e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 56 Leandro Benedini Brusadin Federal University of Ouro Preto The Gift Theory and the Triad of Hospitality Ancient and Modern This study reviews existing published academic literature in the Anthropology and the Sociology of Hospitality to create a conceptual paper based on the theory of Marcel Mauss's gift. The aim of the paper is to reflect on practices of trade in human relations and the way of welcoming the other. Hospitality, from the viewpoint of Mauss's gift, may be better grounded to encompass the complexity of the field and go beyond empirical studies and superficial intellectualism. Key words: Hospitality; Anthropology; Marcel Mauss; Gift Theory; Exchanges. Leandro Benedini Brusadin Adjunct Professor Federal University of Ouro Preto School of Law, Tourism and Museology Department of Tourism PO Box 35400-00 Morro do Cruzeiro – Ouro Preto / MG Brazil Phone: [55] 31 3559 1447 Email: leandro@ufop.edu.br Leandro B. Brusadin holds a PhD in History from São Paulo State University of Franca (UNESP), a Master's degree in Hospitality from Anhembi Morumbi University (UAM) and a Bachelor’s in Tourism from Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC). He has a Post-doctorate degree from the School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities of the University of São Paulo (USP) and is currently Post-doctorate at the University Paris V (SORBONNE). He is a Permanent Adjunct Professor of the Department of Tourism of the School of Law, Tourism, and Museology of the Federal University Ouro Preto (UFOP). He is a Professor of the Constructed Environment and Sustainable Heritage at the School of Architecture of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). He is the author of several books and articles that focus mainly on cultural heritage, hospitality, history, and sociology in Tourism. Introduction “The Gift” presents a notion on the theory of gift giving as a common denominator of human exercise involving three obligations: to give, to receive and to reciprocate. In symbolic articulation, Marcel Mauss reveals that “in Scandinavian and many other civilizations, the exchange of goods and contracts is performed in the form of gifts, which are voluntary in theory, but in reality are mandatorily given and reciprocated.” (2008:55). By http://ertr.tamu.edu/ mailto:leandro@ufop.edu.br e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 57 describing the phenomenon of the exchange of goods and contracts in primitive societies, in their forms of prestations and reciprocities, a system of total prestations was created. The triad obligation theory provides the author with a satisfactory fundamental explanation for the contract forms between the primitive Polynesian tribes. These institutions “uniquely express a fact, a social regime, mentality defined as: everything – food, women, children, land, labour, services, priestly positions and classes – it is the material used for transfer and delivery” (Mauss, 2008:71). Indeed, the influence of exchanging does nothing more than translate the way social groups are constantly overlapping each other. This paper presumes that the theory of gift giving represents hospitality, in the sense of being an act of human welcoming, and as such, is a theoretical-methodological support for the epistemological understanding of this field of knowledge, while also contributing to the interdisciplinary construction of current scientific data which a priori appears to be opposite or distinct. Hospitality can fill a scientific gap caused by the fragmented reading of social reality and propose humanitarian policies. […] due to its complexity and fragility, the gift allows us to once again encounter the idea of inter-subjectivity of the social link in its classifying identifying and circulatory functions. The gift appears to be a necessary step to establish the identity of people and stakeholders in the hospitality field and can contribute to trains of thought within various schools. (Brusadin, 2017: 310). The word “gift” comes from the Latin word dativa and etymologically is incomplete and should be combined with the word “debt” that describes the condition where one depends on the other. “However, no gift can eliminate the debt with the other, since it increases every time I give more. Therefore, the gift, the debt, do not expire” as cited by Tomillo Noguero (2013:171). Meanwhile, in the introduction of the article entitled Essay on the Gift, Levi-Strauss (Mauss, 2008:34) says that "the exchange is the common denominator for a great number of http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 58 social activities, apparently heterogeneous among themselves." The author also comments that Mauss' total social factor presents itself as a tri-dimensional character and needs to be matched with the proper sociological dimension of multiple synchronous aspects: the historical or diachronic dimension, and finally, the physio-psychological dimension. The total social phenomenon, as Mauss (2008:70) proposes to call them, include all types of institutions: religious, legal and moral, and these are political, economic and family at the same time. "(...) The total provision does not only imply the obligation of reciprocating the presents received, but it also presupposes two others that are equally important: the obligation to give gifts, on one side, and the obligation to receive them, on the other". Therefore, on an analytical basis, the gift does not presuppose a counter-position between the social and economic characters that we sometimes find in other epistemological lines of human thinking and social dichotomous mode. This system that Mauss (2008) also denominates as the total prestation system from tribe to tribe – is a system by which individuals and groups execute their exchanges – in such a manner that this constitutes the oldest system for economics and law that has been possible to observe and design. In this manner, the author establishes the morality of the gift – exchange, towards which the society of at any time should be directed. Upon studying the dark side of social life, Mauss (2008) wished to illuminate the path to be taken by nations, morally as well as economically. The studies and activities within project indicate that Hospitality, from the viewpoint of Mauss's gift, may be better grounded to encompass the field complexity and go beyond empirical studies and superficial intellectualism. http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 59 The Potlatch Ritual by Marcel Mauss: a gift exchanging system In a methodological sense, Marcel Mauss (2008) followed one of comparison, delimited to determined areas whereby Polynesia, Melanesia, and Northwestern America were chosen. His study focused on their systems that were described one after another in their entirety in a collective sense, demonstrating that there was a mutual obligation of exchange and contract. What these peoples exchanged was not exclusively goods and riches, but amiabilities, rituals, and ceremonials. These acts are denominated by the author as prestations and reciprocity, in a preferentially voluntary form, but which were understood to be mandatory. The name potlatch was indicated for such total prestations in the sense that the tribe utilizes this system of rules and ideas to ensure a type of hierarchy among themselves when executing real contracts. The “potlatch itself, so typical as fact and at the same time so characteristic of these tribes, is nothing more than a system of gift exchanging”. (Mauss, 2008:108). The facts studied by Mauss (2008) were collected in what the author denominated as ethnographic, by means of comparison to measure how much our societies diverged from or approached the societies denominated as primitive. In this way, Mauss (2008:56) problemised his research as follows: “what rule of the law and of interest in backward or primitive societies, determines that the gift received must be mandatorily reciprocated? What force exists in the thing that is given that causes the receiver to reciprocate?” The author visualizes how it would be possible to study total human behaviour with all its social life, and even more, understands that this type of concrete study could be conducted not only for the science of customs, a partial social science, but could even provide conclusions on moral. Mauss (2008) believed that studies of this kind could also effectively perceive, measure and weigh the various aesthetic, moral, religious, economic, and various http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 60 material factors, as well as demographic reasons that together create a society and constitutes a life in common. In the regions researched by Mauss (2008:195), potlatch is therefore a system of observed exchanges that was divided into essential elements: honour, prestige, the mana that gives wealth, and the obligation to reciprocate these gifts on pain of losing this mana, this authority, this talisman, this source of wealth that is its own authority. "The unreciprocated gift makes the one who accepted it without the spirit of reciprocity, inferior", observed the author. It is important to state that potlatch is an English word originating from the American Indians and refers to a gift of sacred nature, constituting for the one who receives it, a challenge to give an equivalent gift. This paper proposes to analyse this ritual in primitive societies regarding their epistemological character and social science methodology, as did Marcel Mauss in his space and temporal limitations. However, it´s necessary to understand that this theoretical and methodological debate could also be performed using other social groups during their respective epochs in regards to their relationships with exchanges, such as occurs in their welcoming practices and the exchange of primitive and modern hospitalities. In ancient societies described by Mauss (2008), there exists four forms of potlatch that are synonymous of the gift: the obligation to give, the obligation to invite, the obligation to receive, and finally the obligation to reciprocate. The individual that does not reciprocate his loan or his potlatch loses his social status or even his liberty. Taxes, talismans, copper, and spirits of the chiefs are of the same nature and the same function as the circulation of goods, of men, women, children, rituals, ceremonies, and dances, these being the only other forms. Mauss (2008) reported descriptive socialistic studies with the use of ethnography, in which the Melanesian populations had, more so than the Polynesians, conserved or developed the potlatch, by means of the kula which consisted in giving, on the part of some, and http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 61 receiving, on the part of others, being the people receivers one day, and the givers, the next, in a regular circular movement that seemed to englobe the totality of the economic and civil life of the Trobriand Islands. This system was observed and described directly by Malinowski (1978), an author that influenced Marcel Mauss in his analyses about the role of the gift in primitive tribes. Reciprocity is an exchange condition in social integration, without which people tend to lose interest and withdraw. This exchange condition is a norm of reciprocity by which societies are represented. In the studies of Mauss (2008), the social elements of the potlatch ritual of an American Indian tribe, in which men used gifts as a way of indicating their status in relation to the others, were considered a case in point. This was a way of demonstrating the generosity of wealthy men and for those contemplated to feel obliged to act in the same way in the future so that they could move to a higher position. Such a fact links the gift to a platform of power in the face of asymmetric exchanges. Mauss (2008) carried out studies of descriptive sociology with the use of ethnography, in which Melanesian populations had preserved or developed the potlatch, better than did the Polynesians, by means of the kula, which consisted in giving to some and receiving from others, receivers being so one day, and donors the next time, in a regular circular movement that seems to encompass the entire economic and civil life of the Trobriand Islands. This system was observed and described directly by Malinowski (1978), an author who influenced Marcel Mauss in his analyses of the gift in the primitive tribes. Why, then, does a term so marked throughout history by the stigma of nostalgia and naivety become today a cutting-edge topic in this sociological and scientific discussion? Such a question by Camargo (2004) implies that this inserts us in the face of the social problems inherent in the wounds of globalisation, since human migrations continue, and there is also concern about the gradual homogenisation of habits and customs. For that reason, the gift http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 62 system embedded in the threefold giving-receiving-repaying can allow a better understanding of related phenomena such as association, leadership, and human solidarity. The gift, its rites, and legends: the soul of things Once the facts have been defined, it is necessary to enter in contact with them; that is, to observe them, as is said by Mauss (1909:128), who even questions: “How to link a fact to a means, if not by demonstrating how the means reacted to this fact?” The word Ethnography serves to describe the empirical and descriptive results of the science of mankind; and the word Ethnology serves to refer one to the speculative and comparative theories so that anthropology should not escape from the study of the most intimate part of a human being, one’s instinctive and emotional life. Such analysis demonstrates that in the theory of Mauss, there is no dichotomous relationship between the protagonist social agents, since they attain in a dynamic sense, the dominating character and the dominated character at the same time. Would this not be a complex form of being, which represents that the members of our society continue to act among themselves? The basic principle upon which is based the rules of transactions in these communities is the fact that the kula consists in the donation of a ceremonial gift in exchange for which, after a certain space of time, an equivalent present should be received. The exchange, however, can never be discussed, evaluated or bargained. Malinowski (1978:81) highlights that "important, however, is that for the natives of the kula, to have is to give – and in this aspect, they are notably different from us. (...) The wealth is, then the principal indicator of power – and generosity, the sign of wealth. Indeed, avarice is the most despised addiction”. The uses of courtesy and those of moral life possess forms as fixed as the more characteristic religious rituals. As such, a simple “good day” is a true wish, clearly http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 63 formulated but has only a conventional significance. In this manner, the rituals are “effective traditional acts that relate with things considered sacred. “(...) The rituals have, for sure, truly effective material”, affirms Mauss (1909:138), linked to material and the spirit of social logic. The only problem with Mauss's theory is how to make it penetrate the historical method and the logic of time; in other words, how to interpret the rituals of a primitive society in the face of modern society in a dialogic sense? Sahlins (1990) understands this culture with different historicity, and also based on the action of the symbolic system that consists of the empiricism of a cyclical structure with a diachronic temporal character. With this reasoning, the author points out that the difficulty is to detach the concept of history from the anthropologic experience of culture. In addition, this author utilizes the concept of historicity performative structures to admit varying cultural practices, denominated as "Historical Structural Anthropology". While relating Anthropology with History, Sahlins (1990:63) congratulates the "new history that finally learned the anthropologic lessons" and understands that society is constructed as an individual sum of its individual practices. The dialogue between these fields is also true for the way the author studies the mystical activity, sometimes as a practical activity, sometimes as a mystical one. In this case, the myth transforms into an event and vise-versa, such as in his analysis of Capitan Cook. Thus, the historians cannot ignore the exotic past simply for not being remotely cultural and for not having in-depth registers, since it is exactly because of this that the history of the islands of the South Seas and other civilizations merit special attention. Therefore, the new cultural and anthropological history can have devices that at the same time, meet the understanding of social and economic events throughout their time Therefore, given the above, we consider that Mauss's theory raises questions of human social order that overlap the economic order or link to the same with interference from http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 64 its logic of power. The primitive society held its exchanges through symbolic rituals that served as much for maintenance and power interests as for disinterested practices linked to the emotional aspects of honour and generosity. Nevertheless, there have been other studies that we can relate to this perspective, although sometimes the economic analysis tends to prevail at the expense of the complexity of society Therefore, examples of primitive gifts can be mentioned in the following rituals: the potlatch, practiced by indigenous tribes in Northwest America, refer to a notion of credit and honour; the o kula, practiced by inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands in which the precious goods that circulate in the opposite sense in accordance with sex, were inseparable between their symbolic and utilitarian values. “In a phenomenological perspective, it could be said that primary sociability constitutes a concrete intersubjective space and as such, that the gift is this concrete and specific mobility” (Godbout, 1992:198). In lieu of this, it is a fact that the primitive society worried infinitely more with its reproduction than with the production of things. However, a distinct magnetism between the object and the subject puts and end to archaic interchangeability. Godbout (1992: 133) also questions, “What, then, is the gift in modern society?”, when he ponders that the gift relation is primarily a phenomenon of reciprocity understood as retributions that should be realised by means of gift-arousing gratitude and recognition. Moreover, the author ponders that there is an immediate reciprocation of energy from the donor to the benefited being. Let us hope that the good old homo oeconomicus is not actually as different as he may seem from homo communicans; if he likes receiving and accumulating so much, it is exactly because he also likes to give. His problem is that he does not know very well whom to – except for himself - nor how to proceed. (Caillé, 2002: 127) http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 65 A paradoxical discussion about the gift comes about in its gratuitousness, not in the sense that it has no return, but to the extent that what circulates does not correspond to the rules of mercantile equivalence The gift theory and the triad of hospitality: ancient and modern The primitive gift societies have something more to offer to understand the tourism and the hospitality, as if Mauss wished that something of the kula would come to irrigate modernity. However, the economy of the modern society is constructed on what supposedly is the opposite of the gift: the individual, the merchandise, the currency, and the market. Still, Christianism approaches such precepts of the gift, and intends to be an economy of grace. The case of Jesus eminently illustrates the aspect emphasized by Mauss: in the logic of the gift, to give is to give of yourself (Tarot, 2002). Therefore, many of the elements in primitive societies are present in other forms in our modern society. In the epistemological discussion about the gift, Godbout (1992) questions why sociologists and economists debate the interests of power or culture, or inherited traditions, but not yet in terms of gifts? This is due to a unilateral explanation of the gift in which, if there is an exchange, it is not a gift from a utilitarian perspective and theories of rational choices in a thirsty quest for power, not that these theories lack pertinence. The idea defended by the author, and incorporated in this paper, is that the cycle of gift giving, receiving and reciprocating is so important for understanding the human species not only in the giving, transmitting and reciprocating acts in which compassion and generosity can act, but also a conception of self-appropriation or self-conservation, such as jealousy and egotism. According to this, the gift constitutes a system of proper social relationships regarding intricate practices and relationships of economic interest or power. So, hospitality can be defined by acts of exchanges that involve power, acceptance, and hostility. http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 66 Thus, when receiving someone in your home (or your country), a gesture inherent to the dynamics of giving-receiving-repaying is made, whether or not preceded by an invitation. Hospitality takes on the role of sedimenting the social fabric. Just like the gift, hospitality becomes a total social fact. To be accepted reactivates the primary archaic nostalgia: security, the warmth of the shelter, the continuous breastfeeding, the mother’s face, states Montandon (2002). Gotman (2001:2) understands that the sociological assumption of hospitality asymmetry subverts the egalitarian relations of expected social relations in the rule of Law. In an interview with Marie Raynal (2013), Anne Gotman said that hospitality is part of the anthropological universality of the exchange, because one cannot live within oneself and, in modern society, it appears as a form of solidarity. According to the author, such issues should also be addressed in the logic of immigrants in Europe, urban space and the lack of reception in the academic environment. This kind of research has only one objective in common: reflecting the social logic of human thought. Metaphysical freedom can be the privileged prerogative of man and is everywhere in statistical numbers to determine whether or not to exist. "I will say willingly that in sociology there is a need for more Anthropology and History. I would even say that a complete Anthropology could replace Philosophy, because it precisely understand this story of the human spirit that Philosophy assumes ", thinks Mauss (1923:161). Although the understanding of Mauss has delimited research in given primitive societies, we part from the presumption that the gift is as modern and contemporary as that characterized in the primitive societies, since it not only refers to isolated and discontinuous moments of social existence but its totality. Jacques Godbout (1992) states that if modernity refuses to believe in the existence of the gift, it is because it represents an opposite image of a material egotistical interest, which in his eyes, the "true" gift could only be free. http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 67 However, above all, the gift serves to establish relationships and a relationship without hope of reciprocation in the same manner, free and without motive, would not be a social relationship. The gift, as such, constitutes a system of proper social relationships as irreducible forms are relationships of economic interest or power. The only hypothesis is that there exists in modern society, as well as in the primitive society, a mode for circulation of goods that intrinsically differs from the mode analysed by economists, such as that found in Marcel Mauss. The temporal issue of the gift was the first timidity of Marcel Mauss because he formulated the hypothesis that a modern gift does not correspond directly with that of primitive societies; avoiding, as such, to extend his results beyond those cultures studied by him. However, the gift goes beyond the ideology of the imaginary and the opposition between the individual and the collective, considering people as members of a more ample concrete group in which goods circulate at the service of the social ties created, alimenting and re-establishing by means of services rendered without assurance of reciprocation (Godbout, 1992). It is our understanding that in an epistemic and methodological manner, the gift serves various fields of knowledge, supplying us with an understanding of the many facets of our society with its dynamic character. In addition to this delimitation of the gift within primitive societies, a number of reasons turned Marcel Mauss into a seriously underrated author. According to Caillé (2002), primarily because he is not the author of any book and in his mind, stubbornly refuses to let this system end, not being able to depict it in a manual. Then too, Mauss did not think to give up the pleasures of life, friendship, sport and wrote only under compulsion, for passion, and for pleasure, without taking into account that he always wanted to be the militant of a civic cause and socialist at the same time. Finally, another reason is that his disciples became more http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 68 famous than him, either by dissecting the complexity of his thinking or giving it unilateral emphasis. Caillé (2002) works with the modern concept of the gift paradigm: the term paradigm to designate the gift, no matter how anti-systematic it seems to be, is necessary to fix within some systematic modalities of concrete thinking, even concatenating them in an anti- paradigm manner. In the mind of the author, the first paradigm is the individual action known for a utilitarian approach to which maussiana sociology opposes because it does not seek to impute in the action anything but its own positive and normative inherent determinants. The second paradigm refers to the holistic character of functionalism or structuralism, within which its members, Durkheim and Levi-Strauss, explain all actions, individual or collective, analysing them as so many manifestations of domination exercised by social totality over individuals and the need to reproduce them. The third paradigm, denominated by Alain Caillé (2002:18), represents something beyond the "holism as quickly self-assured and satisfied to play with its individualistic rival a game of simple and misleading mirrors. The gift paradigm overcomes the equally limited viewpoints of individuals and holism". Therefore, is it possible to think of the gift as a paradox logic of the market in hospitality? Hence, welcoming the other as a guest means accepting to receive them in our city, in our home, placing at his disposal the best of what we are and possess, in search of places for human mediation. Hospitality allows us to break a selfish cycle by means of an ethical, supportive, and responsible dimension with the shared life in social spaces (Brusadin, 2016). Individualists aim to abandon the free market game for the organization of a greater proportion of social existence. While holistics, to the contrary, demonstrate a preference for a State that has an important role in the social game. Such delimited opposition between liberals and socialists are reinserted in the maussiana proposal in a social and political order http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 69 that synthesizes with common sense in opposition with reductionism and unilateral theorizing. And this derives from the fact that before having economic interests, it is necessary that people, individually or collectively, exist and are constituted as such (Caillé, 2002). In the Maussian gift systematic, there is a large number of authors who write about the gift and its rejection of gratuity, since the relationship of the gift is primarily one of reciprocity. Godbout (1992:137) stresses that there are several reciprocities for the gift: gratitude, recognition, and even the immediate reciprocation of energy to the giver. "He who calculates tends to be excluded from the gift system." An example of this is when a couple enters the realm of telling of their donations to the system; it is a sign of a deterioration of the relationship, not a sign that a gift system founded, since the gift abhors equality and seeks alternate inequality. In the study by Mauss (2008), the "thing given" is not an inert thing: the total prestation not only requires reciprocation of the gifts received, but also assumes the obligations of giving, on the one hand, and receiving, on the other. Hence, there arises the importance that human beings give to their relationships with others by the representation of being generous, helpful and important. Thus, feelings of gratitude emerge even if unconsciously. Therefore, the gift exchanging in the studied civilizations results in a definition of wealth as the abundance of voluntary and mandatory exchanges of gifts. The act of exchange for these civilizations has much more importance than the object that was being replaced. In the case of potlatch, there was a reciprocity of gifts under the penalty of losing the "mana", such as the authority and the talisman, which consisted in the power of its own authority and source of wealth. Another symbolic act analysed by Mauss (2008:76) in the primitive societies was the donation, since it could be seen as the fruit of the social moral of gift giving on the one hand, while on the other hand, a notion of sacrifice: http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 70 "The donation is the fruit of the social moral of gift giving and fortune on the one hand, and the notion of sacrifice on the other". Therefore, is possible to conclude that there is no gift without some type of sacrifice. The “obligation to invite” is completely evident in the potlatch tribes and clans, since it demonstrates authority and fortune. The "obligation to receive" is no less awkward. Not to have the right to refuse a gift, since, in that primitive society, to react as such is to manifest that one is afraid to reciprocate and indicates humiliation. The "obligation to reciprocate" in essence is one of destruction, many times, sacrificial and of benefit to the spirits or one of exploratory manner with tax rates of 30% to 100% per year, which are worthily imperative. This ritual implies that the sanction for mandatory reciprocation is restraint, since the virtues permuted by potlatch obliges the gifts to circulate, to be given and be reciprocated. As seen from that society, it was verified that a considerable part of our morals and of our own life always remains in the gift environment, mandatory, and at the same time, free. Therefore, it is possible to employ this order to the economy, since the notion of value is conceived in these same symbolic elements. All of the phenomena of gift giving are simultaneously economic, religious, judicial, esthetical, morphological, etc. This is also evident in more advanced societies with the law of hospitality, says Mauss Mauss (2008) when referring specifically to the field of hospitality. Mauss (1926) concludes that the facts known as potlatch assign an agonistic factor by rival generosity, the force, and nobility of combats, by challenges in the case of injustices, and by sentiments of hospitality. Along these lines, the primitive and contemporaneous practices of hospitality situate in the centre of social and anthropological observations. The current problem in the debate is, whether there exists some type of sacrifice in the practice of hospitality in societies of the type market? http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 71 Jacques Godbout (1992:22) explains the prerogatives of philosophical and sociological studies of the gift in the following manner: "as soon as the issue appears, strange in principal, one needs to know if there exists a relationship between the gift of life, the art of conservation, loyal or patriotic love, the quest for a work well-done, the team spirit, the donation of blood, and business lunches". It is necessary to conceive the gift forming of a system, not being this system other than the social system itself. The author reflects this approach when he relates that the only impediment of this type of study is the tradition of utilitarianism when he posted that the gift does not exist because the only disinterested gift would be the authentic gift, where being disinterested is impossible. According to the author, this unilateral vision of the gift does not express it as a system of social exchange or as an integrating formula for modern and primitive societies. To overcome a good part of the impasses that embarrass social scientists, the debates on philosophical moral and politics of life itself pass through the methodological exploration of the discoveries of Marcel Mauss, since the triple acts of giving, receiving and reciprocating constitutes a universal anthropology upon which primitive and traditional societies were constructed (Caillé, 2002). Therefore, even without all of the responses for the scientific problematics about the paradoxical issues of the modern man, the gift theory brings to light the possibility to reach beyond the postulated dichotomies between material and immaterial, the economic and social, the oppressed and the oppressor, the market and the human being which generate apologies and ideologies that many times aim to attend their interest in intellectual representation. Mauss (2008:217) said that “studies of this genre permit, with effect, to see, measure, and ponder the various aesthetic, moral, religious, economic motives, as well as the various material factors and demography, which together found a society and constitute a life in http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 72 common”. The author warned that applications could not be confused with science itself. Yet, there are generalising scientific proposals not linked to the local dynamics, which should be re-evaluated by the Homo Academicus. The hospitality studies need to take this into account. The study of hospitality cannot ignore the commercial field inherent in the capitalist system, derived from social invention, either. Paradoxically, it is fundamental to rescue the true virtues of hospitality with all the challenges that such a guideline entails for human rights in a global perspective, since the excluded of this system are often to be inserted as protagonists of their own histories. “Mauss, Lévinas and Derrida influenced the work of new generations of French authors, including Alain Caillé, René Schérer, Hervé Le Bras, Michelle Perrot, Anne Gotman, Jacques T. Goudbout, Claude Raffestin, Danielle Perrot, among many others,” being Alain Montandon and Anne Gotman the most prominent of these authors (Spolon; Brusadin, 2016: 82). A true intellectual debate with the limits and possibilities of each field of knowledge defined must be established for the scientific development of the area. Conclusion Why then has a term so marked along history by the stigma of nostalgia and ingenuity been transformed today into a relevant scientific and philosophical discussion? Such questioning by Camargo (2004) implies that it places us face to face with inherent social problems such as the ills of globalization, since human migration (including that which emerges from tourism) continue to exist and furthermore, there is a preoccupation with the progressive homogenisation of habits and customs. Because of this, the gift system involving the triple act of giving, receiving, reciprocation should permit a better understanding of the correlated phenomena, such as human association, leadership, and solidarity and their http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 73 exchange regimes. It´s possible to say that the Triad, give-receive-reciprocate postulated by Mauss, consists of an epistemological and methodological base for hospitality. It´s necessary to situate that the phenomenon of the gift is giving rise to increased academic interest to the extent of its concern to explain the constitution of the social link, without succumbing to the perplexities of the traditional methodologies - individualistic and holistic. Due to its complexity and fragility, the gift allows us to once again encounter the idea of inter-subjectivity of the social link in its classifying identifying and circulatory functions. The gift appears to be a necessary step to establish the identity of people and stakeholders in the hospitality field and can contribute to trains of thought within various schools. Therefore, don´t exist a society with utopian sentiments that are pure and absent of interest, much less one with deterministic opposition between dominants and oppressed because in the paradoxes of exchange relationships, there coexists both: interest and disinterest. The conclusion is that the sociologist and anthropologic character of the gift has provided us with the intellectual service of rethinking the human being (and the market) with a complexity whereby it acts in all of the institutions, be them family, work, or public related. References Brusadin, L. B. (2015). Relatório de Pós-Doutoramento da Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades da Universidade de São Paulo (EACH-USP), São Paulo. -------- (2017). The Gift Theory of Marcel Mauss and the Potlatch Ritual: a triad of hospitality. In: Lashley, C. The Routledge Handbook of Hospitality Studies. New York: Routledge. Brusadin, L. B.; Panosso Netto, A. (2016). La dádiva y el intercambio simbólico: supuestos sociológicos y filosóficos para la teoría de la hospitalidad en las sociedades antiguas y modernas. Estudios y Perspectivas en Turismo, V. 25, pp.520 – 538. Caillé, A. (2002). Antropologia do dom: terceiro paradigma. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. Caillé, A.; Graeber, D. (2002). Introdução. In: Martins, P. H. (org.). A dádiva entre os modernos. Discussão sobre fundamentos. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes. Camargo, L. O. (2004). Os Domínios da Hospitalidade. In: Dencker, Ada de F. M., Bueno, M. S. (orgs.). Hospitalidade: cenários e oportunidades. São Paulo: Pioneira Thomson Learning. http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 74 Godbout, J. T. (1992). O espírito da dádiva. Colaboração de Alain Caillé. Paris: Edittions La Découverte. Godelier, M. (2001). O enigma do dom. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Gotman, A. (2001). Le sens de l’hospitalité. Essai sur les fondements sociaux de l’accueil de l’autre, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Malinowski, B. K. (1978). Argonautas do Pacifico ocidental: um relato do empreendimento e da aventura dos nativos nos arquipélagos da Nova Guiné Melanésia. São Paulo: Abril Cultural. Mauss, M. (2008). Ensaio sobre a dádiva. Lisboa: Edições 70. ------- (1909). L’origine des pouvoirs magiques dan les sociétes austaliennes: étude analytique et critique de documens ethnographiques. Ouvres, Ed. Cit. In: Oliveira, R. C. (org.) (1979). Marcel Mauss: antropologia. São Paulo: Atica. ------- (1923). Mentalité primitive et participation. Oeuvres, Ed. Cit . In: Oliveira, R. C. (org.) (1979). Marcel Mauss: antropologia. São Paulo: Atica. ------- (1926). Parentés à plaisanterie. Oeuvres, Ed. Cit. In: Oliveira, R. C. (org.) (1979). Marcel Mauss: antropologia. São Paulo: Atica. Montandon, A. (2002). Ritos da hospitalidade erótica. In: Dias, C. M. de M. (org.). Hospitalidade: reflexões e perspectivas: São Paulo: Manole. . Noguero, F. T. (2013). La hospitalidad como condición necesaria para el desarrollo local. Revista Hospitalidade, São Paulo, v. X, n. 2. Oliveira, R. C. (org.) (1979). Marcel Mauss: antropologia. São Paulo: Atica. Raynal, M. (2013) Entrevista com Anne Gotman. Revista Hospitalidade, São Paulo, v. X, n. 1, jun. Sahlins, M. (1990) Ilhas de história. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor. Spolon, A. P. G.; Brusadin, L. B. (2016) O Brasil no cenário da pesquisa contemporânea internacional em hospitalidade: da oportunidade de rompimento de fronteiras e da criação de uma rede colaborativa de estudos e pesquisas. Revista Turismo e Desenvolvimento, no. 26, p. 45-62. Tarot, C. (2002) Pistas para uma história do nascimento da graça. In: Martins, P. H. (org.). A dádiva entre os modernos. Discussão sobre fundamentos. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes. http://ertr.tamu.edu/