The contrasting theories o f political economy and moral econom y that were outlined in the previous chapter have provided the intellectual context for most social scientific w ork on gift giving. In the present chapter w e w ill examine the different kinds o f questions which are raised by those tw o approaches, and we w ill consider how they m ight be translated into research practices. As they have been stated here, ideal types o f political econom y and moral econom y are abstract conceptual fram eworks with very general implications for the study o f human society. In order to clarify the implications that each has for studies o f the gift econom y it w ill be useful to identify exemplars for these two approaches, and to describe what they have had to say about gift transactions. Both o f our exem plary social scientists have w orked on the borders between anthropology and sociology. They are, for political economy, Bourdieu, and for moral economy, Goffm an.