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The postface casts a transversal view on the various papers published in this issue. It first underscores how their common scientific project raises questions which bring new developments in anthropological descriptions and analyzes. It highlights furthermore how Alain Testart’s theoretical contribution on the concepts of gift and outside market exchanges can be put in practice by enlightening and bringing new analyzes on local social facts and observations. As observed in several articles, it shows that the same fact may lead to different if not opposite interpretations by local actors, thus possibly giving rise to misunderstandings between them. This possibility makes it all the more difficult to analyze the very nature of economical transfers, and suggests a more subtle outlook on what actually takes place. A comparison is made at last between these south-east asian case studies and descriptions and analyzes pertaining to African pastoral societies.

The fabrics offered to Muslim saints in South Asia in different ritual contexts are an essential resource for the functioning of their shrine (institution built around their tomb), as providers of symbolic and monetary wealth. Initially, these fabrics carry an estimable value, that of the market where the commercial transactions take place. But, as soon as they are offered to the saint, they enter, a priori, in a regime of non-market circulation where their value becomes invaluable, since they allow to exchange a “little thing” (a piece of cloth) for a “great thing” (the miracle of a saint) and that they “imbue” themselves during this transaction of the potency of the saint. However, the life of these fabrics does not stop at this double exchange (merchant then non-merchant). They then circulate between different actors, thus continuing to (re)produce social relationships in the sphere of non-market transactions, or new monetary wealth in that of market transactions. The ethnographic description of the trajectories of the fabrics will open on three analyses: the types of transfers based on the conceptual framework of Alain Testart and Christophe Darmangeat, a reflection on the “biography of things” (Igor Kopytoff) and an analysis of the nature of goods in line with Maurice Godelier’s “surrogate-objects of men and gods”.

Since the mid-1990s, some French Lao (exiled following the events of 1975), have been implementing projects that they describe as “humanitarian” in their country of origin. Most often organized in associations, they build schools and distribute clothing, medical equipment and computers, among other things. These projects can be seen as a form of transfer. Drawing on the literature on the gift, this article then proposes to analyze the characteristics of these transfers and what they say about the relationship between Lao from France and Lao from Laos within humanitarian projects implemented in Laotian villages.

Anthropology has long identified the existence of non-commercial flow of goods and services. However, because of their heterogeneity, these social practices are difficult to conceptualize and categorize. While for a long time the concept of Gift dominated the literature on these forms of transfers, it is now widely criticized. But then, how can we precisely designate and define these specific forms of transfers and the field they belong to? Is there a conceptual frame able to bring together the great diversity of non-commecial transfers? If yes, what are its properties? This introduction shows that it remains useful and necessary to have common concepts to describe and distinguish transfers observed in different realities, although in empirical reality transfers are difficult to classify in a fixed and exclusive category. Building on and extending the conceptual and methodological advances in this field of research, this article seeks to characterize and delimit the field of non-commercial circulation and to identify certain specific forms of transfer within this field. It argues that the common feature of these non-commercial transfers is the necessary presence of another social relationship between the protagonists than the one established during the transactional interaction. When this social extra-economic relationship that shapes and conditions the course of the transfers falls within the sphere of interpersonal relations, a sub-field appears: the sphere of interpersonal transfers. On this basis, the author proposes a common grammar to name, distinguish and analyze the different forms of transfers and modes of circulation.

Following Malinowski and Mauss, ceremonials exchanges often have been analysed in terms of « exchange of gift ». This has led generally to consider the economy of the Melanesians societies in a unique sense and to rule out the variability of the exchange modalities which characterize any kind of social life. We shall consider in this paper to what extent this economy of the Melanesians societies does not consist only of gift but that it also encompasses a complex system of debts, the recovery of which can be obtained by several means including physical violence. In this perspective, we will consider more precisely two different kinds of debts which are not relevant neither to a trade nor to a gift through the example of the ceremonial exchange tee of the Enga society (Highlands of New Guinea).

The fabrics offered to Muslim saints in South Asia in different ritual contexts are an essential resource for the functioning of their shrine (institution built around their tomb), as providers of symbolic and monetary wealth. Initially, these fabrics carry an estimable value, that of the market where the commercial transactions take place. But, as soon as they are offered to the saint, they enter, a priori, in a regime of non-market circulation where their value becomes invaluable, since they allow to exchange a “little thing” (a piece of cloth) for a “great thing” (the miracle of a saint) and that they “imbue” themselves during this transaction of the potency of the saint. However, the life of these fabrics does not stop at this double exchange (merchant then non-merchant). They then circulate between different actors, thus continuing to (re)produce social relationships in the sphere of non-market transactions, or new monetary wealth in that of market transactions. The ethnographic description of the trajectories of the fabrics will open on three analyses: the types of transfers based on the conceptual framework of Alain Testart and Christophe Darmangeat, a reflection on the “biography of things” (Igor Kopytoff) and an analysis of the nature of goods in line with Maurice Godelier’s “surrogate-objects of men and gods”.

Since the mid-1990s, some French Lao (exiled following the events of 1975), have been implementing projects that they describe as “humanitarian” in their country of origin. Most often organized in associations, they build schools and distribute clothing, medical equipment and computers, among other things. These projects can be seen as a form of transfer. Drawing on the literature on the gift, this article then proposes to analyze the characteristics of these transfers and what they say about the relationship between Lao from France and Lao from Laos within humanitarian projects implemented in Laotian villages.

Following Malinowski and Mauss, ceremonials exchanges often have been analysed in terms of « exchange of gift ». This has led generally to consider the economy of the Melanesians societies in a unique sense and to rule out the variability of the exchange modalities which characterize any kind of social life. We shall consider in this paper to what extent this economy of the Melanesians societies does not consist only of gift but that it also encompasses a complex system of debts, the recovery of which can be obtained by several means including physical violence. In this perspective, we will consider more precisely two different kinds of debts which are not relevant neither to a trade nor to a gift through the example of the ceremonial exchange tee of the Enga society (Highlands of New Guinea).

Anthropology has long identified the existence of non-commercial flow of goods and services. However, because of their heterogeneity, these social practices are difficult to conceptualize and categorize. While for a long time the concept of Gift dominated the literature on these forms of transfers, it is now widely criticized. But then, how can we precisely designate and define these specific forms of transfers and the field they belong to? Is there a conceptual frame able to bring together the great diversity of non-commecial transfers? If yes, what are its properties? This introduction shows that it remains useful and necessary to have common concepts to describe transfers observed in different realities, although in empirical reality transfers are difficult to classify in a fixed and exclusive category. Building on and extending the conceptual and methodological advances in this field of research, this article seeks to characterize and delimit the field of non-commercial circulation and to identify certain specific forms of transfer within this field. It argues that the common feature of these non-commercial transfers is the necessary presence of another social relationship between the protagonists than the one established during the transactional interaction. When this social relationship that shapes and conditions the course of the transfers falls within the sphere of interpersonal relations, a sub-field appears: the sphere of interpersonal transfers. On this basis, the author proposes a common grammar to name, distinguish and analyze the different forms of transfers that constitute non-commercial circulation.

The Drung (or Dulong), a mountain people of a remote valley in northwest Yunnan, are one of China’s poorest minorities. Since the 1950s, they have received much assistance from the state, and development plans have been implemented. This article focuses on this policy of redistribution and on Drung representations of it, in order to discern established patterns in the power relations between the Drung minority and the encompassing society, and the underlying symbolic logic. A brief description of some principles of Drung political culture, as they appear through history, helps to understand how the Drung’s current situation and their perception of the assistance policy from which they benefit are connected to a notion of “prestige economics,” which leads them to expect from the Party or the state a prosperity commensurate to the prestige that these agencies are credited with. The light shed by this notion allows for an analysis of the Drung’s seemingly enchanted relation with the state, and of the corollaries and consequences of this notion, and to what extent it endures. The state’s assistance then amounts for the Drung to a new form of dependence that can eventually lead to the loss of Drung values.