Gifts and Gratitude

When you give a gift, do you expect anything in return? And if so, does that mean it was really about you all along? Could reciprocity form the basis of society? Or are we under no obligation to share what is essentially ours? Shahidha Bari investigates gifts and philanthropy, gratitude and greediness, and the thinking of the French sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss, who in the 1920s wrote a book called Essai sur le Don or The Gift. Our guests are: Elizabeth Oldfield – Former director of Theos, the thinktank of religion and culture, and the host of The Sacred podcast Rhodri Davies – founder and Director of the thinktank Why Philanthropy Matters and researcher at the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent Gerald Moore - Professor at Durham University And political philosopher Sophie Scott Brown

Plus, New Generation Thinker Lauren Working on how Thanksgiving looks for an American historian in the UK and a history of turkeys as symbols and a discussion of the new book from Robin Wall Kimmerer The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance.

Producer: Luke Mulhall