Llewellyn2011

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Llewellyn2011
BibType ARTICLE
Key Llewellyn2011
Author(s) Nick Llewellyn
Title The gift in interaction: a study of ‘picking-up the bill’
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Gift giving, gift exchange, reciprocity, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, consumption
Publisher
Year 2011
Language
City
Month
Journal British Journal of Sociology
Volume 62
Number 4
Pages 718–738
URL Link
DOI 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01388.x
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This paper analyses the phenomenon of ‘picking up the bill’, thereby contributing to a resurgence of sociological interest in gift exchange. Drawing on ethnomethodology, it describes and locates a distinctive theoretical approach. Utilizing video recordings, the analysis considers the interactional constitution of gifts and how gift exchange is locally invoked via the norm of reciprocity. Recurrent practices are described, through which gifts are brought into being, with reciprocity invoked, by benefactor and beneficiary alike, to manage social problems of acceptance, rather than to sanction insufficient contributions. The study describes the social character of what are perhaps the preeminent gifts exchanged in modern societies; where one person pays for another's consumption.

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