Austere Kindness or Mindless Austerity: The Effects of Gift-Giving to Beggars in East London

The current austerity policies in the United Kingdom are creating a precarious situation for many people on the margins of society. Employing micro-level ethnographic analysis, this article addresses how government decisions affect people living on the street. Observations of how local policies demonize gift-giving to street people led me to revisit arguments about the positive and negative effects of gifts. Four months of fieldwork amongst people who beg in the City of London confirmed the Maussian ambiguity of gift exchange. The material benefit of monetary gifts is often accompanied by shared time and conversation; gifts to beggars can go beyond materiality and are hence able to create bonds of sociability.