The Gift Economy


Skomer Island National Nature Reserve: illustrating a gift economy in operation 

The Bite-size Blogger Collective consists of a group of individuals who have undertaken to produce blogs for self-learning about conservation management of wildlife and share ideas and experiences with others in a gift economy.

Their blogs focus on the importance of having historic, social and material connections in belonging to place. This means properly valuing the spiritual, cultural and emotional values that nature brings to human behaviour.  In this context a gift has value in being declared a gift by the giver.

The concept of a “gift” is deployed to understand how places are valued and cared for by people, families and community groups over time. The idea is to encourage people of all ages to explore the development of tangible and intangible connections between past, present and future places. Hopefully, an understanding of place as an inalienable gift may create a moral duty to nurture and pass on stories about places to subsequent generations.

A gift economy refers to economic activity characterised by offering services and goods to other members of the community without the expectation of monetary reward. Giving things to other people may be based on pure altruism, a wish to gain status in society, the hope of reciprocal gifts in the future or out of a sense of mutual obligation.


Social media like Google Blogger are fundamentally gift economies. 

People are there to cultivate relationships, not conduct transactions. They exchange social currencies, not financial currencies. And status is earned not bought. People are there to cultivate relationships, not conduct transactions. They exchange social currencies, not financial currencies. And status is earned not bought.

 More about gifted places ....

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