Mary Douglas was a British anthropologist best known for Purity and Danger (1966), a study of the symbolic logic of pollution, dirt, and taboo across cultures. She argued that ideas of ritual impurity are not primitive superstitions to be dismissed but expressions of a coherent symbolic system through which societies classify and defend their own sense of order, famously describing dirt as matter out of place. Douglas later developed grid-group cultural theory, a framework for classifying the ways different types of social organization generate different worldviews and attitudes toward risk, which influenced anthropology, sociology, and policy studies concerned with public perceptions of danger.
Facts
BirthplaceSanremo, Kingdom of Italy 1 Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionKnown for writings on human culture, symbolism and risk within social anthropology, including the cultural theory of risk 1 Notable WorkPurity and Danger (1966) 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Mary Douglas (Wikipedia)
Practices Studied
Source Mary Douglas (Wikipedia)
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Source Mary Douglas (Wikipedia)Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articleQuote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Dame Mary Douglas (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture, symbolism and risk, whose area of speciality was social anthropology.
Sources
1. Mary Douglas (Wikipedia)
Wikipediainfobox, Born field
25 March 1921, Sanremo, Kingdom of Italy
infobox, Died field
16 May 2007 (aged 86), London, England
lead sentence
Dame Mary Douglas (25 March 1921 - 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture, symbolism and risk, whose area of speciality was social anthropology.
article body, reputation sentence
Her reputation was established by her most celebrated book, Purity and Danger (1966).
lead sentence, contribution citation
Dame Mary Douglas (25 March 1921 - 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture, symbolism and risk, whose area of speciality was social anthropology.
Associated With: Northwestern University, Article text
After four years (1977-81) as Foundation Research Professor of Cultural Studies at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, she moved to Northwestern University as Avalon Professor of the Humanities with a remit to link the studies of theology and anthropology, and spent three years at Princeton University.
Practices Studied: Ritual, Article text
Furthermore, Douglas recognized that there exists a strong resemblance between European rituals and primitive rituals in principle, omitting the differing foundations that separate European rituals based on hygiene and primitive ones on symbolism, European rituals of cleanness seek to kill off germs, whereas primitive rituals of cleanness seek to ward off spirits.
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