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Intracommunity Gifting at the Intersection of Contemporary Moral and Market EconomiesAuthor(s): Michelle F. Weinberger and Melanie WallendorfSource: Journal of Consumer Research, (-Not available-), p. 000Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/662198 .Accessed: 19/09/2011 11:02

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� 2011 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 39 ● June 2012All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2012/3901-0013$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/662198

Intracommunity Gifting at the Intersection ofContemporary Moral and Market Economies

MICHELLE F. WEINBERGERMELANIE WALLENDORF

Consumer research on gifting has primarily focused on the interpersonal meaningsand behavior patterns associated with dyadic gifts that are specifically given fromone individual to another and in which the central goal is interpersonal relationshipmaintenance. Yet we find another type of gifting when community members in onesocial position give to community members in another position in which the centralgoal is intracommunity, rather than interpersonal, relationship work. This ethno-graphic research details the ritual practices, structural components, and meaningsassociated with intracommunity gifts employing the empirical context of the post-Katrina New Orleans’ community celebration of Mardi Gras. Through this context,we detail how intracommunity gifting gives prominence to the logics of the moraleconomy while still drawing from those of the market economy. Beyond this context,we use our conclusions about the intersection of the market and moral economiesto understand contemporary ambivalence to corporate sponsorships of local com-munity events.

Consumer research on gifting rituals has primarily fo-cused on the personal meanings and behaviors asso-

ciated with dyadic gifts, gifts that are specifically targetedfrom one person to another to maintain or deepen theirexisting relationship. Papers on dyadic gifting have con-tributed substantially to consumer research by detailing themeanings and practices through which dyadic gifting ritualscommunicate and solidify intimate relationships (Belk 1976;Bradford 2009; Caplow 1982; Cheal 1988; Ruth, Otnes, andBrunel 1999; Wooten and Wood 2004).

But this work has not heeded Sherry’s early call for “a

Michelle F. Weinberger (m-weinberger@northwestern.edu) is assistantprofessor of integrated marketing communications, Medill School, North-western University, Evanston, IL 60208. Melanie Wallendorf (mwallendorf@eller.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing, Eller College ofManagement, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85716. Correspondence:Michelle F. Weinberger. This article is based on essay 3 in the first author’sdissertation, completed at the University of Arizona with the second authoras dissertation chair. For their helpful comments and suggestions, the au-thors wish to thank the editor, associate editor, and four reviewers, as wellas Tracy Bacon, Charles Lowry, Robert Lusch, Andre Maciel, TomO’Guinn, Hope Jensen Schau, and Jane Zavisca. The authors also extendtheir gratitude to the New Orleanians who generously participated in thisstudy.

John Deighton served as editor and Russ Belk served as associate editorfor this article.

Electronically published September 17, 2011

shift in focus from a micro perspective to a holistic one” inorder to understand gifting’s “structural components” thatmake it “one of the processes that integrates society” (1983,57). We take a sociocultural approach to studying gifting’sstructural components but not simply because it is sparsein consumer research (for exceptions, see Bajde 2009; Gies-ler 2006). We focus on a community-based gifting ritual todetail the role these collective practices play in contempo-rary culture. Beyond consumer giving, our research analysiselucidates the meanings behind and sometimes-problematicstructural components of corporate sponsorships in localcommunity events.

We use a sociological approach to probe the structuralcomponents of gifts that are given, not between intimates,but between people without primary ties to each other whoreside in a geographic community of broadly interdependentactors. Collective gifting rituals in archaic (Hyde 1979; Mal-inowski 1922/1992; Sahlins 1972; Weiner 1976) and con-temporary societies (Cheal 1988; Clark 1998; Hyde 1979)have been deployed to smooth and stabilize community re-lations. We find that collective gifting rituals are primarily,but not exclusively, guided by moral economy logics; mar-ket economy logics play a secondary, but important, role.While gifts may be trivialized and rationalized by marketeconomy logics, they are central to the moral economy.

Cheal (1988, 15) defines the moral economy as “a systemof transactions which are defined as socially desirable (i.e.,moral), because through them social ties are recognized, andbalanced social relationships are maintained.” Of these

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transactions, our focus is on collective giving, as we ask:What do collective gifting traditions indicate about howmarket logics are both deployed and resisted in service ofthe moral economy? Of what import is the moral economyfor market economy firms that give giftlike support to com-munities? In short, what happens in collective gifting ritualsthat occur at the intersection of the market and moral econ-omies?

By studying a contemporary collective gifting tradition,this article realizes three theoretical goals: First, it theorizesthe characteristics of a formerly unarticulated form of con-temporary giving that we term intracommunity gifting todistinguish it from dyadic gifting. The article focuses on thestructural importance of these gifts apart from their personalmeanings. Second, the article details the rooting of intra-community gifts primarily in the moral economy, while alsointersecting with the market economy. Third, the empiricalresults are used as a foundation for considering tensionsassociated with the corporate giving strategies of event spon-sorships in local communities.

To situate our research theoretically, the next section sum-marizes key characteristics of dyadic gifts before turning toour research context and data. Rather than follow the nar-rative convention of experimental articles that begin withan extensive literature review to develop the credibility ofhypotheses, we employ the narrative structure of much eth-nographic research by deploying literature alongside data todevelop the credibility of the theoretical interpretation.

FOCAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THEDYADIC GIFT

Gifts are part of the moral economy (Cheal 1988; Godboutand Caille 1998), joining individuals and bringing focus tothe desirability or morality of social connections (Belk andCoon 1993; Sherry 1983). Dyadic gifts act as tie signs,indicating the nature of the relationship between two peoplewho know each other and are in an anchored relation (Goff-man 1956). As such, gifts are enigmatic, leaving an invisiblemark on the giver and the receiver (Hyde 1979).

In comparing gift giving and sharing, Belk (2009) reviewsthe extensive literature on gift giving to develop a frame-work summarizing the key characteristics of gifts that havebeen noted in this literature. We use the following six char-acteristics from his framework as a starting point for con-sidering the gifting practices in our research context: (1) thelocus of gifting is the dyad; (2) while the gift appears non-reciprocal, there is a lingering temporal obligation of reci-procity; (3) the giver’s primary purpose is to please therecipient; (4) roles include a giver and a chosen recipient;(5) the gift object is ideally chosen to communicate closefamiliarity with the recipient and high importance of therelationship; and (6) the outcome is inclusion of giver andrecipient in a network. We next summarize extant literatureto clarify each of these six characteristics.

The prototypical locus of gifts as characterized by Belk(2009) is the giver-receiver dyad. In archaic societies, gift-

giving systems circulated items across and within smallhigh-contact communities; the resulting social ties were im-portant constituent elements of social structure (Barnett1938; Malinowski 1922/1992; Mauss 1923/1990). However,contemporary gifting is typically centered in small-scale,face-to-face relationships (Cheal 1988), fostering and com-municating interpersonal connections among family andwith friends (Belk 1976; Belk and Coon 1993; Bradford2009; Fischer and Arnold 1990; Joy 2001; Otnes, Lowrey,and Kim 1993; Ruth et al. 1999; Wooten 2000). Cheal(1988) attributes this dyadic locus of gifting to the rise ofcapitalism: when obligations to others outside close socialnetworks become more diffuse as they become mediated bythe market economy, gift economies are no longer the pri-mary form of mutual aid, support, and relationship. The giftthen changes from a necessary form of support to a se-questered, symbolic medium for sustaining dyadic connec-tions.

Prototypically, the gift does not require reciprocity (Belk2009). Nonetheless, ideally, it creates a lingering obligationto maintain a tie to the giver, with reciprocal gifting as animportant means of doing so. Reciprocal giving sustainsbalance in dyadic relationships as when actor A gives to B,who later returns a gift of relatively similar value to A,balancing the obligations (Sahlins 1972). A tie sign is cre-ated through the obligation one feels to another after re-ceiving a gift and the reciprocity that balances the relation-ship when a gift is given in return (Cheal 1988). Norms ofgifting require that a gift not be demanded in return (Belkand Coon 1993) but also that the gift stay in motion. Rec-iprocity and obligation to the other are implicitly expected(Bourdieu 1977; Mauss 1923/1990). Trusting that the re-ceiver feels a sufficiently strong connection to want to re-ciprocate is a foundation stone for the communal and moralside of life (Hyde 1979).

Dyadic gifts between intimates are not just commoditytransfers to serve utilitarian ends. Prototypically, gifts areexpressive and symbolic forms of communication in per-sonal relationships, even when the item is also useful (Dan-iels 2009). By seeking to please the recipient (Belk 2009),the giver increases the likelihood that the recipient will re-main committed to the relationship, thereby stabilizing it.

In prototypical dyadic gift giving, the relational roles be-tween giver and recipient are personal (Belk 2009). Thegiver and recipient know each other; the giver chooses aparticular gift because he or she considers it an appropriatematch for the person to whom the giver has decided to give(Otnes et al. 1993). The recipient is not expected to doanything in order to receive the gift.

Gifts between intimates are prototypically chosen to dem-onstrate the giver’s familiarity with the recipient throughthe selection of an object that communicates knowledge ofthe recipient’s needs or preferences. A gift that communi-cates not only knowledge but also importance of the rela-tionship by being costly or luxurious is ideal (Belk 1996).

The latent outcome of prototypical dyadic gift giving isinclusion in a network of intimate ties (Belk 2009). Social

INTRACOMMUNITY GIFTING 000

networks are defined and maintained by the tie signs formedby gifts. We next detail our empirical context and then,through the data analysis and theoretical interpretation, in-terrogate the applicability of these six gift characteristics togifts that are not dyadic.

EMPIRICAL CONTEXT

A Community Gifting Tradition

Our research employs a case study (Sherry 1983) of thelocal Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, LA, about 6months after Hurricane Katrina. For local New Orleanians,Mardi Gras is a community celebration that centers on pa-rades and gifting. The festival has been a centerpiece ofNew Orleans culture since it was brought by French Catholicsettlers in 1835 (Mauldin 2004; Sexton 1999). It has beenheld annually since then, despite the 1853 yellow fever ep-idemic, fires, hurricanes, the Great Depression, and severalwars (Mitchell 2007).

Historically, Carnival season is determined by the Cath-olic liturgical calendar, going from Twelfth Night (afterChristmas) to Mardi Gras day (a Tuesday). For Catholics,Carnival is a period of sanctioned exuberance before thepious, contemplative days of Lent (Tallant 1976). Typically,it is a holiday of tension management that relaxes manysocial constraints (Etzioni 2004).

In New Orleans, fraternal krewes are central to the per-formance of Mardi Gras. Krewes were initially formed in1857 by white males from upper-class New Orleans familiesto reinforce their status in this stratified Creole society(Mauldin 2004). In addition to elite private balls, each krewebegan designing and paying for its own elaborate publicparade. In 1890, the parades became noncommercial, withno commercial funds, logos, or trademarks permitted (Kinser1990); this remains custom and part of the city ordinancestoday (City of New Orleans 1995). Certainly, the wealth ofkrewe members derives from commercial enterprise, buttheir commercial involvement as owners and employees inlocal firms and national corporations is not marked duringparades. Krewe parades are gifts to the city, the focus ofcommunity celebrations; in them, costumed, masked mem-bers of the sponsoring krewe pose as royalty on floats andthrow token gifts to people watching from the street below.The parades wind through historic New Orleans neighbor-hoods where watchers are predominantly locals and enddowntown along Canal Street near the French Quarter wheretourists congregate.

The event’s popularity with tourists has grown over thepast 3 decades (Gotham 2002), attracting about 1.4 millionvisitors in 2003, generating roughly $220.5 million for NewOrleans’ economy (Dade 2005). Concurrently, events sur-rounding the parades have become highly commercializedin the tourist-oriented sections of town (Gotham 2002). Me-dia attention has framed the event as centered in the FrenchQuarter, where conspicuous consumption, debauchery, andnudity reign among tourists (Shrum and Kilburn 1996).However, the experiences of local residents that are the focus

of this research, away from the tourist sites of the FrenchQuarter and the Canal Street section of the parade route,are markedly different.

New Orleanian families spend the weeks leading up toMardi Gras along the parade route many blocks and a cul-tural world away from the French Quarter and Canal Street.Our data show that locals’ activities bear more resemblanceto college football tailgate parties (Sherry and Bradford2011) than to a wild street party: days are spent in foldingchairs along grassy St. Charles Avenue with family, friends,neighbors, and other locals waiting for the parades that occurperiodically through the day and weeks. This is not just acommunity party; Carnival is a core cultural festival for NewOrleanians. Schools and many offices close so locals canspend at least the last few days of the festival watchingparades and catching hundreds of gifts thrown by krewemembers. Residents claim Mardi Gras is as central to theirlocal culture as Christmas is to other Americans. However,in the fall of 2005, local and national discussions aboutcanceling the next Mardi Gras festival emerged.

Threat to Social Order

On August 29, 2005, category 3 Hurricane Katrina struckthe southeastern United States, especially coastal Louisianaand Mississippi. Due to the storm and subsequent breaks inNew Orleans’ federally designed levee system, 80% of NewOrleans flooded (Murphy 2005). Over 700 people were re-ported dead in the city (Warner and Travis 2005). Wholesections of the city were destroyed, and other areas expe-rienced sufficient damage that they were leveled during thecleanup. While the hurricane created a natural disaster, gov-ernmental response turned it into a social nightmare. Stateand federal governments were sharply criticized on threefronts: for ineffective responses that left many stranded orwithout resources to survive (White and Whoriskey 2005);for failure to stop widespread looting; and, once it was safeto return, for continued failure to reconstruct New Orleans’communities and infrastructure.

International media coverage of the hurricane drew theattention of millions, attracting widespread, uncontested do-nations from individuals, churches, relief agencies, and cor-porations of time, supplies, and money for emergency aidfor displaced residents. Highly politicized discussions at na-tional and local levels concerned the future of the city, withsome outsiders arguing that due to its low elevation, the cityshould not be rebuilt or resettled (Jacob 2005; Kusky 2005).

The time of the hurricane is not our focus. Instead, westudy a later time when the community was rebuilding cul-turally and socially, alongside still-needed economic andphysical reconstruction. Six months posthurricane would bethe regular time for Mardi Gras, prompting local and na-tional discussion about whether to hold it. Parts of the citystill had no electricity, sewer service, or gas, and manyhomes and stores were uninhabitable due to destruction ormold.

Post-Katrina New Orleans is a social context in unsettledtimes (Swidler 1986), when social, economic, and civic

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structures had been disrupted or destroyed. Sociologists havelong constructed social theory by studying sociopoliticaldisjunctures and disasters (Collins 2004; Form et al. 1956;Giddens 1997). Unsettled times provide important windowsinto the cultural grounding of human action, meaning, andrelationships; issues that are latent in more settled timesbecome more salient and discursive (Arnould, Price, andMoisio 2006; Collins 2010).

In settled times, culture orients people by offering “a ‘toolkit’ of symbols, stories, rituals, and worldviews, which peo-ple may use in varying configurations to solve differentkinds of problems” (Swidler 1986, 273). During settledtimes, people tacitly draw from that large set of culturalknowledge to construct strategies of action that they viewas common sense. But when times are unsettled due to po-litical, economic, social, or natural unrest, culture operateson human action in different ways (1986). People are awak-ened to be more self-reflective, deliberate, and ultimatelyideological. The taken-for-grantedness of norms disappears;people become more explicit and articulate about aspects ofthe meaning systems that previously organized their behav-ior and beliefs. Focus is deeply concentrated on salient is-sues.

Invoking Turner (1969), we recognize that unsettled timeslack a ritual of transformation to smooth anxiety and un-certainty about change. No safe liminal space or time hasbeen created. Previous social structures have been disrupted,and new ones have not yet been constructed, forcing com-munity members to consciously and collectively evaluatetheir lives and decide what is worth rebuilding or reconfigur-ing and why. Such periods create a call to action, to definewhat the community is and what its beliefs are. Unsettledtimes help make visible the changes people desire by dem-onstrating where they place their emotional, physical, andfinancial energies. During these deliberations, actors becomemore articulate about the beliefs and ideological perspectivesguiding their actions and hopes.

We study gifting at a community festival during unsettledtimes because it allows naturalistic access to actors’ height-ened articulations about a long-standing gift event occurringat the intersection of the moral and market economies intheir community. This context is ideal for our study becausewhat would ordinarily be taken for granted is readily dis-cussed this year in situ without extensive probing. Consistentwith what Swidler (1986) leads us to expect, plans for MardiGras 2006 were fiercely debated. A highly rationalized na-tional discourse emerged about locals’ tenuous economicjustifications for holding an event seen by outsiders as anonessential luxury. Local discourse focused on the com-munity’s need for the event, both to revive the local econ-omy and to revitalize the city’s “spirit.” This debate high-lights important tensions about gift giving that emerge atthe intersection of moral and market economies.

RESEARCH METHODData were collected in February 2006 by the first author asa sited ethnography in New Orleans during the first Carnival

celebration after Hurricane Katrina. This research adoptsvaried forms of engagement to accommodate the constraintsof studying a temporally delimited ritual event within anongoing geographic community (Wallendorf and Arnould1991). Geographic and conceptual boundaries sharpened thefocus during the event’s short duration (Emerson, Fretz, andShaw 1995; Johnson and Sackett 1998) with central atten-tion given to activity along the parade route (e.g., the actionsof watchers and krewe members, interactions among watch-ers, interactions between krewe members and watchers), thefloats themselves, and the throws. The perspectives of localresidents and those closely connected to them (e.g., extendedfamily, former residents) were specifically targeted. Data-generation efforts concentrated on areas of primarily localrather than tourist gifting activities, especially during theparades and associated events along the St. Charles Avenueparade route in New Orleans Parish. Areas for participantobservation were defined through secondary research beforeMardi Gras and through knowledge gained by strategicallytagging along, modeled after Geertz’s version of deep hang-ing out (1998). Data coverage was extended with several insitu recording modes: audio files, scratch notes, photo-graphs, and drawings, depending on the researcher role atthe time and the type of interaction desired (Emerson et al.1995). The resulting data set consists of six types of data.

Lengthy in-context interviews and extended conversa-tions between the field-worker and 27 local informants pro-vide emic views from varied age, gender, racial, geographic,and socioeconomic positions and festival roles (e.g., floatriders and workers). Extended conversations took place overmany hours when discussion and participant observationintertwined. Other than one interview with a former residentbefore Mardi Gras, participants were sought in situ fromboth predefined and emergent categories. Krewe members,locals along the parade route, local business employees, andCatholic clergy were selected to understand their feelingsabout the event, their experience of the event this year, theirknowledge of sponsorship attempts, and the logics theyused. Four additional interviews and extended conversationswith tourists, while not focal, served as a comparison. Audiorecordings and scratch notes extended the first author’s recallof exact language and gave the second author access toinflection and tone during data analysis.

Second, participant and distanced observation of 10 pa-rades’ floats, actions, interactions, gift types and recipients,sensory experiences, conversations, and activities along theparade route provide contextual details of the site and par-ticipants in real time. Field notes include both nominal in-formation (e.g., catching, yelling, throwing, dropping) andquantitative information regarding frequency, duration, andintensity (Johnson and Sackett 1998), such as estimates ofthe percentage of parade watchers with hands in the air, thedepth of the crowd watching the floats, the distance betweenwatchers and floats, and the length of parades. The inter-views, extended conversations, and real-time observationsand researcher experiences are detailed in 312 pages of fieldnotes.

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Third, the first author made 336 photographs of paradeactivities and surroundings to provide visual detail for thewritten observational data. As a supplement, photos takenby journalists along the same parade sections were archivedand coded separately. Fourth, a material data repository in-cludes throws (small gifts of designed cups, beads, dou-bloons, and stuffed animals) as well as gifts given by paradeattendees to the first author.

The fifth data category includes documents from the cityof New Orleans such as press releases, ordinances, andschedules. Sixth, local and national news articles, websites,and blogs from the time around Mardi Gras are archived.These data permit triangulation and broader access to thenumerous activities and events during the lengthy celebra-tion. This diversity of data sources was generated to expandthe range of a solitary field-worker in a time-bound context.

After data collection, field notes were completed to in-clude details of observation and full transcriptions of inter-views. Websites and documents were archived to comparewith emic perspectives, and photos were annotated. NVIVO7/8 was used for organization, search, and open and axialcoding. Analysis was conducted using grounded theorymethods (Spiggle 1994; Strauss and Corbin 1998) by thefirst and the second author, who provided a more distancedperspective on the data. The formal analysis focuses pri-marily on observational and interview/conversation data,with other data used for comparison, deeper analysis, andtriangulation.

GIFTING AT POST-KATRINAMARDI GRAS

This ethnography proceeds as follows: the first section de-tails the emic focus and actions of locals in New Orleansin the time before and during Mardi Gras 2006 to providebackground on the core issues that drew collective focus.Next, an analysis of gifting styles details what was givento whom and how. These gifting styles are then comparedto current conceptualizations of archaic and contemporarygifting, and an addendum to current models of gifting,termed intracommunity gifting, is proposed as a theoreticallyimportant gift form. Next, the article moves out a level ofabstraction to address the role that intracommunity giftingplays in diffuse contemporary communities. We describetension between the market and moral economies by fo-cusing on tensions between sponsorship and gifting at MardiGras. By the conclusion of this section, the reader shouldunderstand not only why intracommunity gifting was soimportant during this event but also why the idea of cor-porate givers was met with ambivalence. The article con-cludes by discussing the broader implications of these find-ings for sponsorship and future research on gifting.

Moral Logics for Community Ritual

Debate ensued in late 2005 and early 2006 over whetherto hold New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. National pundits usedmarket logics to argue against holding the event, suggesting

that the city should instead allocate any available financialresources to physical reconstruction. Locals, however, ar-gued in favor of holding Mardi Gras as it had been for 170years. Their arguments align with other researchers’ resultsregarding an intertwining of both market and moral logics(Zelizer 1994): the event would revive the local economy,and its celebratory tone was needed to bring locals backtogether. As a compromise, the city sought corporate spon-sors to pay administrative costs (e.g., security, sanitation)that are ordinarily paid by the city, and the event was held,albeit on a smaller scale than in the recent past.

Parade watchers, krewe members, and business ownersall describe Mardi Gras 2006 as a remarkable success, inpart, because of their incredulity at its actually happeningso soon after the hurricane. This perspective is echoed inover 2,000 media outlets calling the event a sign of thecity’s resurgence (Tourism Marketing Corporation 2006).As always, the elaborate parades put on by elite krewes forlocal residents during the weeks before Mardi Gras remainthe centerpiece for the community. Families, couples, andfriends line St. Charles Avenue in eager anticipation of theparades. They mark their parade-watching spaces with chairsaround tables filled with enough food and drink to last wellinto the evening. For the time between parades, they bringother entertainment, such as footballs, TVs with generators,playing cards, and jump ropes made on the spot from beadsstrung together. Similar to many family tailgating parties,some alcohol is consumed by adults. Although festive, thebehavior of watchers is regarded by all as appropriate forthe young children who are present even in the evening;there are no observed or reported instances of nudity orproblematic drunkenness in our coverage of these neigh-borhood areas. However, despite signs of the city’s resur-gence, the Mardi Gras season, crowds, and parades are no-tably smaller than in previous years, and they are surroundedby abundant physical evidence of destruction indicating thatdaily life has not returned to normal.

Rebirth. We interpret the first element of locals’ morallogic for holding and subsequently regarding the event assuccessful under the heading of rebirth. For many New Or-leans residents, this festival’s occurrence and their copres-ence with other locals is of existential significance in a cityrecently underwater and evacuated. Tamika, an AfricanAmerican parade watcher in her late teens, remarks that,despite the changes, it “brings the people out” and “bringsthe city back to life.” Her perspective is echoed by twoseparate groups of female krewe members (both groups areCaucasian, in their 50s and 60s):

Nadine (krewe group 1): Well, the people—I’m telling you,there’s something going on with people in New Orleans; it’slike we’re all walking around in a fog. Christmas came andChristmas went, and nobody was in the mood for it. But,you do it because it’s time to do it. And that’s why I waskinda concerned about Mardi Gras. This is the first time I’dreally felt into something since the hurricane.

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Katherine (krewe group 2): [They talked about the contro-versy about holding Mardi Gras] on TV yesterday. They hadChristmas, didn’t they?

Cecile: Yeah.

Viviane: It’s the same thing.

Melissa: We need, we need . . .

Cecile: You know. But they just want to ride, because it’simportant to our lives. . . .

Katherine: A lot of it was already paid for. . . .

Cecile: All your dues, for your costumes and your ride,you’ve already ordered a lot of the stuff you’re going tothrow, so it’s already paid for, anyway.

Viviane: So quit your mopin’, and get on the float! [laughter]

Cecile: That’s right. Get out of that dust and debris. . . .

Viviane: That’s right, get out of there.

Themes of rising up, rebirth, and resurrection recur in thedata, an intriguing metaphor in light of Mardi Gras’ jux-taposition with Lent and Easter. While family-oriented, dy-adic Christmas gifting did not get them out of the “fog,”somehow the collective celebration of Mardi Gras does.They literally and metaphorically describe the event liftingthem out of on-the-ground destruction and up onto the float.The event facilitates recovery as they rise up, leaving someof the pain from the hurricane in the “dust and debris”; theyfeel strengthened to get back to living life again.

Why did Mardi Gras accomplish this when Christmas didnot? Is it simply that Christmas came too soon after thehurricane? Or, is there some quality that differentiates thetwo gifting rituals and their benefits? As it proceeds, ouranalysis points to differences in the two forms of gift givingthat are at the heart of understanding their different structuralconsequences.

Krewe members’ symbolic rebirth is echoed on the com-memorative poster sold in tourist-oriented areas. It picturesa woman’s face surrounded by feathers and three strands ofbeads and reads, “The Spirit of New Orleans, Mardi Gras,Phoenix Rising.” It references the ancient myth of the phoe-nix rising from the ashes of its own death and reinforceslocals’ tacit understanding of the cultural process at work.It symbolizes for others what locals experience: the eventis facilitating the rebirth of the “spirit of the city,” the re-lationships that constitute the community.

Observational data also include many forms of rising up.Thousands of parade watchers do more than just watch; theyexhibit an embodied upward reach to catch throws tossedby krewes. Both throwing and catching precipitate an ex-aggerated upward physical stretch that Joy and Sherry(2003) term an embodied attraction metaphor. As paradewatchers reach vertically into the air with fingers out-stretched and their backs hyperextended, they yell to attractkrewe members’ attention and throws. The motion is similarto the collective wave performed by sporting event spec-tators, but it is repeated over hours at Mardi Gras parades.

The stretch and release is invigorating, an embodied as wellas metaphorical rising up after the destruction.

We, the People. Analysis of emic language points to away this gifting event has structural consequences that differfrom what is achieved by dyadic gifting at Christmas. Cul-tural analysis of informants’ use of pronouns (Sunderlandand Denny 2007) elucidates a recurrent collective orienta-tion. Maude (Caucasian, 60s, wearing a purple dress andbeads) talks with the first author after a Sunday churchservice. She attends this Catholic church during Mardi Grasbecause it is close to where her family watches the parades.She shifts from singular to plural first-person pronouns andthen to a collective noun that includes herself: “I know we’vebeen very much criticized because of the money and aboutthe means, but I think the people really need a lift.” Locals’discourse about Mardi Gras frequently employs first-personplural pronouns: Mike, an African American door attendantat a restaurant between the local and the tourist sections ofthe parade route, notes that Mardi Gras this year “brings usback to the way we were.” A female krewe member remarks,“We need something to remind us of what we used to beand what we’re going to be in the future.”

Their language does not refer to individual motivations(e.g., “I need”) but rather to collective evaluations (“we,”“us,” or “the people”). This unprompted concern with “we-ness” (Kanter 1972) is usually taken as a sign of perceivedsocial cohesion (Owen 1985). Collective language recursacross locals in varied social positions: both watchers andkrewe members say “we,” referring to the whole communityrather than just others in their status position. They nostal-gically seek stability, structure, and order such as they re-member in the past, when schools and hospitals were open,streetlights guided traffic, and houses without mold hadfunctioning electricity and plumbing. At this time, New Or-leanians do not seek fragmentation or the “abandonment ofhistory, origin, and context” that are characteristic of post-modernity (Firat and Venkatesh 1995, 252). Instead, theyseek the stability and order that allow people to rely oncommonsense logics and taken-for-granted common activ-ities to organize daily life in settled times (Swidler 2001).In seeking this form of stability, they assert collective iden-tity with other locals, regardless of social position. Further,part of their attempt to restore these aspects of social struc-ture is through traditional means, namely, the enactment oflong-standing cultural ritual.

Collective rituals define the contours of a community, the“we”; participation defines or redefines who is a member.As social actions, rituals have a number of outcomes (Durk-heim 1912/2001). Historically, Mardi Gras had been a col-lective ritual of tension management, the initial phase inLent and Easter’s temporal sequence of release/control/re-lease. Mardi Gras is not usually interpreted as a recommit-ment ritual through which commitments to a community arereborn or intensified (Etzioni 2000). Yet, locals’ pervasiveconcern with we-ness indicates that this year’s event is alsoseen as fostering recommitment to community (Terian2004), and therefore they regard it as successful. In this

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sense, informants are correct in noting that Mardi Gras dif-fers from dyadic gifts given at Christmas, where the “we”that is primarily defined is family (Caplow 1982).

The Mardi Gras gifts at the core of this recommitmentritual not only define the boundaries around the “we” butalso give form to the structure of relationships within thecommunity. Camerer (1988) portrays a gift as a signal ofwillingness to invest in a relationship. By gifting the eventto the city, krewe members tacitly show a willingness toreinvest in their relationship to the community. By acceptingthe krewes’ gift of the event and throws, locals tacitly agreeto allow the community to continue and for krewe membersto resume their position in the social hierarchy. Simulta-neously, a collective “we” and a stratified “we” are defined.

A test of this interpretation is to see whether nonlocals’reactions to the ritual differ. They do. Characteristic of non-locals, a tourist family from Mississippi (mid-30s Caucasianadults, son age 7) watches parades from the more tourist-oriented Canal Street area.

Michelle: What do you think about them actually having theevent this year?

Crystal: I think they have more things to worry about thanMardi Gras, honestly. I mean [her husband Don laughs]there’s other issues to me, in my opinion, that are moreimportant than Mardi Gras, but since they’re having it, I . . .

Don: It does bring money in.

Crystal: Yeah, it does bring money. But it’s like all you everheard within a couple of days after the hurricane was, “Oh,we’re still having Mardi Gras,” but I felt like there’s otherthings that were more important, like homes and people’slives and stuff like that.

Locals lobby for the event privileging moral economy logicsof community rebirth and renewed collective identity. Butnonlocal informants only use market economy logics to jus-tify holding it or sometimes to openly criticize “them” forholding it, even when they have traveled to attend. Crystaland Don provide a rational economic argument about theprimacy of material needs. What is missing in nonlocals’views is any attention to collective needs to repair the socialfabric. While locals could prioritize material needs, whichcertainly still exist, they do not. Remarkably, local infor-mants’ reactions are uniformly positive across racial, ethnic,and class lines. Despite continued material needs, much localmoney and time is directed toward enacting the collectivegifting ritual. But why? What do locals experience that out-siders do not? Their emic experience is detailed next.

The Gifts and Givers

The most prevalent, emblematic, and focal gifts given atMardi Gras are those given by krewe members to paradeattendees, who in 2006 are predominantly locals. Gifts fromkrewe members to attendees exist at two levels: the gift ofthe parade to the city and those who watch and gifts ofthrows from krewe members to parade watchers. Next, we

interpret the cultural implications of each of these forms ofgift.

Giving the Event. While both krewe members and localparade watchers herald the parades as a free event, in reality,the parade costs are paid by krewe members as a gift towatchers and local business owners who profit from addi-tional revenue during the event. Historically, krewes havebeen composed of the social elite of New Orleans, many ofwhom are business owners and professionals in practice inthe local community. After their initial formation in the1800s, krewes continued as exclusive (white, wealthy, male)clubs. In the 1950s, the number and size of some krewesincreased, making membership slightly more accessible tothe lower upper class, but still an elite exclusive position incontrast to those who are not members. Despite this in-creased openness in access, in 1991 it was clear that racialdiscrimination still prevailed (Gill 1997). While parades puton by very elite krewes such as Rex are still central to MardiGras festivities, megakrewes (large and less exclusive), fe-male krewes, African American krewes, and less elaborateorganizations now also put on parades that are well attendedby locals and less focal for tourists. But even these eventsrequire expensive outlays by krewe members, a high barrierto entry for many New Orleanians, enacting a sharp socialdistinction between the status position of gift-giving krewemembers on floats and that of parade watchers receiving thegifts.

Krewe members take on the financial obligations of put-ting on a parade. Robert, from an all-male megakrewe thatputs on an evening parade, spent $4,000–$5,000; two localwomen who ride in a less attended, afternoon, all-femaleparade each spent about $500. Expenses are higher for themost elite krewes. Many krewes require members to payfor dues, parade permits, the design and construction of theelaborate floats and costumes, generator rentals, wages fortractor drivers and mechanics, school bus transportation, andfees charged by participating high school marching bandsand African American fire carriers (at some evening pa-rades).

The result for each krewe is a well-orchestrated, hours-long parade of masked, costumed krewe members riding onthemed floats as they throw small gifts to parade watchersscreaming below. Although tractors pulling floats frequentlybreak down, creating a pause in parade movement (and de-lays for those parades scheduled to follow the route later inthe day), there are no complaints heard in the crowd. Onewoman indicates that this is just part of the normal flow ofparades, elongating the day and the celebration. The paradesare what locals look forward to because they are “whatmakes Mardi Gras, Mardi Gras,” as one informant ex-plained.

Brief Connections through Gifting. Beyond the expenseof getting the parade rolling, each krewe member purchaseslarge quantities of token gifts to throw. While sometimeskrewe members toss throws to no one in particular, this isnot the norm observed in the nontourist sections of the route.

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Instead, there is a subtle interaction in this participatoryfestive performance (Deighton 1992): a parade watcher triesto make eye contact with a masked rider by smiling oryelling “hey” or “cups.” The watcher then poses with armsstretched overhead, signaling to the krewe member that thewatcher wants what the krewe member is giving. The krewemember may then toss the item toward the watcher: some-times it lands in the hands of the intended recipient, some-times in the hands of those nearby, and sometimes it misfiresand hits the head of the intended catcher or someone notpaying attention. Occasionally, if the throw does not reachthe intended recipient and the float has not yet moved, thekrewe member throws another item, often after pointing outthe intended recipient to others. Seasoned parade watchersare keenly aware of this interaction’s importance: they de-scribe it when instructing the first author on accumulatingthrows after noting her lack of initial success.

The gifting interchange may also be initiated by krewemembers. Typically, beginning with subtle eye contact, akrewe member may point to a parade watcher who has notrequested a throw; after the watcher acknowledges the point,the krewe member throws an item to that watcher. Childrenoften sit in specially designed seats on top of a ladder heldby an adult. These seats not only keep them from being hitby the floats but also put them closer to eye level to benoticed by krewe members, aiding their accumulation ofthrows. Krewe members typically throw what is in theirhands but occasionally choose an item based on a watcher’sobservable demographics. Despite initiating fewer connec-tions with krewe members, children are thrown a dispro-portionate share of items, particularly toys; older womenmore often receive long strands of white beads. Quite often,intended connections are not successful because a cacoph-ony of voices and a sea of eyes interact at once as the floatmoves, albeit slowly, along the street.

Krewe members and watchers show no signs of personallyrecognizing one another. Their connection takes a few sec-onds, a very brief interaction between strangers. None ofour informants report knowing someone in the parades theyattend. Even if a watcher knew a rider, the long parade route,depth of crowds, and float movement would make it difficultfor the two to connect. Since krewe members are maskedand uniformly costumed on floats, watchers would find itdifficult to identify individual givers; in fact, in a geographiccommunity, the masks may have developed as a means ofpreventing individual recognition by neighbors and co-workers. Masked krewe members give to a sea of watchers:the gift moves from a masked member of one communitygroup to strangers occupying a different social positionwithin the community, without either one expecting personalrecognition or future interaction.

Gifts among Watchers. The krewes’ gifts of the paradesand throws are locals’ primary focus. Yet some secondarygifting also occurs among watchers. Watchers in friendlycompetition to catch throws spend time between paradessocializing with nearby locals, friends, neighbors, and familyvisiting one another’s encampments. Rick and Marsha, a

middle-aged, middle-class Caucasian couple brought a tableand lawn chairs, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and enough pic-nic-style food, sodas, and wine to be able to host their adultchildren and any friends who stopped by. They eagerly of-fered the first author food, drinks, and a place to store herthrows while spending hours with her. Like others near them,they selectively give some of their throws to other watchers.This regifting is targeted especially at children, often aftertheir expressed desire to catch a type of throw that a listenerhas many of. These ancillary gifts resemble dyadic Christ-mas gifts in being given to please closer ties and flowingdownward in an age hierarchy. Yet, the fact that they canbe immediately regifted distinguishes krewe gifts of beadsfrom prototypical dyadic gifts at Christmas.

While some gifts of beads, food, and drinks among watch-ers are reciprocated over the course of the parades, most arenot. Like reciprocated dyadic gifts at Christmas, but unlikeunreciprocated nondyadic gifts from krewes, gifts amongwatchers express interpersonal bonds and social hierarchies,in this case between unmasked givers and receivers on theground. Locals giving unreciprocated dyadic gifts establishtheir role vis-a-vis others in the community.

Emic Value. Megakrewe member Robert claims that thebeads he throws “only have value in the air” before peoplecatch them, but watchers hoping to catch beads indicate thatbeads do not lose their value when caught; they hold specialmeaning even after Mardi Gras. They are kept and displayedin New Orleanians’ homes and even put to various uses inarts-and-crafts projects that three generations of the Jacksonfamily proudly describe and show to the first author. Beadsare meaningful enough that no one reported throwing thesetrinkets away before the hurricane, even when asked if theydid. The hurricane changed this. Craig, a mid-20s Caucasianstudent and musician, sadly threw out boxes of mold-cov-ered beads, despite never having done so before. A balconybanner along St. Charles Avenue urges: “Re-New, Re-Build,Re-Bead.” Rebeading is part of this year’s symbolic processof becoming whole, replacing important tokens that signifylife as usual in New Orleans. Of course, beads could bereplaced by bulk purchases or charitable distributions bybead manufacturers, but they were not. Instead, their sacredvalue is constructed through copresence at the event, withkrewe members gifting this symbolic recovery of what waslost. In the interaction, throws are infused with meaningsthat adhere for a long time (Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry1989). While some beads and doubloons are seen as par-ticularly sacred—separated from the others, displayed orkept in special places—others are occasionally repurposedor even sold, not carrying these meanings so strongly. None-theless, a line is still drawn at discarding new beads as trash.These gifts hold meaning and value, even after the event(Godelier 1999).

INTRACOMMUNITY GIFTING

Intracommunity gifting, such as at Mardi Gras 2006, differsfrom dyadic gift giving in important ways. Rather than being

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located in an intimate dyadic pair, intracommunity gift giversand receivers do not personally know each other. In fact,Mardi Gras gift givers are masked, preventing the formationof a tie sign between the two. Intracommunity gifts connectmembers of a community group in a higher social positionwith other community members in a lower social position,all residing in the same geographic community. After clar-ifying varied uses of the concept of community, we nextuse the six characteristics of gifts outlined earlier to examinetheoretically important ways that intracommunity giftingdiffers structurally from other forms of gift giving, includingdyadic, archaic, and rhizomatic gifting.

Community

The term community has been used for more than a cen-tury in many fields to refer to a variety of social collectives.Early sociologists (Durkheim 1893/1997; Tonnies 1897/2002) used the term primarily as a contrast with anothersocial form, society, which was of keen interest as theyreflected on early modernity (Gusfield 1975). Consumer cul-ture theory research has used the term community to referto several types of social groups. This more recent workhas convincingly shown that one variant of communityemerges when people are connected by a shared electiveaffinity for a brand or product (Kozinets 2001; Muniz andO’Guinn 2001; Muniz and Schau 2005). Other consumerresearch finds that another variant of community emergeswhen people travel from many places to come together tem-porarily to share an elective affinity for a leisure activity(Arnould and Price 1993; Kozinets 2002). Both of thesetypes of community are primarily oriented toward bonding(Gittell and Vidal 1998) people who are relatively homog-enous in their elective interest in a brand or product withinthe portion of their lives that focuses on that brand or prod-uct. They choose when to go to a Star Trek fan club andwhen to go on a river-rafting trip. Connection to these twoforms of community is elective and typically episodic.

Another form of community that differs from brand com-munities and temporary communities is the geographic com-munity where people physically live. Geographic commu-nities are elective only in a singular way (whether to livethere) and continuously surround many if not all aspects oftheir members’ lives. While people vary in their civic en-gagement (Putnam 2000), all geographic community mem-bers are broadly interdependent because of their contermi-nous location. Yet unlike brand or temporary communities,there is no shared elective affinity for a product, brand, orleisure activity. Because of the diversity that they encom-pass, geographic communities are primarily oriented towardbridging rather than bonding (Gittell and Vidal 1998) people“across diverse social cleavages” (Putnam 2000, 22). Whenfloods, tornados, or epidemics move across space withoutregard to these social cleavages, geographic community be-comes especially salient for its bridging capacity, as we willdiscuss.

Our use of the term community in intracommunity giftingrefers to the broadly interdependent set of social relations

in geographic, enduring, corporeal social contexts in whichmost of daily life is lived and a basic sense of moral ob-ligation to others is foundational. Even with social mediaand virtual commuting, embodied geographic communitiesremain important, where daily practices in shared spacessuch as sidewalks, parks, stores, restaurants, and doctors’offices constitute the social fabric that necessarily has tobridge some social cleavages, at least some of the time.Through the broad set of social relations that comprise geo-graphic communities, members make explicit and implicitcollective decisions on moral and civic issues with con-sequential impacts on their daily lives and interactions,despite not having close dyadic ties to each member of thecommunity. For example, community members’ individualdecisions and behaviors determine neighborhood safety(Sampson and Groves 1989), the level of parental involve-ment in and the quality of local schools (Putnam 2000), andnorms guiding those who might help push a stalled car inan intersection. The location of intracommunity gifts in thisembodied form of geographic community is important indetermining their structural characteristics, to which we nowturn.

Masking and Reciprocity

Unlike dyadic gifts that flow from one individual to an-other, the primary gifts given at Mardi Gras flow from mem-bers of a community group to other community membersin a different social position. On behalf of their krewe, in-dividual members wearing identical costumes and masksthrow gifts to other locals within the sea of watchers. Throwrecipients, although singled out in the moment of the throw,do not form enduring personal relations with the giver.

Because krewe members’ masks prevent the giver andrecipient from forming a personal relation, dyadic reciproc-ity cannot occur. Although krewe members give an abun-dance of throws to watchers, rarely are any material itemsgiven to krewe members in return. Remarkably, our datashow no immediate reciprocal exchange of material items,no mentions of expectations of material reciprocity forthrows, and no reports of guilt about not reciprocating. Thegifting practiced at Mardi Gras does not adhere to the rec-iprocity characteristic of dyadic gifting.

The gifting locus and process for parade throws is mark-edly different from other forms of gifting as well. In thecommunal giving detailed in classical anthropological the-ory, the individual giver is made known to receivers. Inearly celebrations of the potlatch, giving was done withinthe community to celebrate the ascent of a new chief and,in later years, to solidify his status within and between com-munities (Hyde 1979; Mauss 1923/1990). A new chief gaveto presumed followers or other friendly tribes to assert hisand his tribe’s social status, with his identity visible andknown to the recipients. He therefore could command statusand fealty in return. Similarly, in the Kula ring observed inTrobriands by Malinowski (1922/1992), members of the twocommunities engage in direct, face-to-face reciprocity aswhite shell armbands are given in a counterclockwise di-

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rection, while red shell necklaces move clockwise throughthe islands. This face-to-face, continuous form of reciprocitycreates long-term connection and obligation; it differs frommasked giving at Mardi Gras in which direct reciprocity isdifficult and not expected.

Sahlins’s (1963) research on the big man in Melanesiafocuses on an individual seeking informal authority by be-coming renowned for redistributing gains among local com-munity members and among other big men. As with pot-latch, such gifts are given by one known person to membersof the same community who are in a lower status position;these gifts are similar to the material manifestation of no-blesse oblige from European nobles in early modernity. Bycontrast, krewe members cannot attain personal renownamong recipients because their masks preclude individualnotoriety, and they give tokens with little economic or usevalue.

Giesler’s (2006) work on the Napster music collectivegoes beyond other research on dyadic gifts by connectingdyadic relations between multiple givers and recipients ina rhizomatic network. But this rhizomatic network differsfrom intracommunity gifting in its key characteristics. Sincemultiple Napster givers granted access to the same musicpiece, and in turn became recipients accessing music sharedby multiple others, participants shifted between givers andreceivers across music pieces. Unlike intracommunity gift-ing at Mardi Gras, the giver and the recipient roles werenot mutually exclusive; reciprocity occurred by being a re-cipient of some pieces of music and a provider of othersbut not necessarily reciprocating in the initial gift dyads.Further, Napster givers and recipients were individuallyidentifiable to each other in the virtual world, so adherenceto reciprocity norms could be monitored by participants,creating social distinctions. In this context, giving had lim-ited consequences since recordings could be given to otherswhile still being retained for one’s own use. In short, theNapster collectivity had strong norms of reciprocity that didnot operate within an initial gift dyad. In these respects, therhizomatic reciprocity structure of Napster gifts is dissimilarto both dyadic gifts and the intracommunity gift structure.

Cheal (1988) argues that community forms of gifting arearchaic and no longer characterize relations in contemporarycapitalist societies. Rather, he claims that in contemporarysociety, dyadic gifts maintain ties and power relations amongintimates with regular, long-term contact. He claims thatobligations to nonintimates are not addressed through themoral economy but are mediated by the market economy.Yet contrary to Cheal, intracommunity gifting at Mardi Graspersists, drawing extensive local participation at the inter-section of the moral and market economies. Extant literatureis insufficient to explain whether and what forms of reci-procity exist in its midst or the consequences of such gifting.If reciprocity exists at Mardi Gras, it is within a form ofsocial relation other than gifts connecting intimate dyads, aKula ring, potlatch participants, big-man relations, or virtualrhizomatic networks.

Social Relations of Intracommunity Giving

Intracommunity gifting does not create tie strength be-tween individuals as dyadic gifts do. Instead, intracom-munity gifting creates and demonstrates tensile strength inthe fabric of a community, the ability of a community tostretch and extend to meet participants’ needs without helpfrom outsiders. In unsettled times, demonstrating this abilityis important precisely because its consequences have beenmade salient and it requires a greater stretch to accomplish.We claim that in the fragile temporal space of post-Katrina,intracommunity gifting at Mardi Gras (1) reinforces the emicsense of vibrancy of community; (2) awards gratitude, status,and cultural authority to givers; and (3) creates feelings ofinclusion that counteract alienation and fragmentation withina community in crisis. We discuss each of these in turn.

Reinforces Emic Sense of Vibrancy of Community. In-tracommunity gifting reinforces felt communality. No localparade watchers or local media commentators express dis-trust, dismay, or criticism of krewe gifts, even when probedand after long periods of engagement when they criticizeother entities (especially government). Instead, emic com-ments are positive regarding enhanced inclusion, together-ness, and solidarity. Characteristic of a narrowed focus inunsettled times (Swidler 1986), locals employ a coherentrhetoric about the need for community stability.

Informants’ actions and expressions demonstrate Turner-ian communitas (Turner 1969): this year’s Mardi Gras actsas a rite of intensification in which those of differing classand ethnic backgrounds reexperience their sense of beinginextricably bound together. Unlike members of temporarycommunities who come from diverse geographic areas fora short time, local Mardi Gras celebrants already share col-lective cultural knowledge allowing them to enact the ritualwithout needing to develop a consciousness of kind. Locals’long-term engagement in New Orleans means that unlikemembers of temporary communities, they experience com-munitas together and then return to daily life together at thecompletion of the ritual cycle (1969). Communitas, as clas-sically described by Turner, is more than a moment of felttogetherness that might be experienced in a temporary com-munity. In enduring geographic communities, this conclud-ing phase in the ritual process is a prerequisite to the con-struction of a new enduring social structure. Communitas isexperienced by locals as momentarily proving cohesion ina way that permits movement into the everyday world ofsocial distinctions and cleavages that also exist in geographiccommunities. In particular, since the moral and social fabricof New Orleans was ruptured in the aftermath of Katrinaas people fought for their lives, a sense that connection andcohesion were being reestablished was of focal importanceto locals during Mardi Gras.

Our sociological perspective on geographic communityinterprets locals’ experiences as focused on a structural out-come beyond individual experiences of communitas. Com-munitas is important in the ritual cycle (Turner 1969, 2004)because it proves something that might otherwise be invis-

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ible: intracommunity bonds. This ritual meaning helps ex-plain why strands of beads are well suited to Mardi Gras’symbolic task. They are not giftwrapped or chosen out ofclose knowledge of an intended recipient’s preferences.Beads are a token, not necessary for daily life but symbolicof what is. They are the part of the ritual whose materialform is needed to connect givers and receivers in geographicspace. They are not mailed or distributed in help-yourselfbaskets but are handed from members of a community groupto community members in a lower social position. As acircular strand, they link together individual beads that losetheir individual importance: by holding together individualbeads, the strand, the collective, becomes primary. Like thebeads, New Orleanians in different status positions arejoined together in the passing of these gifts. Like all effectiverituals, this one proves what might otherwise be invisible:an enduring connection between the community’s statusgroups.

Instead of reinforcing and mapping out a clear hierarchyof intimate relationships such as what happens through dy-adic Christmas gifts centered in a family (Caplow 1982),intracommunity gifts provide a broader but no less mean-ingful assertion of both connection and status differentiationbetween the givers and the receivers. Intracommunity giftsdraw a boundary around the community in creating a senseof we-ness while also asserting acceptance of a hierarchicalrelation between different community members.

Gratitude for Generosity. The absence of material rec-iprocity for krewe gifts does not imply that nothing is givenin return (Hyde 1979). Parade watchers give intangible grat-itude, status, and cultural authority to krewes in return fortheir generosity. Verbal expressions of gratitude are oftenheard in locals’ parade route sections. Field notes recordMarsha (the mid-50s spouse of Rick) and the first authorlaughing in self-consciousness at the repetition of “thankyou” that they and others utter to throwers after catching agift. Interactions with krewe members along locals’ paraderoute sections are more intimate as floats pass dangerouslyclose to watchers; krewe members are within earshot ofexpressions of gratitude. In contrast, the more tourist-ori-ented areas do not facilitate such interactions as watchersand riders are separated by more distance and metal barriersalong the wide boulevard, putting riders out of earshot fromwatchers.

Another form of expression of gratitude is shown in pho-tos of numerous parade watchers holding handmade postersthanking krewes for putting on the parades. After a parade,Nadine, a krewe member (Caucasian, early 60s, middleclass) whose family owns an upscale New Orleans restau-rant, and her sister Joyce, who has returned to New Orleansfor Mardi Gras, reflect:

Nadine: Everyone was just like “thanks for doing it” andflying these banners.

Michelle: What do you think about them actually having theevent this year?

Joyce: It really brought tears to my eyes.

Michelle: Yeah?

Nadine: Yeah, just to see the signs about “thank you fordoing it,” because I think the people need it to happen. Youknow.

Despite not being personally directed at them, these gen-eralized forms of gratitude are meaningful to krewe mem-bers and reinforce their collective orientation in “doing it,”validating their notion of serving “the people.” Krewe mem-ber Robert also expresses surprise about the “incredible en-thusiasm of the crowds,” noting signs held by watchers thisyear. Both Nadine and Robert use third-person plural ratherthan referring to a specific person; both the krewes’ gen-erosity and the crowds’ expressions of gratitude are collec-tively oriented. Unlike other forms of nonreciprocal givingor generalized reciprocity in small groups in which obli-gations and social ties are already strong (Cheal 1988; Sah-lins 1972), at Mardi Gras, intimate dyadic bonds betweenindividual giver and recipient do not exist. Like the giftsthemselves but in reverse, gratitude flows from communitymembers to members of a community group in a differentsocial position.

There is no consensus among scholars about gratitude’srole in gifting. Some claim that gratitude is essential forsuccessful gift giving. Without gratitude and appreciation,“the donor feels he has been taken advantage of,” resultingin an unsuccessful gift (Godbout and Caille 1998, 93). Otherscholars, most notably Douglas (1990) in agreement withMauss (1923/1990), do not regard gratitude as an essentialresponse. Instead, Douglas asserts that there are “no freegifts”; instead, an “obligation to the giver” (1990, vii) isexpected in return. To avoid such obligations, some peopleturn to the market rather than the moral economy, such asthose relying on professional movers rather than friendswhen moving to a new house (Marcoux 2009). In locals’Mardi Gras celebrations, expressions of gratitude prevail.Not one informant expresses cynicism or holds an emicunderstanding of enduring obligations, as described by Doug-las (1990) and Mauss (1923/2000) and in Sherry, McGrath,and Levy’s (1993) analyses of the dark side of gift-givingobligation. Since there is neither immediate material reci-procity nor any longer-term interaction, immediate expres-sions of gratitude are emotionally touching to krewe mem-bers and make them feel encouraged about continuing thepractice of intracommunity gifting. But beyond its imme-diate emotional impact, our analysis indicates that gratitudehas an important structural outcome. Gratitude is essentialin the process of conferring status on givers.

Status through Generosity. Being a krewe member giv-ing gifts to parade watchers brings status to givers but notthrough dyadic ties between giver and recipient. While grat-itude is expressed from an individual receiving the throwto the giver, such dyads cannot carry an implied obligationto reciprocate since the giver is masked. Instead, statuswithin the community is awarded by watchers to the krewegroup and its members. It is in this sense that the gifts arereciprocated intracommunally, rather than interpersonally.

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By showing gratitude and deference to a krewe, watchersallow Mardi Gras parade traditions to continue and alsoallow krewe members to form social relationships with oneanother. Through shared responsibility in planning fund-raising and community charity events, enacting the parades,and later attending private balls, members of a krewe cul-tivate and invest in social capital among themselves. Thiscontinues at the many social events held during the year forkrewe members, including debutante parties and balls fortheir daughters. It is not necessary that individual krewemembers be recognized by gift recipients so that they canreceive deference in later face-to-face interactions (Goffman1956). Instead, by being masked in public but unmasked atprivate krewe events, social capital is accumulated amongelites who can later draw on other krewe members and theirnetworks for resources in this moral economy. In this sense,Mardi Gras parade throws could be viewed as gifts to ap-pease those not invited to be part of the krewe’s privateevents. Gratitude from parade watchers to krewe memberstacitly grants permission for elites to hold their status po-sition. Parade watchers indicate gratitude for krewe mem-bers upholding their position of responsibility to the com-munity as much as they express gratitude for the beadsthemselves. Gratitude from recipients is essential as a bed-rock foundation for elites’ unchallenged accumulation andreproduction of social capital.

Notably, there are no comparative comments about thequality of beads this year versus other years. It is not thequality of the beads but rather the quality of the generosityof elites in assuming their status positions that is lauded asbeing of utmost importance. The fact that they choose toconnect with the populace through the parades is of struc-tural consequence in reestablishing the form of “we” thatwill prevail.

Beyond the good feelings of communitas, community isan inherently political construct; as Collins (2010, 8) remindsthe field of sociology, “Recasting the notion of communityas a political construct highlights how social inequalities areorganized via structural principles of community and aremade comprehensible through a language of community.”Community is a social form in which social inequality andthe power relations associated with it are constructed, main-tained, resisted, contested, and renegotiated. This year’sMardi Gras reasserts a boundary around a unified sense of“we” and proves the ability of the community to persistdespite challenge, while also asserting social inequality andthe moral responsibilities associated with higher status.

Hegemonic Cultural Authority. Intracommunity giftinggrants cultural authority to givers. In designing and creatingthe gift of the parades, krewes develop float themes forpublic consumption. In 2006, two krewes’ parade themescelebrated the culture of New Orleans with floats depictingthe French Market, riverboats, New Orleans food, fishing,casinos, and even Mardi Gras. When they represent NewOrleans culture for locals and tourists, krewes shape col-lective understanding of important community markers.Mardi Gras parades are an important assertion of a version

of cultural identity; krewes are given considerable power inbeing permitted to author depictions as if they reflect locals’shared experience.

Two krewes known for their satirical themes, D’etat andMid-City, created many of their floats posthurricane. Forcenturies, satire has been a device for providing social com-mentary about those who are more powerful (Bronowskiand Mazlish 1960). In this case, the krewes’ satirical socialcommentaries are aimed at federal, state, and, occasionally,local governments. Krewe D’etat combines an OlympicGames and hurricane theme to communicate satirical cri-tiques. One float has “Who Dropped It?” written on a vol-leyball, while another float portrays a woman jumping overhurdles while proudly holding a government permit forhousing reconstruction.

In such images, krewes frame the situation as one in whichNew Orleanians were collectively wronged by government.By contrast, the stark racial and economic disparities re-vealed in the hurricane’s aftermath are not represented onfloats. While krewes could have turned their satire on thecity’s social problems, such as high levels of poverty andracial inequality, doing so might call into question the verysocial structure that grants krewe members an elite position.By not doing so, krewes simultaneously assert their poweras an elite group and direct blame at the government as thevillain in the social drama of Katrina’s aftermath.

In summary, by bankrolling parades rather than simplyholding private balls, krewes involve the community in cre-ating a particular form of hegemonic social relationship(Gramsci 1992). Local parade watchers’ grateful acceptanceof the gift rewards krewes with status and an opportunityto accumulate additional social capital through privateevents with other members: these benefits accrue beyondthe time of the ritual. As a result, material reciprocity forthe token gifts is not necessary or even desired. The gift isgiven sincerely with an intention of creating and maintaininggeneralized connections and collective renewal (Godboutand Caille 1998, 96), but in the formation of such connec-tions, obligation still resides. The status position of krewesgrants them the opportunity to present floats that assert theirperspectives on social conditions.

Locals recognize the krewes’ support of the city’s cultureand economy; the broader impact of their gifts is not ques-tioned or refuted by watchers. After the sharp class cleavagesrevealed by the hurricane and its subsequent looting and vi-olence, one could imagine that locals might revolt againstelites displaying and celebrating the frivolity of Mardi Gras.Instead, however, this year local parade watchers embrace thegifting ritual as being at the heart of their culture. Affirmationis given to givers that the gift, and the giver’s accompanyingsocial position, is accepted within a rewoven community fab-ric that allows for a widespread sense of connection, withdifferential status and cultural authority for givers. This is com-munity as “a dynamic dimension of lived experience ratherthan as a simple taxonomic category” (Collins 2010, 13).

Strength and Shape of the “We.” Intracommunity giftingaffects both the strength and the form of community ties

INTRACOMMUNITY GIFTING 000

that are reinforced and celebrated, as well as the primaryties built within the community. In archaic community giftsystems, separation between the time of gift receipt andreciprocation is essential to solidify the connection and ob-ligation between communities (Bourdieu 1977; Malinowski1922/1992; Mauss 1923/1990), just as it is in connectingindividuals in contemporary dyadic gift exchange (Cheal1988). In this time of indebtedness, social obligations andties are cemented, connecting people over time and space.However, intracommunity gifting from masked givers toreceivers does not allow for delayed dyadic reciprocity. In-stead, the reciprocity of gratitude and status affirmation isdiffuse and immaterial and therefore cannot reinforce con-crete dyadic relationships in the way that dyadic gifts do.Intracommunity gifts bind together community members intwo different social positions but not as strongly as dyadicgifts bind individuals together. Nonetheless, the ties con-firmed in intracommunity gifts serve as a bedrock for stabledyadic relationships within the community (Putnam 2000).

The community composition reinforced by intracommun-ity gifting is not focal in emic verbal accounts but still needsinterpretive analysis. Kimberly, a 25-year-old Caucasian for-mer resident who returned for this Mardi Gras, provided acommon emic perspective on inclusion: “[At] Mardi Gras,it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. If you were theuppitiest of the uppitiest and they have some seriously upper-class old-money people here, you come out to the ‘neutralground’ [local term for grassy area on a road’s median facingthe parade side of a divided road] or you go to the side ofthe road; every year you have the corner of whatever streetyou go to and you watch the parades. Or you’re in the paradeor whatever.” She echoes a common emic belief that theevent creates communality by including New Orleaniansfrom all economic and status groups in the reasserted “we.”Yet Kimberly later notes a change this year: there are farfewer people in the “neutral ground.” Some watchers in thismixed-race area and krewe members on floats comment onthe significantly smaller proportion of African Americansin the crowd. Interestingly, the term neutral ground wascoined in the nineteenth century for the median separatingSpanish Creole and French land areas, a place where mixedcompany was acceptable.

At post-Katrina Mardi Gras, the relative sizes of the twocontemporary cultural groups that share the neutral groundhave changed. Census data analyzed by the Brookings In-stitute (Frey and Singer 2006) and state data verify that thepopulation of New Orleans parish has decreased dramati-cally, with sharp changes in its racial and economic com-position. Before the hurricane, 36% of New Orleanians wereAfrican American, but 5 months posthurricane, among thosewho returned, it has dropped to 21%. Single African Amer-ican women in the lowest income bracket who had childrenreturned in the lowest numbers. New Orleanians who re-turned were likely to be homeowners who own a car andhave a job as well as a vested stake in the community andthe financial means to return (2006). While intracommunitygifting is experienced as supporting community cohesion,

it can simultaneously modify social structure, disintegratinggroups through exclusion (Etzioni 2000). Mardi Gras’ in-tracommunity gifting tradition is perceived by locals as help-ing reconstitute their sense of community, yet culturalgroups that are absent are unable to use it to reconstitutethemselves as part of the community or as stewards of cul-tural information. Participation in intracommunity giftingasserts a definition of “we”; its corollary is a definition ofwho is not (any longer) part of the community.

As shown in table 1, intracommunity gifting differs fromcontemporary dyadic gift giving. Rather than individual toindividual, its locus is from members of a community groupto other community members in another social position.Future dyadic reciprocity is not possible. Its purpose is socialcapital accumulation among givers, as well as bridging thesocial divide between givers and recipients. The giver roleincludes identity masking, and the recipient role includesdoing something to “catch” the gift. The object is a tokenwith considerable similarity across recipients, and the out-comes are social solidarity with acceptance of status dif-ferentiation. Further, intracommunity gifting differs fromother contemporary gift forms such as rhizomatic networkgifts like Napster music and from archaic community giftforms such as potlatch, Kula, and redistribution from a bigman. While rooted in tradition, intracommunity gifting playsan important role in contemporary culture and reveals struc-tural components of gifting that extend beyond its ritualcycle. In the following sections, we examine the tensionsunderlying the intersection of the moral and market econ-omies through the context of intracommunity giving andtheir implications for common corporate communicationsstrategies.

The Sponsor’s Gift

We deepen our analysis of the structural components ofintracommunity gifting by turning now to the tensions sur-rounding corporate sponsorships of Mardi Gras, in order tohighlight the central importance of particular characteristicsof intracommunity gifts. In contrast to outsiders who de-ployed an economic rhetoric for canceling what they see asa frivolous event, locals advocated holding the event usinga different logic. Exemplary is material from a blog writeron the website of the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune(http://www.nola.com/):

I am sick and tired of all this talk about canceling MardiGras. First of all, you can’t cancel Mardi Gras—you cancancel the parades, but you can’t take a date off the calendar.The naysayers ask, “How we can celebrate when people aresuffering?” But how would it help to add to the suffering?Think of all the people who depend on Mardi Gras for theirlivelihood: musicians, artists, dressmakers, photographers,hospitality workers, float builders, retailers, the list goes onand on. You would take away one of their primary sourcesof income. Ask anyone picking through the mold and wreck-age of their home: Why are you doing this? Why not justturn your back and walk away? “I’m trying to save what I

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can,” they answer as they search for their most precioustreasures: the photo albums and mementoes that remind themof who they are and people they love. Mardi Gras is a treasureworth saving. It is part of what makes us who we are. It isa celebration of community, a time when all races and classestake to the streets and enjoy what we have in common. Any-one who thinks that Mardi Gras is just for rich people hasnever seen a truck parade, the Mardi Gras Indians or a neigh-borhood marching group. This is the Mardi Gras that can’tbe cancelled. (Watt 2006)

Across our data, local parade watchers intertwine eco-nomic (market) and sociocultural (moral) logics for holdingthe event now. Similarly, krewe members weave the twologics in conversation:

Viviane: [Mardi Gras] is essential for the spirit of New Or-leans, because . . .

Cecile: Plus it pumps a lot of money into the economy, whichthey need. A lot of jobs, all the people who build the floatsand make the costumes, and sell all the junk you throw.

Viviane: We’ve lost so much; we need something to remindus of what we used to be, and what we’re going to be in thefuture.

Despite being social elites who could recover from propertylosses more easily than others, these krewe members insertthemselves into the “we” who “lost so much,” referring asmuch to the lost moral order of community as to lost prop-erty. Locals in both social positions intertwine the perceivedimportance of the market economy (“a lot of money . . .a lot of jobs”) and the moral economy (“the spirit of NewOrleans”) in facilitating recovery. Locals understand the rit-ual as building the moral economy of the community byconnecting locals and as building the market economythrough increased economic activity. Clearly, businessesproducing costumes and “all the junk you throw” are oftenlocated outside New Orleans, even in China (Redmon 2005).Nonetheless, the businesses imagined in the members’ com-ments are centrally located in the local economy.

Despite using market logics with moral ones to justifyholding the event, locals are hesitant to invite market actorsto be event sponsors. Mardi Gras parades are noncommercialby long-standing custom and city ordinance. But for the firsttime ever, in 2006 the city sought corporate sponsorship ofthe overall event to offset its expected $2.7 million admin-istrative costs. It offered several sponsorship options, in-cluding event signage, sampling rights, national media cov-erage, and sector exclusivity rights. It assured presentingsponsors that their monies would fund police and fire pro-tection at the event (MediaBuys 2005). Despite city efforts,only one national sponsor came forward: Glad Productsdonated trash bags and contributed toward cleanup costs,while keeping a low profile. Nadine, a krewe member, con-siders the idea of corporate sponsors for the event:

Nadine: I don’t like that somebody’s name would have tobe on Mardi Gras; it never has been. It’s just like puttingsomeone’s name on the Superdome. That’s never been

[done], either. But we’re in a new era now. I don’t knowwhat it’s going to be like. [uncertain tone]

Undeniably, large, nonlocal corporations surround MardiGras with their advertising presence in market institutions,most conspicuously in bars and restaurants in tourist areassuch as the French Quarter (Gotham 2002). Yet New Or-leanians and city ordinances try to ensure that signs of themarket economy do not interrupt the sacredness of the moraleconomy of gifts (Durkheim 1912/2001). Throughout herinterview, Nadine reveals resistance to the inauthentic visualencroachment of national businesses into what she regardsas a local cultural domain. Her resistance is about more thanjust the visual; sponsorship is problematic because it movesactivity away from the moral economy and more firmlytoward the market economy. No longer would “the people”take care of themselves by paying administrative costs outof collective tax funds. Instead, sponsorship shifts the po-litical power to provide core cultural events from the peopleto the corporation. Instead of the people’s contribution tothe festival coming from collectively generated public fundsadministered by elected officials, sponsorship funds wouldbe provided from profits generated in the market economyby a corporation not subject to public election.

In contrast to masked intracommunity givers who cannotreceive material returns directly, corporate sponsors typi-cally expect, even contract for, unmasked recognition oftheir financial gift. Sponsors are usually given privilegedaccess to people’s attention through signage, logos, and me-dia coverage featuring favorable messages about the sponsor.Often, attendees are explicitly encouraged to “support oursponsors,” meaning extend patronage to them. Rather thana primary focus on strengthening the collective social fabric,corporate sponsors uphold their obligation to shareholdersby expecting strong financial returns for their strategies overthe long term. As a result, even when financial resourcesare scarce, sponsorships from nonlocal corporate entities areviewed with trepidation because they displace locals’ rolein the community’s moral economy.

But rather than outright rejection, the idea of corporatesponsorship generates a nuanced and complex reaction inthe 2006 Mardi Gras context. At this historic time when thecommunity is reconfiguring itself, the felt need to preventmarket forces from upstaging the moral economy is palpablein informants’ voice tones and facial gestures as well as intheir words. Yet despite their discomfort with having a na-tional corporate sponsor, Shell Oil as (an imagined) sponsorgarners a different reaction among some locals. Krewe mem-ber Nadine says:

Nadine: I think—what is the group that gave lots of moneyto get Mardi Gras back on the streets this year? Some bigcompany . . . Shell! Shell Oil. But Shell Oil is part of NewOrleans.

Despite its Dutch and British origin and U.S. headquartersin Houston, Shell Oil’s large office in the center of NewOrleans means it is regarded by some residents as a localcompany, an idea reinforced by the firm. A large sign hang-ing on the Shell building along the parade route claims:

000 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

“Shell is Coming Home.” While Nadine is mistaken in think-ing Shell was a Mardi Gras sponsor, her statement is telling.Because Shell is regarded as a local business where manyresidents work, with a form of corporate personhood in thelocality, its (presumed) gift, like those of the krewes, isconsidered more acceptable than gifts from outside corpo-rations. Importantly, two local groups did donate funds to-ward the festival’s administrative costs but chose not to beidentified as sponsors: one krewe donated $50,000 beyondits permit fees, and a local hospitality group donated $56,000(Donley 2006). These financial gifts without markers of de-sired financial reciprocity are similar to the masked giftsgiven by krewes in parades and were uncontested by locals.

Antisponsorship ideologies are prevalent in late moder-nity in reaction to the perceived encroachment of brandsand corporations into many aspects of life (Klein 2000;Kozinets 2002; Lasn 1999). Antisponsorship itself has be-come a collective rallying tool for some consumer resistancegroups (Kozinets and Handelman 2004). By contrast, thelong history of resistance to sponsorship at Mardi Gras orig-inates not in postmodern anticorporate or anticapitalist ac-tivism but in the essential, traditional embeddedness ofMardi Gras in the community’s moral economy. In contrastto Burning Man wherein resistance to sponsorship is rootedin the tensions between the establishment and individualfreedom (Kozinets 2002), the resistance to sponsorship atMardi Gras is rooted in the tension between two types ofestablishments. In New Orleans, the opposition is to giftsfrom unmasked corporations employing market-based logicsrather than to gifts from masked local elites grounded pri-marily in the logics of the moral economy. Even thoughmany locals, including krewe members, work for large cor-porations in the market economy, their participation is noton behalf of these organizations. Underneath this year’sresistance is a serious reservation about whether intracom-munity gifting can achieve its desired structural consequencesif it is underwritten, upstaged, or claimed by corporationsoutside the community that would not acknowledge andcelebrate the structural relations among locals in differentsocial positions.

To test this interpretation, we consider the ideas of thosewho are more distanced from New Orleans’ community.Sabrina (mid-20s, upper middle class, African American)grew up and still has family in New Orleans, but she movedaway several years ago and did not return for the event thisyear. She expresses temporary, conditional acceptance ofsponsorship, noting:

Sabrina: I think that given the state, it may be okay to letit go. . . . But once New Orleans gets more back to normal,I don’t know how I would feel about the sponsoring. It’ssupposed to be more the people. . . . Why do you need tohave some kind of corporate logo behind it as well?

People with less direct local ties are more open to spon-sorships but still note the importance of excluding outsidefunds from local celebrations in the future. The differenceof opinion between locals like Nadine and more distantformer residents like Sabrina may be due to their different

social roles at Mardi Gras, reflecting different relations toNew Orleans’ social structure. Sabrina, whose upward careermobility led her to move away, is more open to sponsorships,perhaps because she is not as deeply entwined in the socialrelations constituting the local moral economy. By contrast,Nadine is an important stakeholder in preserving the city’straditional social structure. Allowing corporate sponsors tocontribute to providing the event for locals might diminishthe importance of the giving role of Nadine and other krewemembers. While all informants express hesitation about cor-porate sponsorships, krewe members elaborate on their op-position the most.

What locals apparently realize but do not express overtlyis that allowing sponsorships erodes the status, cultural cap-ital, and cultural authority elites garner through their gifting.When a corporate sponsor injects itself into a ritual thatredefines the “we,” it is criticized in part for asserting itsinclusion in the community’s social structure. This insertionis viewed suspiciously since the core meaning of the eventfor locals, particularly at this time, is an enactment of tra-dition and an attempt at restabilization. As Nadine expresseswhen she says with uncertainty, “I don’t know what it’sgoing to be like,” sponsorships are not always warmly wel-comed, despite their financial appeal. Injection of corporatesponsorship into a long-standing intracommunity giftingevent is feared as having unwanted structural consequences.

CONCLUSIONOur analysis differentiates intracommunity gifts from othergift forms and demonstrates their continued structural im-portance in postmodernity. Intracommunity gifting occursbetween two status groups in a geographic community withdiffuse but still important feelings and acts of communalityand connectedness. Rather than fine-tuning the nuanced con-nections of intimate relationships, intracommunity gifts pro-vide tensile strength to the network of connections betweenpeople in different social positions within the same com-munity. Intracommunity gifting also cultivates social capitalin connections among those in the same social position,particularly among givers. In a nation dominated by marketeconomies, intracommunity gift practices foreground themoral economy and make visible generalized social ties andobligations. Instead of matched reciprocity between indi-viduals, intracommunity gifting creates a heightened senseof moral order and social solidarity through expressions ofgenerosity and gratitude, while concurrently granting statusand cultural authority to givers through a rough process ofstructuration.

This study makes theoretical contributions beyond thecontext of post-Katrina New Orleans. It sheds light on someritual tools and practices employed by contemporary geo-graphic communities in addressing important structuraltasks. These tasks are more salient during unsettled times:economic, social, cultural, or natural crises leave physicaldamage, but the social damage in an unraveled or frag-mented community presents a less clear path to recovery.In repairing this social damage, geographic communities

INTRACOMMUNITY GIFTING 000

face the challenge of deciding how to repave the intersectionbetween the market and moral economies that are founda-tional for contemporary society. While supportive outsidersoften focus on reinforcing markets and shoring up civicagencies, the activities analyzed here are a reminder thatmoral economies also require repair. Tradition, particularlyritualized intracommunity giving, both provides a link tocultural roots, invented or not (Hobsbawm and Ranger1983), and helps members feel connected to one another, acentral component of life satisfaction and health (House,Landis, and Umberson 1988; Patrick and Wickizer 1995;Putnam 2000). Shared consumption practices unite andstructure a community, even if incompletely. New Orleans’historically traditional practices of intracommunity giftingwere readily available to help repave the intersection be-tween moral and market economies.

This study also provides an opening for deeper theorizingabout why corporate sponsorship is sometimes embracedand sometimes criticized or rejected (Dean 2002; Hoeffler,Bloom, and Keller 2010). When a primary structural con-sequence will be to repair or maintain the social fabric ofa geographic community, local caretakers may be privilegedover corporate sponsors. They have localized cultural knowl-edge and longtime community membership and also areconsidered more trustworthy by being more firmly rootedin the logic of the moral rather than the market economy.When corporate sponsorships will displace the traditionalsocial position of community members, their funds may bemore likely to be criticized or rejected. More empirical re-search across contexts is needed to understand this ambiv-alence.

Further research is needed to delineate the characteristicsand structural outcomes of masked giving of other types:anonymous charitable donations and gifts from parents tochildren that are masked by coming from mythical figuressuch as Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Arethese a special form of intracommunity gifting in which amythical figure provides gifts on behalf of a worldly com-munity, such as the family? Are they a different categoryof gifting with different characteristics and structural out-comes? Rather than masking the role of the parents, is thefictional figure used to support beliefs in a spiritual or mag-ical world beyond the embodied geographic community?While there is some research on these types of gifts, thequestions of locus and reciprocity warrant further compar-ative empirical research.

In conclusion, intracommunity gifts have been shown tocreate a sense of we-ness while also creating tensile strengthin the network of connections between community membersin different social positions. The cultural work of this givingprocess may explain cases of ambivalence to corporate spon-sorships of local community events in which outside giftsthreaten to usurp the local social structure and relationships.

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