Gift economy

Tematem artykułu jest przedstawienie jednego z możliwych cząstkowych spojrzeń na kwestie obdarowywania, a mianowicie spojrzenie ekonomii. Niektóre z ekonomicznych modeli obdarowywania jako podstaw
przyjmuj teorie socjologiczne, w artykule zostaną one przedstawione skrótowo. Pomini
ęte zostaną podejścia psychologiczne i filozoficzne, jak również cały nurt uj
ęcia kompleksowego. Najważniejszym celem dla autorki jest przedstawienie ekonomicznych aspektów obdarowywania.

A commonplace suggestion is that people who seek to change the culture, political climate, and institutions of the United States should adopt an inclusive approach respectful of diversity. However, many of the conversations about change in the United States are inward-looking; advocates for peace, racial healing, better relationships, and more justice usually neglect the topic of indigenous nations and peoples and how they fit into the broader picture of change. To be a more responsible change agent, two shifts in perspective are recommended. First, carefully examine and understand the colonizing practices that have shaped, and continue to shape, the lived experiences of indigenous peoples. Second, study and learn from indigenous wisdom; allow the values, concerns, and perspectives to inform new ways of imagining the world and how to live in it. To be relevant, minimally, theories and practices to cultivate a better world should be mindful of the above aspects. Without this minimal ...

L’attività materna di dare vita e di mantenerla è l’attività produttiva umana più evidente ma nella nostra società, fondata sul lavoro (salariato), non viene considerata e non le viene dato valore. Eppure, nessuno Stato ha ancora trovato modo per produrre lavoratori al di fuori dal grembo materno. L’economia femminista si è occupata di questo tema dagli anni ’70, calcolando che il lavoro riproduttivo e domestico (svolto in prevalenza dalle donne), occuperebbe il 40% del PIL (M. Waring). Le cure materne (che sono esercitate anche dai padri) vanno al di là di un semplice concetto di reddito, esse partecipano al benessere continuo sia degli individui che della società, esercitando di fatto un’economia del dono sulla quale poggiano tutte le altre attività. Il dono materno è invisibile, il suo stesso principio viene escluso dai “discorsi” ufficiali. È più facile considerare il linguaggio come eredità genetica che rendersi conto che la “lingua madre” è un dono trasmesso dalla madre nei primi anni di vita e attivamente ricevuto ed esercitato dal bambino, creando così un modello di comunicazione e di socializzazione (G. Vaughan). Questa assenza ha dirette conseguenze sulla società, sia dal punto di vista economico sia del benessere, influenzando il nostro rapporto con la terra e con l’ecosistema.

Elena Skoko, L'economia del dono nella maternità e nella nascita, in Le radici materne dell'economia del dono, a cura di Genevieve Vaughan, Vanda ePublishing, Milano, 2017, pp. 221-230.

The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre represents one of the most popular, dynamic and influential spaces of digital play. Since the genres first commercial release in 2009 with the title League of Legends (2009 – present, Riot Games), MOBAs have played an integral role in pioneering ‘fair’ models of free-to-play, live streaming as a ubiquitous spectator activity and e-sports as an increasingly recognised mainstream industry. This thesis posits each of these trends as connected to the influence of MOBAs as a genre with a rich history in grassroots spaces of non-commercial play and participation. Adopting an online ethnographic approach, the thesis describes how the transition of the genre away from its non-commercial and collectivised origins has introduced an influential model of hybrid power relations characteristic of the affective economics that underpin many wider digital platforms.

Central to this thesis is the introduction of playful co-creativity as a conception for describing the productive role that play and closely related participatory activities exert in the vibrant activities of MOBAs. Through framing play as a co-creative practice that informs design, spurs participation, creates professions and sustains vast sums of affective value, the thesis asks how the political economy of playful co-creativity in MOBAs can be critically approached. The research mobilises approaches from game, fan and Internet studies to approach the complex set of relations encompassed by MOBAs.

The online ethnography of this research comprises observations, personal experiences, in-depth case studies and player responses from online open discussions on Reddit. In particular, the research focuses on three influential examples of MOBAs in the original Warcraft III (Blizzard Entertainment, 2003) custom game DotA, League of Legends and Dota 2 (Valve Corporation, 2013 – present). Through grasping the differing modes of governance in each of these games, the aim of this thesis is to exemplify how MOBAs are a genre imbricated with affective forms of playful interaction that both sustain and at times threaten the hybrid power dynamics of this heterogeneous genre.

Özet:
Bu çalışma, karşılıklılık ilişkisine dayalı kültürel pratiklerin günümüz toplumunda nasıl metalaştırıldığına ve piyasa sistemi içerisinde nasıl araçsallaştığına odaklanmaktadır. Genel olarak küresel düzeyde ve özel olarak Türkiye bağlamında, 'armağan kültürü' piyasa ilişkilerinde 'minnet ekonomisi'ne dönüştürülmektedir. Küresel düzeyde ileri kapitalist ülkelerin geri kalmış ülkelere, yerelde ise sermaye kesiminin yoksul ve ucuz işgücüne yaptığı yardımlarla kurulan karşılıklılık bağı, güçlü olana minnet duymanın önemli bir yolu haline gelmiştir. Temeli 'potlaç' geleneğine dayanan armağan kültürünün günümüzde met-alaştırılmaktadır. Böylece tahakküm ilişkileri, kültürün araçsallaştırılmasıyla maskelen-mektedir. Kültürel gelenek, kapitalist sistem içerisindeki metalaşma mantığına göre yorumlanarak yeni bir ideoloji ve kültür meydana getirmektedir. Çalışma, Türkiye bağlamında kültürün bu çerçevedeki metalaşmasına dair eleştirel bir bakış geliştirmektedir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Potlaç, armağan kültürü, metalaşma, minnet ekonomisi, Türkiye.
Abstract:
The study focuses on how cultural practices, which are based on mutualist relations , are commoditized in today's society and they are instrumentalized in market system. At global level and specifically in Turkey, gift culture is transformed into obligation economy in market relations. From advanced capitalist countries to underdeveloped countries, and locally fund holders aids to poor and cheap labour force established a mutualist bond. This bond became an important way of obligation to the powerful. The gift culture, which is based on 'potlach' tradition, is commoditized nowadays. Thus, domination relations are concealed by instrumentalisation of culture by interpreting with regard commodification sense in capitalist system. This study develops a critical point of view to culture's commod-ification in this framework of part of Turkey. Giriş Günümüz toplumsal formasyonunun dinamiğini kavramının bir yolu da onu kül-türel açıdan yorumlamaktır. Ancak bu yorum kültürel indirgemecilik anlamında değil, sadece bütünü kavramaya yönelik bir pencere sunma dolayısıyladır. Kültürel öğelerin toplumsallığın yeniden üretilmesinde oynadığı belirleyici rolü yakalamak ve vurgulamak açısından bu çalışmada armağan kültürünün doğası ve ekonomi-politik dizge açısından nasıl metalaştırıldığına değinilmek istenmektedir. Bu doğrultuda öncelikle kültür hak-kında kısa bir bilgi verildikten sonra armağan kültürüne giriş yapılarak Türkiye'de aldığı karaktere ve anlama ulaşılmaya çalışılacaktır.

Online fandom encompasses many convergent (Jenkins, 2006) dynamics. As the space between producer and consumer or professional and fan have increasingly blurred, this convergence has been reflected in new modes of monetisation and affective lines of address. These dynamics are particularly pertinent in online games where new models of ‘fair’ free to play games, valuable bottom up forms of playful innovation and affective lines of address all present themselves in a myriad of influential games genres. One of these genres is the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) that has recently risen to become one of the most played genres in the world with a thriving e-sports industry and a radical new model of free to play. This paper seeks to critically explore the dynamics of the MOBA space with a particular focus upon the affective lines of address and underlying gift economics that are fundamental to this far reaching cultural activity.


The free to play model for MOBA games are noteworthy as ‘fair’ due to all of the content being available to any player with no in-game advantages. The model relies upon the sale of purely aesthetic in-game customisations and as this paper argues, a reciprocal relationship between the professional developer and fan. How do professional developers position themselves as fans in paratextual spaces? How do these lines of address de-commoditise their content and enable this ‘gift’ (Mauss, 1954; Hyde, 1983) orientated free to play model to thrive economically? What is the significance of this affective relationship between fans and producers to wider participatory platforms (Schäfer, 2011; Dijck, 2013; Jenkins et al, 2013)? Drawing upon online ethnographic PhD research surrounding the MOBA League of Legends (Riot Games, 2011), which last year raised over one billion dollars (Chalk, 2014) through this model, this paper seeks frame these questions as a symptom of wider ‘affective economies’ (Bennet et al, 2015) that are increasingly numerous, influential, and paradoxically hidden.


Bibliography

Bennett, L. Chin, B. and Jones, B. (2015) ‘Crowdfunding: A New Media & Society Special Issue’, New Media & Society, February 2015; 17 (2).
Chalk, A. (2014) ‘League of Legends has made almost $1 Billion in Microtransactions, PC Gamer, 24th October, 2014.
Available at: http://www.pcgamer.com/league-of-legends-has-made-almost-1-billion-in-microtransactions/
Dijck, V, J. (2013) Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hyde, L. (1983) The Gift How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World, London: Cannongate.
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, London: New York University Press.
Jenkins, H. Ford, S. and Green, J. (2013) Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture¸ New York: New York University Press.
Mauss, M. (1954) The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans by Cunnison, I. (2011) Glencoe: The Free Press.
Schäfer, T, M. (2011) Bastard Culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Many books about Burning Man begin with a caveat. Their authors write that Burning Man cannot be described, that its whole is incomprehensible to anyone, even to those who have attended the event. They say Burning Man can’t really be written about, and that what they are offering is dangerously incomplete. And yet, these authors do go on to write and produce books, and clearly some do want to offer a comprehensive overview. There is richness in the tension between the desire to communicate what Burning Man is and the sense that it is impossible to do so. This tension is perhaps what inspires so many people, an increasing number of people, to try to capture it – it is so hard to describe and yet so worthy of description. There must be something extraordinary about it, after all, since almost 70,000 people decided to spend a week at Burning Man in 2013. This book swerves away from these preoccupations to celebrate an aspect of the event that generates so much of its energy: stories.

This article situates the collecting practices of museums of natural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in dialogue with similar practices amongst societies in the Pacific by focusing on how European curators, dealers in natural history and Pacific Islanders shared a common fascination with Spondylus shells. In particular, this article examines the processes for turning Spondylus shells into unique or duplicate specimens. Spondylus shells were crucial for regulating gift and commercial exchanges in the societies of both regions. Famously, the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski claimed that these shells were an essential element of the gift-based kula exchange, which helped him distinguish Western capitalist society from less developed societies without commercial trade. Yet Spondylus shells were also collected and exchanged as gifts amongst British and European naturalists in this period, performing the same roles as in Melanesia. In addition, such gift exchanges could only come into being thanks to the actions of commercially motivated dealers, located both in the Pacific and in Europe, who were the suppliers of these shells both to Melanesian participants in the kula and to Western natural historians and collectors. These observations call into question earlier arguments that equate modernity with the rise of commercial capitalism. It is instead claimed that commercial and gift exchanges were intricately connected and reliant on each other throughout the period, whether in the worlds of Western museums or in Pacific archipelagos. The act of turning Spondylus shells into unique or duplicate specimens was the key tool for regulating these exchanges. Looking for difference amongst a sea of similarity is a recurring theme in Vakutan thinking. 1 Here is a Spondylus shell that entered the British Museum in the nineteenth century, originally collected by the Valparaiso sailmaker Hugh Cuming somewhere in the Pacific. 2 And here are three more Spondylus shells from the same museum that Bronisław Malinowski collected in Melanesia during the First World War (Figures 1-5). 3 Now, in 2021, they are clearly not duplicates of each other: they perform different functions

Это история о советских пингвинах и о студенческих зачетках, об этике и практиках неформальных отношений в Ленинграде 1980-х и Санкт-Петербурге 2010-х, а также о том, как несоизмеримость ценности предметов внезапно становится началом для невымышленных историй и поводом для застольных рассказов. Я расскажу вам об одном императорском пингвине: о птице, которая однажды погибла, была найдена, продана, куплена, стала чучелом, заброшена, найдена, украдена и подарена вновь.
[Перевод статьи "How Grades Had Been Gotten for Penguins and Money" (2017 Anthropology and Humanism 42 (1): 127–34.]

The Burgundian duke Charles the Bold (1433-1477) was not particularly well known for his liberality. According to De Barante, the nineteenth century historian of the Burgundian dukes, he was seen by his officers and the nobles as ‘bien avare et peu liberal pour un prince si jeune et si nouveau’. One of this article’s purposes is to investigate this claim, but my larger concern is to make sense of the patterns of gift-giving evidenced by the available sources. Although we do not have complete records of all Charles’s gift giving, the account of the highest financial officer, the argentier, combined with the household ordinances and a few narrative sources, provide a good overview of the importance and nature of gift-giving in Charles’s court. These texts reveal a charged and unstable culture of gift-giving, one in which the category of ‘gift’ itself is in some disarray and where bureaucratic pressures both distort the gift and ntensify Charles’s need to deploy gifts in order to secure his power.

This is the question that I’m interested in exploring further in this
essay—  the question of organization as digital incorporation in an age of
monetary experimentation, approached through the theoretical lenses of
Anti-Oedipus’s notion of surplus value of code. What stacktivism says, in
substance, is finally very close to the war cry John Protevi derives from
Anti-Oedipus’s relentless schizo-drive: But we too have a code: do what
you want as long as you can make a cut in a flow and keep some.

https://www.hugendubel.info/detail/ISBN-9783943253405/Kohlhuber-Isabella/Hamburg-Maschine-revisited

Resumen En este articulo se busca hacer una aproximación al concepto de bien común como fin de la sociedad, los elementos de su estructura básica para que pueda darse. Para esto se hace una distinción entre el bien común y el bien particular, se aborda la primacía de la dignidad de la persona, la relación del bien común con la ley natural, y la importancia del ejercicio de las virtudes sociales para su consecución. Palabras clave: Bien común, bien particular, dignidad de la persona, ley natural, virtudes sociales. Abstract This paper seeks to make an approach to the concept of common good as the end of society, the elements of its basic structure so that it can occur. For this a distinction is made between the common good and the particular good, the primacy of the dignity of the person, the relationship of the common good with the natural law, and the importance of the exercise of social virtues for its achievement are addressed.

This study focuses on the paniyiria held on the Greek island of Ikaria, in a historical depth that was defined by the archival material, brought to the forefront in the course of a long-term field research; the 17th century. Its historical limit was posed by the epistemological and theoretical choices of the researcher; the 20th century. It aims at an anthropological understanding of Ikarian society, with its vehicle being a particular cultural practice, as it has been reproduced and has changed in the course of time. The theoretical and methodological scheme through which I approach this cultural practice draws heavily from theoretical discussions relative to the gift and the commons. These concepts, which have emerged from fieldwork, are used for their analytic strength/potentiality and, on their basis, the research material has been organized. A basic position this study holds -and at the same time an object of documentation- is that Ikarian paniyiria are the epitome of a gift economy, which, in turn, is inextricably intertwined with a long tradition of the commons or a “culture of common-fields”. Continuities, discontinuities and breaks, inscribed on the ephemeral chronotopes of paniyiria of different historical eras, bring to the fore historical procedures of enclosures of the commons as well as of their opposite move, procedures of creation and regeneration of commons (or dis-enclosures). Offering, the moral coin that has diachronically circulated in the local gift economy, is materialized in “common-good purposes”. These, in turn reproduce and renew/ regenerate the village commons or create new commons within and outside the geographical limits of each village. At the same time, every time a paniyiri is held, collective identities, emerging from participation in chronotopes of “we”, are reproduced. However, the achievement of an “all together” is never a given; on the “Janus face” of the paniyiria are revealed the multiple and controversial potentialities opened each time, in the chronotope of a paniyiri.

This is a working paper from the exploratory research carried out at early phases of Visions and Pathways 2040 project. The paper discusses new dynamics in the business environment relevant to sustainability and low-carbon transitions and identifies and exemplifies new and emerging business models with a potential of disrupting existing unsustainable socio-technical systems. 

Co-authored with Paul Twomey

This paper conducts a literature study to answer the
question if a decentralized ledger (blockchain), as used in Bitcoin and other alternative money like informational commodities, allows scaling of the Economy of Giving from small communities to a global scale. It starts by introducing the concept of Economy of Giving and the technology behind decentralized ledgers. It answers then the non obvious question how both concepts can be combined and explains the resulting implications. Finally, it concludes with an analysis why such a combination is favourable and gives an outlook to future work that is needed to make this new model a success.

Historically, fan scholars have focused on conducting deep dives into singular cases and revealing trends by comparing cross sections of those cases. While there is undeniable value in conducting close analyses of such instances, the reliance on this method can limit our assessment of long-running trends. By supplementing—or, more productively, combining—specific case studies with diachronic perspectives, we can better situate, contextualize, and trace emerging trends like the evolution of fan/producer dynamics. To model this approach, I analyze 4 years' worth of fan-targeted promotional campaigns on the official Teen Wolf (2011–) Tumblr. The activities—fannish and/or promotional—of all participants in a shared ecological system like Tumblr are significant. They continuously construct, deconstruct, nuance, and challenge the ever-evolving context of fandom and fan/producer dynamics. Supplementing a close analysis of one of Teen Wolf's recent promotional campaigns—the commissioned #TeenWolfExhibit—with a diachronic perspective addresses the ever-evolving ecology of media fandom and traces the evolution of MTV's fannish literacy from 2011 to 2015. The #TeenWolfExhibit reproduces and reflects all the promotional successes, failures, and course corrections that predate it.

Das Sprichwort des Titels ist jedermann bekannt. Was aber verbirgt sich dahinter? Gerade jetzt erscheint die darin ausgesprochene Empfehlung wohlfeil, bemüht sich doch gerade im bevorstehenden Advent jeder nun entsprechend. Andererseits beginnen auch jetzt wieder die Überlegungen, wie angesichts der im vergangenen Jahr erhaltenen Geschenke ein angemessener Ausgleich geschaffen und wie alle zu Beschenkenden gerecht bedacht werden können. Schenken gehört zu den Erscheinungen unserer Festtage, aber auch unseres Alltags, die uns auf besondere Weise miteinander verbinden und an denen ablesbar wird, was uns als Menschen ausmacht. Im Vortrag wird dies an Ereignissen des Schenkens und des Beschenktwerdens exemplarisch verdeutlicht. Zudem wird in soziologischer Perspektive anschaulich und verständlich gemacht, was dem titelgebenden Sprichwort sowie den vielfältigen Erscheinungen des Schenkens zugrunde liegt: strukturelle Reziprozität als Grundlegung der kulturellen Natur des Menschen.

This volume on the relationships between decadent literature and anthropology in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe studies the unnoticed connection between, on the one hand, a purposeless and ephemeral beauty, and, on the other hand, the disinterestedness and the spontaneity ascribed by anthropologists to the ceremonial expenditure of “primitive” civilizations. The book highlights how, in those two apparently opposed discourses, prodigality and uselessness challenge the Western cult of profit by working in two directions: beauty is a form of lavishness, and lavishness is a source of beauty. An innovative theoretical and cultural framework at the crossroads of aesthetics, anthropology, and philosophy allows me to reexamine the works of O. Wilde, G. D’Annunzio, and J.-K. Huysmans, and to claim the crucial role of neglected authors like Paolo Mantegazza and Vernon Lee in what I trace as the emergence of a proto-theorization of gift-exchange in the European fin de siècle culture. The pervasiveness of symbolic economy in those writers establishes a new dynamic relationship between decadence and modernism, and also exposes the limits of the allegedly disinterested forms of expenditure that will soon lure the modernists to go “primitive”.

Tracking Herman Melville’s burgeoning interest in the gift economy, this essay focuses on different modes of exchange in Typee, Mardi, Moby-Dick, and The Confidence-Man. In his early travel novel as well as in his later masterworks, Melville registers the global system of capitalism as it begins to emerge in the Pacific and assert its dominance in the USA. A new reading of the gift principle in Typee, and its infamously problematic ending, recognizes the possibility of a utopian society based on reciprocity. Melville’s later works are then analyzed in a similar, but now more explicit, global framework in order to chart a further development in the author’s understanding of the capitalist world-system.

The majority of literature on Slow Food focu- ses on the organization or actors involved in the movement. There is a dearth of material analyzing Carlo Petrini’s aspirations for Slow Food, particularly in light of his desire within Slow Food Nation (2007) and Terra Madre (2010) to make ‘‘freewill giving a part of economic discourse.’’ This essay corrects the literature gap through historicizing and critiquing Petrini’s alternative to global capitalism while rooting it in actually existing practices. First, Pe- trini’s problematic conceptualization of freewill giving will be compared to feminist theorizations and documentations of the gift economy. Second, Petrini’s avoidance of the toxic mimic of the gift, its subsumption to capitalism, will be amended by discussing how the gifting of food aid and emergency food networks actually reproduces inequality, poverty, and hunger. Third, Petrini’s example of gifting by a Trappist Monastery will be juxtaposed to the ongoing direct action strategies of Food Not Bombs, a much stronger example of an oppositional gift economy, one that is subsequently repressed by the state. In doing so, this essay seeks to expand discussion of the gift economy within the alternative food movement while amending many of the theoretical, historical, and political problems embedded within Petrini’s work, which performs a strong disservice to the politics of possibility embedded within gifting.

This paper reflects early thoughts on the theoretical and methodological horizons of my research on Ikarian paniyiria. For a reworked version on the theoretical and methodogical coordinates of this study, see Chapter 2 of "The Paniyiria of Ikaria: Aspects of the Gift, Practices of the Commons, Processes of Social Reproduction and Social Transformation" (Greek), 2020, PhD Dissertation, University of Crete. [https://www.didaktorika.gr/eadd/handle/10442/48396]

Abstract

“Gangnam Style and weak ties” addresses internet content which reaches accelerated popularity and attains the status of going “viral”.  It argues viral flow of information is facilitated through weak ties which are encouraged by social network services. “Gangnam Style” is used as an example of this process. Social networks services examined and encourage weak tie formation. The content constructs are briefly analysed and a comparative study is utilised to find if there are similarities in viral content. It utilises the chaos theory to assess the definition of viral and alludes to viral content appealing to a type of collective unconscious.

You are walking through a tree shaded path and you encounter a donkey on parade. The walk is enchanting, with music, donkeys and goats, their caretakers, cooking appliances, and people preparing to sing when they reach their destination. The donkey is like a celebrity, with staff hovering nearby and people lining up for a closer look. People are starved for this kind of contact with an animal that is so unfamiliar, yet so ordinary that its presence seems like magic. The donkey is a gift, reminding us that families used to gift each other precious animals in the context of their particular rituals of the time. Bill Burns' drawings are small yet equally commanding invitations to contemplate how animals come to us and how we encounter other species on whom we rely in this late industrial age. The drawings also remind me that it is too soon to talk about a (post)industrial age.  The transport of animals and people to the New World was built on a callous calculation of life in relation to death, time, efficiency, and profit. Like the donkey, the animals and animal parts shown on the drawings in this exhibition are small, gleaming fragments of life floating through and away from such calculations. These drawings are so gentle they don’t seem to belong in the same lexicon, but they remind us of the world in which lives become commodities as they suffer the ships, boats and trains conveying them around the planet. Please, the sheep say to us, and the fish, and the bees, and the donkeys: pay attention.

With its release in late 2009, League of Legends (Riot Games) has influenced the game industry in several profound ways. Known for its vast popularity and its pivotal role in pioneering live streaming and electronic sports, League of Legends is also noteworthy for its model of ‘fair’ free-to-play. Described by Riot Games and many industry professionals as ‘fair’ due to its lack of any ‘pay-to-win’ content (Graft, 2013; Nutt, 2014), this model of free-to-play has gone on to influence a paradigmatic shift towards ‘games as a service’. In this study, the model of ‘fair’ free-to-play is critically framed as a lucrative affective economy involving reciprocal gift exchanges between players and commercial games developers. Drawing on 49 qualitative Reddit responses from players who buy in-game skins, this study positions the microtransactions of League of Legends as a notable example of affective economics that is bound up in reciprocal forms of commercial exchange. Framing this hybrid model of co-creative relations alongside examples from game, fan and Internet studies, it is the critical aim of this study to frame the microtransactions of League of Legends as an instance of affective valorisation. Paralleling the affective economics of various digital platforms, it is the view of this study that microtransactions in games should be considered as part of the same political economy of the Internet.

This study uses IMPLAN to estimate the economic impact of Non-Governmental Direct Investment (NDI) from Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NGO) activities in central Nigeria. The estimation of NDI project-specific impact(s) would be carried out at the local level in the city of Lugbe, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that is, the impact(s) of Ane Osiobe International Foundation’s business activities and outreach donations on the Nigerian economy. The main economic policy question addressed in this study is how NDI affects Lugbe community and its local government areas where NGOs operate. Results presented in this study include economic development impacts such as job creation, salaries, benefits, and its effect(s) on the whole economy. The total economic activity to Lugbe FCT is approximately ₦13,302,418.65k as the net impact from NDI (2015 – 2018). Our observation covers the foundation’s activities in Lugbe, FCT. Increasing the economic Impact(s) of the foundation can be optimized by effective utilization of public and private resources, trained industry-specific labor, and linking the goal(s) of the NGO, the government, and the beneficiaries together to achieve a synchronized objective in Lugbe, FCT. The community, appear to be well positioned and equipped to see the increasing incidence(s) from the Ane Osiobe International Foundation’s outreaches.

This article is not meant to present a comprehensive
analysis and interpretation of the Tzedakah society. By
understanding its basic premises, I wish to study how
the gift economy operates and develops under patriarchy
and oppression and what lessons I can draw from such a
society to the way the maternal gift economy can evolve
into a universal principle, that is, how the maternal gift
economy can be universalized.

This article urges altering the discourse around social change. Too often it is antagonistic and negative; it also overlooks continuing colonizing practices and how injustices to Indigenous peoples have helped to shape past and current injustices toward other groups. First, the article foregrounds the religio-political ideology of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and the boarding-school experience to remind readers about the broader criminal history of the United States toward Indigenous nations and peoples and how colonization is not a thing of the past. Any call for social change should remember this. Second, the article looks at three dimensions of Indigenous philosophy that would be good to affirm as we strive for a better world: relatedness, sustained peace, and an ethic of preservative care. Limited calls for justice that avoid continuing colonizing practices and that begin with negations and hate are not responsible and will help to continue the sustained violence we no longer want. For sustained peace, the strategy should be to begin with an affirmation (here an affirmation of Indigenous wisdom) and a broader historical understanding of the injustices that continue to bring harm to millions of people within the borders of the United States. By changing the subject in this way, it will not only make for more peaceful activism, but it will also create better allies to Indigenous nations and peoples.

A proposal to the worlds regarding how to approach the concept, phenomenon, and institutions of education. I offer a brief history of education, locating its origins in the Inquisitions and Witch Hunts of Europe and detail its contemporary role in spreading addiction to money as a mechanism of colonial control. I bring some concepts together from various authors toward a more functional and flexible framework of how liberation-minded people(s) might navigate in and outside of education toward a world of relations not controlled by capitalism, empire, and money. The concept of (Under)Commons of this piece is influenced by the title of Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's book "The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Studies" and also maintains an appreciation for the more widely studied concept of the Commons. "Preliminary Notes v1.0" denotes this as a work in progress that I hope to involve in wide conversation amongst a variety of audiences with stakes in life on earth as I continue to develop further versions until it becomes a complete book. As per the title, "Playing to Live, Not Living to Pay" is the primary goal here.
Please send any feedback to playingtolivenotlivingtopay@gmail.com

An analysis of how Lewis Hyde's "The Gift" influenced various contemporary fiction writes, with a special focus on Zadie Smith's second novel "The Autograph Man." Critiques the argument that treating art as a gift offers a means by which to avoid commodification.

Gift, leadership, economy: what, if anything, is the nature of the relationship between the three? And how might this relationship be thought? In this essay, we describe leadership as a phenomenon that requires social scientists and philosophers alike to think the philosophi- cal-phenomenological discussion of the gift alongside the sociological-economic analysis thereof. The paper, to be clear, is not as much an attempt to comment upon the interrelation- ship between a philosophy and a socio-econ- omy of the gift as such, so much as it is an at- tempt to illustrate how a particular phenomenon, in this case leadership, demands the inauguration of a deliberate and ongoing dialogue between social science and philosophy, on the topic of the gift.

A proposal to the worlds regarding how to approach the concept, phenomenon, and institutions of education. I offer a brief history of education, locating its origins in the Inquisitions and Witch Hunts of Europe and detail its contemporary role in spreading addiction to money as a mechanism of colonial control. I bring some concepts together from various authors toward a more functional and flexible framework of how liberation-minded people(s) might navigate in and outside of education toward a world of relations not controlled by capitalism, empire, and money. The concept of (Under)Commons of this piece is influenced by the title of Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's book "The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Studies" and also maintains an appreciation for the more widely studied concept of the Commons. "Preliminary Notes v1.0" denotes this as a work in progress that I hope to involve in wide conversation amongst a variety of audiences with stakes in life on earth as I continue to develop further versions until it becomes a complete book. As per the title, "Playing to Live, Not Living to Pay" is the primary goal here.
Please send any feedback to playingtolivenotlivingtopay@gmail.com

... in which Japanese and other Asian fan communities exchange dōjinshi, or fan-made manga (Lam ... although some fans may like getting more options to exchange their fan work, nobody would ... seems to be a common thread in discussions about how copyright legislation should ...

Examined are the activities of the Slovenian Birdwatching Society (Društvo za opazovanje in preučevanje ptic Slovenije – DOPPS) from an ethnological/anthropological perspective. Listing the Society’s many activities the author wonders why its members participate in volunteer work and why they donate a substantial part of their time and effort to activities for which they receive no payment. This analysis attempts to avoid explanations of the so-called theories of reciprocal altruism introduced by sociobiologists, focusing instead on the phenomenon of voluntarism from an ethnological/anthropological perspective, and particularly from the viewpoint of gift economy.