FORCE, BARGAINING AND GIFT-GIVING IN PRIS ON

How do inmates and guards manage to get along together? The attentive observation of these inescapable face-to-face contacts, along with 300 interviews carried out in seven French penitentiaries, bring to light another type of interaction besides relations based on force and barg aining. This third type of exchange is analyzed in terms of reciprocal gift-giving. Gifts of speech (news, jokes...), toleration for slight breaches, and discreet gestures fit into a special context where clash es and riots are an ever-present threat. This type of interaction can be interpreted in many ways: moral norms, a social contract, a means o f pacification and stabilization, the risks of corruption and blackmai l... The cycle of giving-accepting-returning a gift is seen in the com parative light of anthropology, interactionism and political philosoph y. The major contradictions of the prison guards' work crystallize in this mutual interdependence.