Marcel Mauss

1872 - 1950

Marcel Mauss was a French Sociologist and Anthropologist. He was born on May 10, 1872 in Epinal, France and died February 1, 1950 in Paris, France. He was the nephew of the well known sociologist Emile Durkheim, who was his early mentor. Mauss studied Philosophy at Bordeaux and the History of Religion at the E’cole Pratique des Hautes E’tudes (Practical School of Higher Studies). That is where he also began his career as a Professor of Primitive Religion. He also taught at the College of France and was the Co-founder of the Ethnology Institute at the University of Paris.

He worked together with his uncle to produce L’annee Sociologique ("The Sociological Year") a journal in which Durkheim’s ideas and sociological methods were expounded. While producing this Durkheim died and Mauss became the journal’s Editor.

Although Mauss never did fieldwork, he turned the attention of French sociologists, philosophers and psychologists towards ethnology. He also tried to display the close relationship between Anthropology and Psychology. He did this through his many works. Among one of his earliest is Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function in 1899. His most influential is thought to be The Gift written in 1925. This work concentrated on his theory of "Gift Exchange". It explored the religious, legal, economic, mythological and other aspects of giving, receiving and repaying in different cultures.

Marcel Mauss was regarded as a highly intellectual man with an encyclopedic mind familiar with an exceptional breadth of ethnographic and linguistic knowledge. He was an inspiration to many.

References:

Mauss, Marcel, Encyclopedia Britannica, Copyright 1996 by Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.

Mauss, Marcel, The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Copyright 1991 by Columbia University Press

Winters, Christopher, International Dictionary of Anthropologists. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991. pp. 462-463