Social actors, markets and reciprocity: Convergences between the New Economic Sociology and the "paradigm of the gift"

this paper analyzes the interface between economic sociology and economic anthropology, looking for points of convergence between two approaches in the social sciences, new economic sociology and the paradigm of the gift. it underscores the fruitfulness of such dialogue, at once conjugating efforts to think economic relations beyond the dualism ？atomized actor versus holism' and indicating a convergent solution: the analysis of exchange relations within social networks. it is also argued that social embeddedness perspectives need be complemented by approaches stressing the cultural and symbolic elements of social interactions.