Homo Donans

For a maternal economy

The identification of needs and initiatives for their satisfaction create meaning in language and in life. By proposing this thesis as the foundation of a thorough and uncompromising critique of western economics, and of a theoretical analysis that reaches from feminism to linguistics, to sociology, semiotics, anthropology and economics, in Homo Donans Genevieve Vaughan shows us a way to create social change, which is radical and “natural” at the same time, a way that restores centrality and visibility to “a fundamental part of our humanity that we have not seen before, or named as such”: gift giving. Not to be mistaken for what goes by the name of “gift exchange” nor for munificence, the unilateral gift practice – which underlies the practice of care traditionally associated with the way women are socialized – with its ability to create relationships and community is also bearer of a paradigm which is the antithesis of and the alternative to patriarchal capitalism and its values. Homo Donans challenges us to acknowledge the fundamental importance of this paradigm and to make it the center point of a peaceful global revolution towards a fairer world, at the same time providing us with the most simple yet fascinating of answers to the eternal conflict between parasite and host