accountability

authority

body

consumption

cultural theory of risk

culture

death

dirt

dirtiness

eating

equality

food

friendship

frontier

gift

ignorance

individual

institution

institutional thinking

insurance

Islam

joke

matter out of place

medical materialism

modernity

morality

nature

objectivity

polluting

pollution

purity - danger

radical strangeness

real blaming

resilience

risk

risk analysis

risk assessment

risk perception

risk selection

rite

rite of reversing pollution

ritual

secularization

social organization

subjectivity

suicide

tattoo

theory of sexual defilement

wall of virtue

worlds of thought

nationality

British

occupation / innovator as

anthropologist

innovator in the field of

symbolism

scientific organization

British Academy

university teacher

cause of death

natural causes

Royal Swedish Academy of Letters

 History and Antiquities

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

social anthropology

anthropology of the body

structuralism

symbolic anthropology

anthropology

Natural Symbols

Purity and Danger

Risk and Blame

is determined purely based on where the line falls between voluntary and involuntary.

The big question about risks is one of accountability who is to blame, who is responsible. In this respect the question of voluntary and involuntary (i.e. imposed upon the individual) becomes an important question. Accountability is determined purely based on where this line falls. If it were fall far to the latter, 'all suicides and murders would be owed redress by the institutions which drive them to their deed' (Douglas Risk and Culture 1). This is totally Durkheim it depends on the lens with which we look at the problem.

is a solution to the problem we call 'men trying to live together'.

The problem of authority is 'men trying to live together, expecting so much devotion and self-control while doing so little to define their relations' (LK.: 96)

is always treated as an image of society.

The human body is always treated as an image of society. Mary Douglas

is an image of society. There can be no natural way of considering the body that does not involve at the same time a social dimension. As such, bodily control is an expression of social control and to impose bodily control is to impose the corresponding social forms.

The human body is always treated as an image of society . . . there can be no natural way of considering the body that does not involve at the same time a social dimension.' Interest in its aperatures depends on the preoccupation with social exist and entrances, escape routes and invasions . . . The relation of head to feet, of brain to sexual organs, of mouth and anus are commonly treated so that they express the relevant patterns of hierarchy. Consequently I now advance the hypothesis that bodily control is an expression of social control abandonment of bodily control in ritual responds to the requirements of a social experience which is being expressed. Furthermore, there is little prospect of successfully imposing bodily control without the corresponding social forms. And lastly, the same drive that seeks harmoniously to related the experience of physical and social, must affect ideology'

is the very arena in which culture is fought over and licked into shape. The use of material possession beyond commerce and free within the law.

the use of material possession beyond commerce and free within the law.' 'consumption is the very arena in which culture is fought over and licked into shape'.

is the public, standardized values of the community which mediates the experience of individuals (by producing in advance basic categories of action and coercive authority.

culture 'in the sense of the public, standardized values of the community, mediates the experience of individuals. It produces in advance some basic categories, a positive pattern in which ideas and values are fully ordered. And above all it has authority, since each is induced to assent because of the assent of others (Douglas 1966: 39)

is our distinctive achievement as moderns to invent the idea of natural death, and to actually believe it.

[Levy-Bruhl] taught that after millennia of our human past in which dangers were said to be aused by witchcraft and taboo-breaking, our distinctive achievement was to invent the idea of natural death and actually believe in it' (Douglas 1982:31)

is the byproduct of a systematic ordering and classification of matter. Where there is dirt there is system.

Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the byproduct of a systematic ordering and classification of matter. Mary Douglas

is a ritual activity with food categories constituting a social boundary system whereby the meal is a microcosm of wider social structures.

Mary Douglas, another influential anthropologist, has also approached the process of 'deciphering a meal' with the premise that food categories encode, and therefore structure, social events. For Douglas, in western as well as non-western cultures, the consumption of food is a ritual activity. She argues that food categories constitute a social boundary system... the predictable structure of each meal creates order out of potential disorder. The meal is thus a microcosm of wider social structures and boundary definitions: 'the ordered system which is a meal represents all the ordered systems associated with it' (Douglas, 1975: 273).

is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.

Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other. Mary Douglas

is a form of social communication that speaks of a group's identity through different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across boundaries.

Mary Douglas, food is a form of social communication that speaks of a group's identity through 'different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across boundaries' (1971: 61).

is not a social reality at a distance without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards.

Without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards, the friendship of a separated friend is not a social reality. It has no existence without the rites of friendship. Social rituals create a reality which would be nothing without them. It is not too much to say that ritual is more to society than words are to thought. For it is very possible to know something and then find words for it. But it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts. Mary Douglas

is the value of some variable above which there are disastrous effects.

Elster suggests distinguishing among two types of irreversibility. He writes: For this purpose it is useful to have the notion of frontier, the value of some variable above which there are disastrous environmental or social effects. Strong irreversibility then obtains if (i) one can only(in Elster in Douglas 1982:22)

is that which, if its giving does nothing to enhance solidarity, is not a gift.

A gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity is a contradiction

is produced newly alongside new knowledge.

But perception of parts per trillion introduces the double-edged thrust of science, generating new ignorance with new knowledge' (Douglas 1982:49)

is moral, which is to say it tends to start from the ought rather than the is.

The individual tends to start form the ought and so does not subscribe to the ancient fallacy' (Douglas Risk and culture 80). 'ought cannot be derived from is

 tends to start from the ought, i.e. From a normative or moral perspective.

The individual tends to start form the ought and so does not subscribe to the ancient fallacy' (Douglas Risk and culture 80).

is always possessed of the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program.

Institutions have the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program. Mary Douglas

is productive of two divergent worldviews. The uninsured estimate the probability of disaster as low... the insured as high.

. The Kunreuther research elicited from householders in danger zones their estimates of probability. Not surprisingly, the uninsured reported a much lower expectation of damage than the insured' (Douglas 1982:76).

is, in principle, egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.

Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power. Mary Douglas

Mary Douglas

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