Geschenkaustausch in Japan

The exchange of gifts is crucial in Japanese social life and is often carefully adjusted to the particular relationship involved, especially when – as is common in weddings, funerals and other major life-cycle events – gifts are given in cash rather than in kind. During fieldwork in 1993, I investigated the gift notebook of my former landlord in Tokyo in which he lists all money amounts given or received, recording his extensive comments on the elaborate calculations of reciprocity, social distance and rank that led to the choice of each gift amount. My analysis extracted the rules governing the calculations, focused on the position of these transactions between the two ideal types of generalised and balanced reciprocity, and reflected on the use of cash and its implications.

Related publications

2000
Materialistic Culture: The Uses of Money in Tokyo Gift Exchanges. In: John Clammer & Michael Ashkenazi (eds.) Consumption and Material Culture in Contemporary Japan, pp. 224-248. London: Kegan Paul International.

1998
Geld als Geschenk: Aspekte japanischer Beziehungsarithmetik [Cash as a Gift: Aspects of Japanese Relational Arithmetics]. In: Angelika Ernst und Peter Pörtner (eds.) Die Rolle des Geldes in Japans Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik [The Role of Money in Japanese Society, Economy, and Politics], pp. 77-91. Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde.

1997
Ein japanisches Münzgeschenk [A Japanese Coin Gift]. In: Historisches Museum Aargau (ed.) Die numismatische Sammlung des Kantons Aargau: Münzen und Medaillen aus Mittelalter und Neuzeit [The Numismatic Collection of the canton Aargau: Coins and Medals from the Middle Ages and the Modern Period], pp. 121-129. Lenzburg: Historisches Museum Aargau.