A MISERICÓRDIA DE GOA E O SISTEMA DA DÁDIVA果亞的慈善機構和贈予制度
The article reconstructs, in a panoramic fashion, the history of the Misericórdia of Goa and proposes a reinterpretation of its functioning in light of Marcel Mauss’s theory of the gift, highlighting the centrality of the notion of reciprocity. The analysis maintains that the brotherhood’s charitabl...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2005
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40014/3802 |
| Summary: | The article reconstructs, in a panoramic fashion, the history of the Misericórdia of Goa and proposes a reinterpretation of its functioning in light of Marcel Mauss’s theory of the gift, highlighting the centrality of the notion of reciprocity. The analysis maintains that the brotherhood’s charitable works should not be understood merely as religious charity, but as a social and political device intimately articulated with the strategies of the Portuguese colonial state within the context of the “Empire of India.” Methodologically, the text combines historical reconstruction with an interpretative reading inspired by Mauss, considering the mechanisms by which Christian assistance operated selections, rewards, and frameworks of conduct.
It concludes that, in Goa — a territory under Portuguese sovereignty particularly relevant since the seventeenth century — the Misericórdia assumed a twofold importance: on the one hand, a progressive monopoly on charity; on the other, the construction of a network of relations marked by asymmetry and discrimination, converting local subalternity into disciplined adherence to the colonial order. Thus, the “gift system” reveals itself as a means of “inviting” submission to political, economic, and military power, through the rigorous control of welfare institutions (from poverty to hospital care), producing social identity and unity structured by Catholic ethics and by reciprocity rendered, in practice, obligatory. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |