An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (The Macat Library)

The ePublication is protected by copyright and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased, or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and the publishers' rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, she delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as “evolving” from “savage” beliefs in magic, to religion, to modern science, then explains why she believes those arguments are wrong. She also adeptly chaperones readers through a vast amount of data, from firsthand research in the Congo to close readings of the Old Testament, and analyzes it in depth to provide evidence that traditional and Western religions have more in common than the first comparative religion scholars and early anthropologists thought. First evaluating her scholarly predecessors by marshalling their arguments, Douglas identifies their main weakness: that they dismiss traditional societies and their religions by identifying their practices as “magic,” thereby creating a chasm between savages who believe in magic and sophisticates who practice religion. Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Page 3 Table of Contents 4 WAYS IN TO THE TEXT 10 Who Is Mary Douglas? 10 What Does Purity and Danger Say? 12 Why Does Purity and Danger Matter? 13 SECTION 1: INFLUENCES 16 Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context 17 Module 2: Academic Context 22 Module 3: The Problem 27 Module 4: The Author’s Contribution 33 SECTION 2: IDEAS 38 Module 5: Main Ideas 39 Module 6: Secondary Ideas 44 Module 7: Achievement 49 Module 8: Place in the Author’s Work 54 SECTION 3: IMPACT 59 Module 9: The First Responses 60 Module 10: The Evolving Debate 64 Module 11: Impact and Influence Today 68 Module 12: Where Next? 72 Glossary of Terms 78 People Mentioned in the Text 94 Works Cited 105 One of the most widely read books in the social sciences, Purity and Danger established Mary Douglas as one of the twentieth century's leading social scientists. Her career spanned fieldwork in the Congo to wartime service in the British government to teaching at Oxford and Princeton, and her work continues to influence not only the social sciences but also fields as diverse as economics, design, and environmental studies. Douglas wrote 19 books, but it is on Purity and Danger, her study of how concepts of purity and dirt unite religions and societies, that her scholarly reputation chiefly rests. What we consider dirt, she says, tells us a great deal about how we create order in the world. One of the most widely read books in the social sciences, Purity and Danger established Mary Douglas as one of the twentieth century's leading social scientists. She delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as "evolving" from "savage" beliefs and explains why she believes those arguments are wrong.