Gift Exchange in Iran: The Locus of Self-Identity in Social Interaction

Social and personal relationships are defined through gift exchange. This paper is concerned with the extent to which gift giving in Iran can be viewed as a presentation ofself Formal gifts tend to be stereotyped, generalized currency in social exchange. Personal gifts more often reflect individuals'understanding ofthemselves. Selfhood may be expressed safely in theprotected realm of intimates, who include some immediate family members, close friends, saints and God. Men and women define themselves and their relations to others in the giving of gifts. The extent to which exchanging gifts reveals something of one's social identity or personal self accords with ways which giftgiving and presentation of self are regarded in a particular society. As Marcel Mauss (1967: 1) so carefully pointed out, theory such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation; the nature of the obligation marks the particular social circumstances in which giving and receiving take place. In Iran many gifts tend to be sterotyped. Impersonal gifts serve as generalized currency in social exchange and do not reveal a great deal about an individual's notion of himself or herself or the donor's perception of the personality of the person to whom the gift is given. Instead, general social relationships and status positions are demonstrated. In the realm of intimates, who include some immediate family members, close friends, saints and God, gift-exchange takes on a personal quality and gifts may express the personality of the donor or recipient. Outside the restricted circle of intimacy, expressions of oneself are few and far between, lest an