Gifts and agency:

A history of cultural diffusion

Abstract

This article argues the gift as an ineluctable agent of cultural diffusion. The power that the gift exercises can be robust and pervasive; or it can be elusive and transient. Our research question is, what is the role of aesthetics and ideology employed by the giver or its intermediaries, including marketers, for the consequent adaptation of cultural diffusion? We examine four cases in Japan's history when Japan had cultural exchanges with its Others: 1) gifts from China (Tang dynasty) in the tribute system (630-864), 2) gifts of European missionaries to Japan and souvenirs of Europe acquired by Japanese emissaries to Europe (1549 to 1590), 3) souvenirs of Japan acquired by Europeans who visited Japan from the late Edo to Meiji eras (1853 to 1890); and 4) seasonal gifts between Japanese consumers (primarily for o-chugen and o-seibo) through which foreign products were diffused. We conclude that it is the thought (ideology) that counts in cultural diffusion and adaptation. Marketing, in contrast, as the instigator of commercialized gift rituals, fueled the importation of foreign gift rituals as well as foreign goods by promoting new traditions such as Christmas and Valentine's Day giving. We reflect on cultural contagion from past marketing efforts so that we may find ways to use marketing more positively, such as in nourishing more prosocial giving, for a better sustainable future. We conclude with contributions of the present study to marketing history.