Mary Douglas – författare

Som första bok i sitt slag blev boken uppgörelse med den tidigare förhärskande etnocentriska forskningen på området. Den har bidragit till förståelse för hur social ordning avspeglas i de skilda kulturernas sätt att se på renhet och smuts.

Is cleanliness next to godliness? What does such a concept really mean? Why does it recur as a universal theme across all societies? And what are the implications for the unclean? In Purity and Danger Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society. In lively and lucid prose she explains its relevance for every reader by revealing its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes to society, values, cosmology and knowledge. This book has been hugely influential in many areas of debate – from religion to social theory. With a specially commissioned preface by the author which assesses the continuing significance of the work, this Routledge Classics edition will ensure that Purity and Danger continues to challenge, question and inspire for many years to come.

This first full-scale account of Leviticus by a world renowned anthropologist presents the biblical work as a literary masterpiece. Seen in an anthropological perspective Leviticus has a mystical structure which plots the book into three parts corresponding to the three parts of the desert tabernacle, both corresponding to the parts of Mount Sinai. This completely new reading transforms the interpretation of the purity laws. The pig and other forbidden animals are not abhorrent, they command the same respect due to all God's creatures. Boldly challenging several traditions of Bible criticism, Mary Douglas claims that Leviticus is not the narrow doctrine of a crabbed professional priesthood but a powerful intellectual statement about a religion which emphasizes God's justice and compassion.

Who is Israel? Who were the priestly authors of the Pentateuch? This anthropological reading of the Bible, by a world-renowned scholar, starts by asking why the Book of Numbers lists the twelve tribes of Israel seven times. Mary Douglas argues that the editors, far from being a separate elite unconcerned with their congregation's troubles, cherished a political agenda, a religious protest against the government of Judah's exclusionary policies. The priestly theology depends on God's Covenant with all the descendants of Jacob, including the sons of Joseph. It would have been unpatriotic, even subversive, to speak against the wars with Samaria. This book suggest an explanation of the editors' disappearance from the history of Israel.

This first full-scale account of Leviticus by a world-renowned anthropologist presents the biblical work as a literary masterpiece. Seen in an anthropological perspective Leviticus has a mystical structure which plots the book into three parts corresponding to the three parts of the desert tabernacle, which in turn corresponds to the parts of Mount Sinai. This completely new reading transforms the interpretation of the purity laws. The pig and other forbidden animals are not abhorrent, they command the same respect due to all God's creatures. Boldly challenging several traditions of Bible criticism, Mary Douglas claims that Leviticus is not the narrow doctrine of a crabbed professional priesthood but a powerful intellectual statement about a religion which emphasizes God's justice and compassion.

In the Wilderness is a classic work on the anthropology of the Book of Numbers. Up to now Bible scholars have tended to dismiss Numbers - Wellhausen called it the junk room of the Bible, and most contemporary commentaries feel called upon to say something about its apparent lack of coherence. In this book Mary Douglas argues that Numbers is composed of 12 alternating sections of law and narrative arranged in a ring, with each law and narrative section corresponding to its pair on the other side. Notes from a Hebrew scholar confirm the pattern by identifying objectively the beginnings and endings of law and narrative. On this showing Numbers turns out to be an extremely coherent example of a well-known antique rhetorical system. The meaning of the book comes out very differently according to whether it is read linearly or as written, synoptically. Professor Douglas shows that Numbers is not heavy or obscure but reads like a detective story.WITH REGARD TO LEVITICUS AS LITERATUREThe books of Numbers and Leviticus stand at the centre of the Pentateuch and are revered as the basis of biblical Judaism. In her two books Mary Douglas argues that neither has been read in its own terms. Oxford University Press have brought together Professor Douglas's two ground-breaking works because the process of discovery is continuous, the work on Leviticus builds on the work for Numbers. The second book is the fruit of the first. They each make more sense together than apart.

Who is Israel? Who were the priestly authors of the Pentateuch? This anthropological reading of the Bible, by a world-renowned scholar, starts by asking why the Book of Numbers lists the twelve tribes of Israel seven times. Mary Douglas argues that the editors, far from being a separate elite unconcerned with their congregation's troubles, cherished a political agenda, a religious protest against the government of Judah's exclusionary policies. The priestly theology depends on God's Covenant with all the descendants of Jacob, including the sons of Joseph. It would have been unpatriotic, even subversive, to speak against the wars with Samaria. This book suggest an explanation of the editors' disappearance from the history of Israel.

Exploring beyond the usual boundaries of social anthropology, a leader in the field shows why our readings of ancient literary texts may be off the markMany famous antique texts are misunderstood and many others have been completely dismissed, all because the literary style in which they were written is unfamiliar today. So argues Mary Douglas in this controversial study of ring composition, a technique which places the meaning of a text in the middle, framed by a beginning and ending in parallel. To read a ring composition in the modern linear fashion is to misinterpret it, Douglas contends, and today’s scholars must reevaluate important antique texts from around the world.Found in the Bible and in writings from as far afield as Egypt, China, Indonesia, Greece, and Russia, ring composition is too widespread to have come from a single source. Does it perhaps derive from the way the brain works? What is its function in social contexts? The author examines ring composition, its principles and functions, in a cross-cultural way. She focuses on ring composition in Homer’s Iliad, the Bible’s book of Numbers, and, for a challenging modern example, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, developing a persuasive argument for reconstruing famous books and rereading neglected ones.

It is well-understood that the consumption of goods plays an important, symbolic role in the way human beings communicate, create identity, and establish relationships. What is less well-known is that the pattern of their flow shapes society in fundamental ways. In this book the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas and economist Baron Isherwood overturn arguments about consumption that rely on received economic and psychological explanations. They ask new questions about why people save, why they spend, what they buy, and why they sometimes-but not always-make fine distinctions about quality.Instead of regarding consumption as a private means of satisfying one’s preferences, they show how goods are a vital information system, used by human beings to fulfill their intentions towards one another. They also consider the implications of the social role of goods for a new vision for social policy, arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions, and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household. A radical rethinking of consumerism, inequality and social capital, The World of Goods is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent.This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Richard Wilk."Forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking." – Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood

It is well-understood that the consumption of goods plays an important, symbolic role in the way human beings communicate, create identity, and establish relationships. What is less well-known is that the pattern of their flow shapes society in fundamental ways. In this book the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas and economist Baron Isherwood overturn arguments about consumption that rely on received economic and psychological explanations. They ask new questions about why people save, why they spend, what they buy, and why they sometimes-but not always-make fine distinctions about quality.Instead of regarding consumption as a private means of satisfying one’s preferences, they show how goods are a vital information system, used by human beings to fulfill their intentions towards one another. They also consider the implications of the social role of goods for a new vision for social policy, arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions, and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household. A radical rethinking of consumerism, inequality and social capital, The World of Goods is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent.This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Richard Wilk."Forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking." – Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood

Every natural symbol - derived from blood, breath or excrement - carries a social meaning and this work focuses on the ways in which any one culture makes its selections from body symbolism. Each person treats their body as an image of society and the author examines the varieties of ritual and symbolic expression and the patterns of social ritual in which they are embodied.Natural Symbols is a book about religion and it concerns our own society at least as much as any other. It has stimulated new insights into religious and political movements and has provoked re-appraisals of current progressive orthodoxies in many fields. As a classic, it represents a work of anthropology in its widest sense, exploring themes such as the social meaning of natural symbols and the image of the body in society which are now very much in vogue in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies.In this reissue and with a new Introduction, Natural Symbols will continue to appeal to all students of anthropology, sociology and religion.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press.Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1969 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

This first volume is a compilation of numerous essays by Douglas on the Lele in the Belgian Congo covering a fifteen year period. There are early indications of Douglas's cultural imagination and written expression that were to make her works accessible and relevant to a western readership of non-anthropologists. The intellectural tools and examples she gained from Africanist ethnography continue to serve her explorations of European and American society.

Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of application, rebuttal and development within anthropology. In 1995 the book was included among the Times Literary Supplement's hundred most influential non-fiction works since WWII. Incorporating the philosophy of religion and science and a generally holistic approach to classification, Douglas demonstrates the relevance of anthropological enquiries to an audience outside her immediate academic circle. She offers an approach to understanding rules of purity by examining what is considered unclean in various cultures. She sheds light on the symbolism of what is considered clean and dirty in relation to order in secular and religious, modern and primitive life.

First published in 1973, Rules and Meanings is an anthology of works that form part of Mary Douglas' struggle to devise an anthropological modernism conducive to her opposition to reputedly modernizing trends in contemporary society. The collection contains works by Wittgenstein, Schutz, Husserl, Hertz and other continentals. The underlying themes of the anthology are the construction of meaning, the force of hidden background assumptions, tacit conventions and the power of spatial organization to reinforce words. The work serves to complement the philosophers' work on everyday language with the anthropologists' theory of everyday knowledge.

First published in 1980, this book provides an overview of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's approach to anthropology. His seminal works on the Azande and the Nuer had an immense impact on the field in Britain. He wrote these works in his thirties and forties, after which time he became chair of anthropology at Oxford. His pupils and colleagues from his days as the head of Institute of Social Anthropology went from Oxford to complete the institutional establishment of social anthropology. In this book Douglas links the development of her own theories to her training under Evans-Pritchard at the institute and to the close friendship that they forged in the years after.

First published in 1982, this is one of Mary Douglas' favourite books. It is based on her meetings with friends in which they attempt to apply the grip/group analysis from Natural Symbols. The essays have been important texts for preparing grid/group exercises ever since. She is still trying to improve the argument of Natural Symbols and is always hoping to find better applications to illustrate the power of the two dimensions used for accurate comparison.

First published in 1984, This work is a cross-cultural study of the moral and social meaning of food. It is a collection of articles by Douglas and her colleagues covering the food system of the Oglala Sioux, the food habits of families in rural North Carolina, meal formats in an Italian-American community near Philadelphia. It also includes a grid/group analysis of food consumption.

First published in 1987, Constructive Drinking is a series of original case studies organized into three sections based on three major functions of drinking. The three constructive functions are: that drinking has a real social role in everyday life; that drinking can be used to construct an ideal world; and that drinking is a significant economic activity. The case studies deal with a variety of exotic drinks

First published in 1985, Mary Douglas intended Risk and Acceptability as a review of the existing literature on the state of risk theory. Unsatisfied with the current studies of risk, which she found to be flawed by individualistic and psychologistic biases, she instead uses the book to argue risk analysis from an anthropological perspective. Douglas raises questions about rational choice, the provision of public good and the autonomy of the individual.

First published in 1992, this volume follows on from the programme for studying risk and blame that was implied in Purity and Danger. The first half of the book Douglas argues that the study of risk needs a systematic framework of political and cultural comparison. In the latter half she examines questions in cultural theory. Through the eleven essays contained in Risk and Blame, Douglas argues that the prominence of risk discourse will force upon the social sciences a programme of rethinking and consolidation that will include anthropological approaches.

One of the most important works of modern anthropology. Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, the book took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times, but instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, Mary Douglas saw instead that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding. Expressed with clarity and dynamism, the passionate analysis which follows remains one of the most insightful and rewarding studies of human behaviour ever written.

Historians as well as anthropologists have contributed to this volume of studies on aspects of witchcraft in a variety of cultures and periods from Tudor England to twentieth-century Africa and New Guinea.Contributors include: Mary Douglas, Norman Cohn, Peter Brown, Keith Thomas, Alan Macfarlane, Alison Redmayne, R.G. Willis, Edwin Ardener, Robert Brain, Julian Pitt-Rivers, Esther Goody, Peter Rivière, Anthony Forge, Godfrey Lienhardt, I.M. Lewis, Brian Spooner, G.I. Jones, Malcolm Ruel and T.O. Beidelman.First published in 1970.

First published in 1973, Rules and Meanings is an anthology of works that form part of Mary Douglas' struggle to devise an anthropological modernism conducive to her opposition to reputedly modernizing trends in contemporary society. The collection contains works by Wittgenstein, Schutz, Husserl, Hertz and other continentals. The underlying themes of the anthology are the construction of meaning, the force of hidden background assumptions, tacit conventions and the power of spatial organization to reinforce words. The work serves to complement the philosophers' work on everyday language with the anthropologists' theory of everyday knowledge.

First published in 1984, This work is a cross-cultural study of the moral and social meaning of food. It is a collection of articles by Douglas and her colleagues covering the food system of the Oglala Sioux, the food habits of families in rural North Carolina, meal formats in an Italian-American community near Philadelphia. It also includes a grid/group analysis of food consumption.

First published in 1980, this book provides an overview of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's approach to anthropology. His seminal works on the Azande and the Nuer had an immense impact on the field in Britain. He wrote these works in his thirties and forties, after which time he became chair of anthropology at Oxford. His pupils and colleagues from his days as the head of Institute of Social Anthropology went from Oxford to complete the institutional establishment of social anthropology. In this book Douglas links the development of her own theories to her training under Evans-Pritchard at the institute and to the close friendship that they forged in the years after.

First published in 1982, this is one of Mary Douglas' favourite books. It is based on her meetings with friends in which they attempt to apply the grip/group analysis from Natural Symbols. The essays have been important texts for preparing grid/group exercises ever since. She is still trying to improve the argument of Natural Symbols and is always hoping to find better applications to illustrate the power of the two dimensions used for accurate comparison.

First published in 1987, Constructive Drinking is a series of original case studies organized into three sections based on three major functions of drinking. The three constructive functions are: that drinking has a real social role in everyday life; that drinking can be used to construct an ideal world; and that drinking is a significant economic activity. The case studies deal with a variety of exotic drinks

This first volume is a compilation of numerous essays by Douglas on the Lele in the Belgian Congo covering a fifteen year period. There are early indications of Douglas's cultural imagination and written expression that were to make her works accessible and relevant to a western readership of non-anthropologists. The intellectural tools and examples she gained from Africanist ethnography continue to serve her explorations of European and American society.