspects of culture
that bind people into groups, including unspoken habits and patterns of behavior as well as styles and skill in
body techniques.
See also
Norbert Elias
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Elias, N. (1978). The History of Manners. The Civilizing Process: Volume I. New York: Pantheon Books
Elias, N. (1982). Power and Civility. The Civilizing Process: Volume II. New York: Pantheon Books
Mauss, Marcel. 1934. Les Techniques du corps, Journal de Psychologie 32(3-4). Reprinted in Mauss, Sociologie et
anthropologie, 1936, Paris: PUF

Pierre Bourdieu
 
Disciplines > Sociology > Pierre Bourdieu
Field | Habitus | Symbolic capital | See also
 
Pierre Bourdieu (1930 - 2002), was a French sociologist, philosopher and anthropologist.
He noted that social position had a significant effect on artistic preference, and that use of language style had a
significant effect on social mobility. He also preached a reflexive sociology, where sociologists take particular care
with regard to effect of their own biases.
Field
Rather than considering societies in terms of classes (as Marx), Bourdieu used the idea of a field, a social arena
within which people compete for resources. A field is thus a system of social positions based on structure in
power relationships.
Classes have definitions that create clear boundaries. Fields are networks that are more diffuse and can spider in
variable ways.
Habitus
Bourdieu extended Elias' habitus to include beliefs and preferences, identifying how objective social structures are
incorporated into subjective, mental experience of agents. In this way objective and subjective are combined,
thus resolving the dilemma of a person being either or both an object and subject.
Symbolic capital
Bourdieu describes power in terms of 'symbolic capital', which comes with social position and affords prestige and
leads to others paying attention to you. Using symbolic power against another implies symbolic violence, and may
take such forms as dismissal and judging the person inferior. This power may be dispensed without words, using
physical symbols and behaviors (such as 'looking down one's nose').
Symbolic capital engenders a sense of duty and inferiority in others who look up to those who have that power.
In discussions of symbolic capital, the metaphor of economics is often used, thus showing flows and reservoirs.
Education is a key method of transferring this power in social reproduction and leads to transfer of specific beliefs
and behaviors that assume symbolic capital.
See also
Life histories, Power
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Elias, N. (1978). The History of Manners. The Civilizing Process: Volume I. New York: Pantheon Books
Elias, N. (1982). Power and Civility. The Civilizing Process: Volume II. New York: Pantheon Books

Beliefs
 
Explanations > Beliefs
 
What do you believe? The answer is likely to be 'more than you realize'. We understand and manage the world
around us through our beliefs, which may not be perfect, but which are useful.
Changing minds very often means changing beliefs, which means the persuader should gain an excellent
understanding of what they are, how they are formed and how they get changed.
Articles on belief include:

 What Is Belief?: Gives a simple definition.

 Beliefs About People: Very much affect how we interact with them.
 Care-Behavior Matrix: How different beliefs lead to different interpersonal behaviors.
 The Confidence Trap: Too much belief can be bad for you.
 Doublethink: Orwell's holding of contradictory beliefs.
 Ellis' Irrational Beliefs: Dysfunctional beliefs that many of us hold.
 Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs which constrain us.
 Kahler's Drivers: I must be perfect, strong, etc.
 The Formation of Belief: Describes how we find our beliefs.
 Strengths of Beliefs: Discusses strong, weak and blind beliefs.
 Superstition: Beliefs that drive rituals.
 Types of Belief: Classifies the sorts of things we believe in.

So what?
If you can change a person's belief, you have a very powerful persuasion tool. They are, however quite deep
things and will often resist changing. So understand them, how they are formed and how they change.
See also
Theories about belief, Fowler's Faith Stage Theory
Blogs by subject: Belief

Structuralism
 
Explanations > Critical Theory > Structuralism
Description | Discussion | See also
 
Description
Structuralism assumes that things are the sum of their parts and the relationships between the parts, which are
assembled into the larger structure.
Thus it combines separation and creation of a distinct part with relational combination of parts into a greater
whole.
It seeks to describe meta-languages that describe the systems under scrutiny.
Structuralism rejects the purposeful human agent as the key force in history.
Discussion
Structuralism aligns with the positivist viewpoint, but not with postmodernism.
For parts to be identified, they must have boundaries that separate them as unities.
In psychology, structuralism started with William Wundt, who sought to break consciousness down into its
constituent parts.
In anthropology, meaning seen to be produced and reproduced through practices, phenomena and activities
which act as systems of signification.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, analyzed cultural phenomena including mythology, kinship, and food preparation. He
rejected the purposeful human agent as the motivating force in history.
In linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure used structuralism in his analysis of language and signs, creating Semiotics
and his idea of parole (talk) and langue (underlying structured system). He argued that meaning is created inside
language in the difference between words.
See also
Post-structuralism

Object
 
Disciplines > Psychoanalysis > Concepts > Object
Description | Discussion | See also
 
Description
The Object is something to which a Subject relates. This can be a person, a physical thing or a concept.
Objects are created through splitting, projection and introjection.
External Objects are things external to the person, typically other people.
Internal Objects are things inside the person, either imagined or internal representations of an external object
(which may vary significantly from the represented external object). Internal objects achieve permanence with
repetition and strong emotional associations.
A Part Object is a part of a person or other object, such as a hand or breast. Part objects can be extrapolated to
represent the whole object.
A Whole Object is a complete object, usually another person.
A Self Object occurs where the self and an object merge. This is called 'confluence' in Gestalt therapy.
Object constancy occurs when a relationship with an external object is stable over a period of time.
A Good Object is one which satisfies our needs and desires. Good objects are given love, affection and liking.
A Bad Object is one which frustrates or otherwise does not support our needs and desires. Bad objects are hated
and despised.
Discussion
Freud originally used the term 'object' to mean anything that an infant drives toward in order to satisfy needs.
Freudian drives can be are of two types: libidinal and aggressive.
Klein, Winnicott and others took the view that the drive was more towards relationship with others, and that
other people are primary 'objects' of desire and attention.
Objects can include feelings and ideas. In a primitive way, infants will assume these as being concrete things,
equating internal feeling with external feeling. This allows them to have substance and be projected.
In grammar, the object in a sentence is acted on by the verb. Thus, in 'the cat sat on the mat', the cat is the
subject and the mat is the object.
See also
Klein, Object Relations Theory
 

Subject
 
Explanations > Identity > Subject
Description | Discussion | See also
 
Description
This is the view of identity being built by being the 'subject' of language.

 Identities are built by and in the subject positions.

 They are available to us in language and cultural symbolic codes. They are interpellated.
 Identities are produced through relations of difference (race, sexuality, gender, etc.). These differences
are internal to language. They include relations of power.
 Identity is defined by 'others'. When we distance ourselves from these others, we may collapse from
within.
 Individuals are inserted ('sutured') into subject positions by the unconscious.
Discussion
There is a whole position around identity as being the 'subject of language' that takes an anti-humanist and
structural view of the person. 'Humanity' is ignored in favor of the way our environment and cultures controls us
through language, replacing the purposeful agent with a dumb puppet.
Althusser's 'subject' came from attempts to rethink Marxism, using structuralism in opposition to mechanistic
thought in a more humanist way, seeking to put conscious activity at the heart of Marxism in combination with
the 'alienation' of people from their full altruistic potential.
He saw human individuals being constituted as subjects through ideology. Consciousness and agency are
experienced, but are the products of ideology 'speaking through' the subject.
Althusser uses Lacan's mirror phase to highlight how subjects are interpellated, but does not recognize the critical
misrecognition that Lacan highlights. Althusser has also been criticized for how his subject is magically created of
nowhere (what is there before the subject?).
For Saussure, the subject is an effect or product of the process of signifying. He believed that nothing exists
outside of language, including 'I'.
Benveniste said that man constitutes himself as a subject in and through language, and that 'ego is he who says
"ego"'. This challenges the notion that 'I' exists outside of language. Speaking from 'I' creates the 'I'. 'I' can also
be used (by you) to mean you, making it unstable as a definer of identity. Identity (as everything) in language
comes from difference. To define 'I' there must be a 'you'. These are also reversible, as 'I' become 'you' when
others talk.
Barthes noted that language knows a subject, but not a person.
Lacan argues that subject positions are made available in the symbolic order into which people place themselves
in order to speak that position. He also noted that there is always a gap between the subject and the subject
position they inhabit.
Hall notes how the speaker and the spoken are never identical, thus fragmenting identity across time and space.
 
In grammar, the subject is the person or thing in a sentence that does what the verb says, to the object. Thus, in
'the cat sat on the mat', the cat is the subject and the mat is the object.
See also
Interpellation, Mirror phase, Ideology, Death of the author

Power
 
Explanations > Power
 
Power is the ability to get what you want. As what you want is often constrained by other people, the use of
power often includes changing or influencing what others think, believe and do. It is at the heart of all techniques
of changing minds.
Further information on power:
  French and Raven's: five forms of power are the most common classification.
 Hobbes and Power: Thomas Hobbes' 17th century view.
 Power Enhancers: that increase the efficacy of your power.
 Powerlessness: How we convince ourselves.
 Power Types: that extent and simplify other lists.
 Stages of Personal Power: From powerless to wisdom.
 Strategic Contingencies Theory: become irreplaceable.
 Three Dimensions of Power: channels, intent and deliberateness.
 Toffler's Three Forms of Power: Violence, wealth and knowledge.
 Powerful People: What powerful people do.
 Power in Organizations: How it happens in companies.

So What?
Understand the power you have as well as the power of other people. Use your own power carefully. Perhaps the
greatest power you can have is to get others to use their power on your behalf.
Beware of sleeping dragons: many people will only use their power when aroused. The most effective power is
that used so subtly that people do not realize it is being used.
Power does not have to be used directly: threats are often effective, especially when accompanied by displays of
power. Like gorillas thumping their chests, we seldom need to fight.
See also
Power in politics, Theories about power, Power body language, Power words, Politics