MAUSS

The anti‐utilitarian movement of the MAUSS – an acronym for Mouvement Anti‐Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales – was founded by Alain Caillé and an alliance of largely francophone intellectuals in 1981 to counter the hegemony of utilitarianism in the social sciences (rational choice) and society (neoliberalism). Its organ, theRevue du MAUSS, is a biannual journal devoted to the study of the gift in which anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and political philosophers on the left explore the contours of an alternative science and society not based on self‐interest and egoism. While the group has always operated as a collective and encouraged collaborative writing and research, Alain Caillé has remained its most prominent exponent and has, over the last quarter century, worked to develop Marcel Mauss's classic essay on the gift (Mauss 1924) into a full‐blown political sociology of associations that considers the triple obligation – “to give, accept, and return the gift” – as the bedrock of social life (Caillé 2000, 2009; Godbout & Caillé 1992).