ABSTRACT
The contrasting theories of political economy and moral economy that were outlined in the previous chapter have provided the intellectual context for most social scientific work on gift giving. In the present chapter we will examine the different kinds of questions which are raised by those two approaches, and we will consider how they might be translated into research practices. As they have been stated here, ideal types of political economy and moral economy are abstract conceptual frameworks with very general implications for the study of human society. In order to clarify the implications that each has for studies of the gift economy it will be useful to identify exemplars for these two approaches, and to describe what they have had to say about gift transactions. Both of our exemplary social scientists have worked on the borders between anthropology and sociology. They are, for political economy, Bourdieu, and for moral economy, Goffman.
