Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline, particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic, sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world.

Mauss was born in Épinal, Vosges, to a Jewish family, his father a merchant and his mother an embroidery shop owner.

Mauss obtained a religious education and was bar mitzvahed, yet by the age of eighteen he stopped practicing his religion.

In the 1890s, Mauss began his lifelong study of linguistics, Indology, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and the 'history of religions and uncivilized peoples' at the École pratique des hautes études.

Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée following college, Mauss moved to Paris and took up the study of comparative religion and Sanskrit.

Among the students he influenced were George Devereux, Jeanne Cuisinier, Alfred Metraux, Marcel Griaule, Georges Dumezil, Denise Paulme, Michel Leiris, Germaine Dieterlen, Louis Dumont, Andre-Georges Haudricourt, Jacques Soustelle, and Germaine Tillion.

[5] In 1901, Mauss was appointed to the Chair of the History of Religions of Non-Civilized Peoples at the École pratique des hautes études.

[7] Two years later in 1931 Mauss was elected as the first holder of the Chair of Sociology in the Collège de France, and soon after he married his secretary in 1934 who soon was bedridden after a poisonous gas incident.

Later, in 1940, Mauss was forced out of his job as the Chair of Sociology and out of Paris due to the German occupation and anti-Semitic legislation passed.

[8] Although both Mauss and Durkheim later set themselves away from religious beliefs and practices, this contributed to their mutual interest in studying the history and sociology of religion.

[8] During their time at Bordeaux, Durkheim constantly interacted with Mauss through letters, guiding him in academic work and personal life.

[15] Mauss helped his uncle to recruit potential collaborators, including Paul Fauconnet, Henri Hubert, and Albert Milhaud.

[8] Durkheim envisioned the role of his nephew to be the “linchpin” in the formation of the journal and the broader theoretical transformation it would bring.

For I see that you do not at all represent to yourself what there is to do, and instead of helping me to resolve the difficulties, you complicate them in such proportions, that, seeing the obstacles reappear as I believed to have overcome them, I had a moment of discouragement.”Marcel Mauss's studies under his uncle Durkheim at Bordeaux led to their doing work together on Primitive Classification which was published in L'Année Sociologique.

In this work, Mauss and Durkheim attempted to create a French version of the sociology of knowledge, illustrating the various paths of human thought taken by different cultures, in particular how space and time are connected back to societal patterns.

The famous question that drove his inquiry into the anthropology of the gift was: "What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?".

To cite Goldman-Ida's summary, "Mauss distinguished between three obligations: giving, the necessary initial step for the creation and maintenance of social relationships; receiving, for to refuse to receive is to reject the social bond; and reciprocating in order to demonstrate one's own liberality, honour, and wealth" (2018:341).

It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels the recipient to reciprocate.

In other words, through gift-giving, a social bond evolves that is assumed to continue through space and time until the future moment of exchange.

Mauss and Hubert believed that a person was constituted by personages (a set of roles) which were executed through the behaviors and exercise of specific body techniques and attributes.

Mauss and Hubert wrote another book titled A General Theory of Magic in 1902 [see external links for PDF].

While Mauss is known for several of his own works – most notably his masterpiece Essai sur le Don ('The Gift') – much of his best work was done in collaboration with members of the Année Sociologique, including Durkheim (Primitive Classification), Henri Hubert (Outline of a General Theory of Magic and Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice), Paul Fauconnet (Sociology) and others.

He modified post-structuralist and post-Foucauldian intellectuals because he combines an ethnographic approach with contextualization that is historical, sociological, and psychological.

Some of these sociologists include: Claude Levi Strauss, Pierre Bourdieu, Marcel Granet, and Louis Dumont.

[34] French anthropologist Alain Testart (1998), for example, argues that there are "free" gifts, such as passers-by giving money to beggars, e.g. in a large Western city.

He feels that Mauss overstated the magnitude of the obligation created by social pressures, particularly in his description of the potlatch amongst North American Indians.

Gift Economy theorist Genevieve Vaughan (1997) criticizes the French school of thought based on Mauss, exemplified by Jacques Godbout and Serge Latouche and the Mouvement Anti-utilittarisse des Sciences Sociales, for defining gift-giving as consisting of "three moments: giving, receiving, and giving back.

The Jainist interpretation of the doctrine of ahimsa (an extremely rigorous application of principles of nonviolence) influences the diet of Jain renouncers and compels them to avoid preparing food, as this could potentially involve violence against microscopic organisms.

These aspects are, of course, at the heart of the gift, as demonstrated in books such as Annette Weiner's (1992) Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving.

French philosopher Georges Bataille used The Gift to draw new conclusions based on economic anthropology, in this case, an interpretation of how money is increasingly being wasted in society.