Many Voices Discuss the Gift Economy
About Gift giving and Harvesting in the Garden of the Generations
Text by Teresa Distelberger and Translation by Ute Clemens-Hietsch
Recent panels at Women's Worlds, Ottawa, July 2011
July 6 - Rematriating Western Ways of Thinking
This session explores the Indigenous concept of Rematriation which refers to reclaiming of ancestral remains, spirituality, culture, knowledge, and resources instead of the more patriarchal-associated Repatriation. Rematriation simply means back to Mother Earth, to our origins, and to life and co-creation rather than Patriarchal destruction and colonization.
- Bernedette Muthien - Rematriation of Women-Centered (Feminist) Indigenous Knowledge
- Barbara Alice Mann - Rematriation of the Truth
- Valentina Pakyentine - In Life and Death: Reciprocity and Solidarity in Khasi-Pnar Society
- Listen to the Rematriation Session Download mp3 of the Rematriating session
July 7 - Shifting the Paradigm to a Maternal Gift Economy
This session looks at how gift-giving an economic mode — practiced in many Indigenous communities as well as in the non indigenous ‘domestic sphere’ — constitutes a deep alternative to patriarchal capitalism. Although the unilateral gift has been considered impossible, it is necessary for mothering as children cannot give back an equivalent of what they receive. Linda Christiansen-Ruffman and Angela Miles were on the panel as well but spoke extemporaneously so unfortunately we do not have their papers.
- Bernedette Muthien - The Gift Paradigm in Africa
- Frieda Werden - Cultural Motherhood: Nurturing Human Maturation as a Way of Life
- Barbabra Alice Mann - The Fractal Binaries of the Gift & Powerpoint Presentation
- Erella Shadmi - Meaning is a Feminist Issue
- Angela Dolmetsch - Nashira
Conversation about the gift economy in Mali, Africa with Maria Diarra and Coumba Toure', Claudia von Werlhof, glynis christine, Genevieve Vaughan and others. 2006. (.mp3) - - Click to play Part 1
3rd International Women's Peace Conference
Listen to The Gift Economy presentations. Click to listen (mp3s)
Part 1 Part 1
Part 2 Part 2
Part 3 Part 3
Part 4 Part 4
Sustainable Cultures of Life and Gift Circulation - Background Paper 9 - by Kaarina Kailo