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A very personal anthropology of Mary Douglas
Article  in  Anthropological Notebooks · April 2016
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REVIEW ARTICLE
A Very Personal Anthropology of Mary Douglas
Fardon, Richard (ed.). 2013. Mary Douglas. Cultures and Crises. Understanding
Risk and Resolution. Los Angeles, London: Sage. xiv + 325 pp. Pb.: $52.00. ISBN:
9781446254677.
Fardon, Richard (ed.). 2013. Mary Douglas. AVery Personal Method. Anthropological
Writings Drawn from Life. LosAngeles, London: Sage. x + 318 pp. Pb.: $52.00. ISBN:
9781446254691.
The two books discussed here are both dedicated to the legacy of one of the most original
and influential anthropologists in the second half of the 20th
century. The work of Dame
Mary Douglas (1921-2007) marks a turning point in the British social anthropology, as
it represents a gradual incorporation of structural and symbolic elements into the thendominant
functionalist paradigm. In this, she followed Sir Edmund Leach (1910-1989),
but (for the variety of reasons) perhaps went even further – especially in later discussing
what German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944-2015) later labeled ‘The Risk Society’ –
and this makes her very much our contemporary, and also makes one appreciate even
more the effort that Richard Fardon (Professor at SOAS, who has written extensively
about Douglas, as her Literary Executor and “official” biographer) has put in editing these
important volumes. The theoretical insights and methodological rigor that she employed
in her research also make Douglas very useful for interpreting some of the perplexities of
our everyday, globalised world, with all the challenges that we confront on a daily basis.
I will point to some of them in this review essay, although, obviously, the best course of
action, and the easiest way to appreciate the scope and importance of her work, would be
to read the original texts. In doing so, I will also refer to several recent monographs that
deal with the history and theory of sociocultural anthropology.
Historical setting
After attending school at Sacred Heart Covenant in Roehampton (London), Mary Douglas
(bornMargaretMaryTew)completedadegreeinphilosophy,politicsandeconomicsatOxford
in 1942. Influenced by Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973), whose ideas were already setting the
tone for a radical revision of British structural functionalism, and following a brief period of
work for the Colonial Office, she came back for the graduate studies to the Institute of Social
Anthropology at Oxford in 1947. She completed her B.Sc. degree in social anthropology in
1948 and defended her D.Phil. thesis in 1953. According to Adam Kuper,
… she was always a Durkheimian, convinced that rituals and cosmological
notions were bound up with social norms, and as a student at Oxford she
had been particularly inspired by the lectures on taboo of Franz Steiner.
(Kuper 2014: 121)
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119
Kuper also notes that she made a gradual change in her theoretical orientation,
from claiming ‘that Evans-Pritchard had anticipated anything that was valuable in
Lévi-Strauss’s theories’ to eventually becoming ‘something of a Lévi-Straussian, if
an idiosyncratic one’ (2014: 121). Douglas’s own original fieldwork among the Lele
of Kasai (in what was then Belgian Congo) also brought her in contact with Belgian
and French scholarship, so Eriksen and Nielsen write that she became ‘a bridge-builder
between French and British traditions’ (2013: 124). Along with Leach, she became the
most prominent representative of the “structural turn” in British social anthropology in the
early 1960s, sharing ideas and frequently commenting on each other’s papers, although
the two of them came from radically different starting points, as Leach was a convinced
atheist, and Douglas a devout Roman Catholic. Douglas was also a contributor to Leach’s
ground-breaking edited volume on The Structural Study of Myth (Leach 1967).
From the early 1960s, she combined Durkheimian sociology with a critical
approach to cultural patterns that different societies produce, focusing on developed
Western societies and their relation to ‘natural symbols’ (Douglas 1966). A particularly
interesting aspect of her research has been a re-evaluation of the symbols of ancient
Israel, leading her to critical assessment of some parts of the Old Testament – especially
the book of Leviticus (Bošković 2010: 144-145).
In retrospect, it is interesting to note that Douglas is the only prominent British
social anthropologist who got away with using the “C” word, perhaps because of the
time that she spent at two American universities, Northwestern and Princeton. The notion
of “Culture” had traditionally been criticised and almost despised by all British social
anthropologists, who found it extremely irritating, preferring “social structure” instead.
Therefore, they were more than happy to leave this tricky concept to their NorthAmerican
colleagues.
Douglas as an engaged anthropologist
Fifty years after its initial publication, it is difficult not to overstate the importance of the
Purity and Danger. In this brilliantly written and well argued book, Mary Douglas not only
presented a convincing comparative perspective for interpreting symbols in both “traditional”
and “developed” societies, but also did this in such a way as to engage her readers similarly to
the way that Ruth Benedict did three decades earlier, in Patterns of Culture.
The book combines an almost orthodox structural-functionalism with a
symbolic analysis drawing on structuralist and psychoanalytical models.
… In both books [Patterns of Culture and Purity and Danger – A.B.], the
concern is with group identity and values; but whereas Benedict restricts
herself to the symbolic aspects of culture, Douglas links symbols to social
institutions […]. She sees symbols as means of social classification, which
distinguish categories of objects, persons or actions, and keep them separate.
The order of the classificatory system reflects and symbolizes the social
order, and ‘intermediate’, ‘unclassifiable’ phenomena come to represent a
threat to social stability (Eriksen and Nielsen 2013: 124–5).
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Anthropological Notebooks, XXII/1, 2016
Human beings, Douglas claimed, essentially ‘yearned for rigidity’ (1966: 162).
They wanted to organise all things around them in coherent and non-contradictory
segments, resulting in attempts to classify everything into neat, well-ordered, and wellorganised
systems. However, at the same time, human beings are also very well aware
that, after all, these processes of classification, there is always something that eludes
them, something “in-between,” and “dirt” is an inevitable product of things that somehow
just evade ordering. In order to resolve this paradoxical situation, and turning to some
specific rituals, human beings need to understand a need to move beyond divisions
and contradictions, beyond the need to classify everything, in an effort to reach the ‘atonement,’
as she nicely put it (1966: 169).
This take on liminality goes way back in anthropological research (probably
to Van Gennep), and Douglas shares it with her contemporary Victor Turner (1920-
1983). Over the years, she was also present as what I would like to describe as a public
(or engaged) intellectual, speaking on different issues, but also taking the opportunity
to re-work some of her ideas and reinforce some arguments, using prominent figures
from the history of social anthropology. For example, in one of her lesser known texts,
Douglas used William Robertson Smith’s (1846-1894) ideas related to ‘the triumph of
gods over demons to the triumph of man over wild beasts’ (quoted in Douglas 1995:
274) to demonstrate how ‘a change in society, not a change in technology’ influenced a
development of a particular type of rationality, as outlined in the Old Testament (1995:
276). She proceeded to make a point about reconsidering what many would interpret
a very conservative, gender-biased view present in the Bible (especially in Leviticus),
avoiding ‘ethnographic dazzlement,’ and concluding that ‘the emotions which their
[demons – A.B.] interventions serve to allay are grave fears of community dissolution
and the anguish of divided loyalties’ (1995: 292).
In another of her highly influential books, Natural Symbols (1970), Douglas
formulated a “group/grid” analysis (dealing with how clearly was an individual’s position
defined within boundaries of a group / how clearly defined was an individual’s role with
regard to the whole system of social obligations and responsibilities) that has profoundly
influenced some important theoretical concepts (like cultural theory), but also the ways in
which we perceive the role of individuals in societies in which they live and the issue of
the whole Durkheimian (that is to say, collectivist) legacy of sociocultural anthropology.
Douglas as our contemporary
The “public intellectual” persona is most visible in the volume Cultures and Crises.
The book is divided into three parts: Cultural Theory (the concept for which one of
her long-standing collaborators, Michael Thompson, is primarily responsible), Culture
and Climate, and Institutionalized Risks. Of the thirteen chapters in the book (all papers
published after 1993), those in the second and third parts are also written in collaboration
with different scholars, which creates a unique, almost dialogical, atmosphere. This also
makes this volume an example of a successful collaborative effort by Douglas and eleven
other scholars (twelve, if one includes Fardon) – a splendid opportunity to reformulate
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121
and rethink concepts and ideas very much related to our lives and daily concerns. For
example, when discussing approaches to climate change, in the article originally published
in Daedalus in 2003, Douglas, Thompson and Marco Verweij conclude:
Does global warming put the future of the world at risk? Is time running
out? Or should we take our time in order to investigate and evaluate soberly
the possible risks presented by greenhouse gases?
We don’t have answers to these questions. But our cultural theory teaches
us that vigorous debate among rival perspectives is the best way to address
them. That is because the issue of global warming will never be resolved
simply by making a rational choice on strictly scientific grounds. It is a
battle, as well, between groups of actors with different perceptions of time
that derive from conflicting ways of organizing and justifying social relations
(Fardon 2013: 144).
This is a very good example of the critical analysis that takes into account
different actors’ perspectives and points of view. This also shows that answers to some
of the more complex questions of our time sometimes demand a step back, away from
heated polemical arguments. For the world in which we live is too important and too
fragile to be left to people screaming at each other. Perhaps the important first step could
be listening what different actors have to say. Critical considerations of risk in different
institutional settings not only make for new applications of the “group/grid” analysis but
in many instances (like studying terrorism from a Cultural Theory perspective) seem
perhaps even more appropriate and fruitful today than when originally published. The
same probably goes for Douglas’s plea (or stating the obvious) that we have had enough
about ‘traditional culture,’ because there is ‘no such thing as traditional culture’ (Fardon
2013: 285).
The second volume, A Very Personal Method, presents twenty-five chapters
(including two interviews), in five parts plus an Epilogue, almost from Douglas’s
entire career (the earliest paper reprinted here was originally published in 1959). This
volume offers valuable insights into the development of her main ideas, as well as her
ongoing theoretical debates with some of her contemporaries. For example, Kuper
notes that, even with their ideological disagreements, Leach for a time referred to the
‘Leach-Douglas theory of taboo’ (2014: 123). This book includes some of the gems of
Douglas’s anthropological writing and argumentation and, more importantly, brings to
contemporary readers some valuable papers that are not very easy to find in their original
publications. It also nicely combines personal narratives (including essays on her father,
as well as on her grandmother – as we all are very much determined by the families that
we come from and societies in which we live) with skilful portraits of some contemporary
anthropologists (Part 4, Contemporaries: Steiner, Evans-Pritchard, Lévi-Strauss, and
Clifford Geertz). Part 3, Taboo and Ritual, although one of the briefest in terms of space,
will be of particular interest to anyone interested in understanding her ideas about the
key concepts of her research, as they were formulated in three papers published between
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Anthropological Notebooks, XXII/1, 2016
1964 and 1968. Of course, some historical considerations are still vital – like the fact
that Douglas was very much annoyed by what she perceived to be the Second Vatican
Council’s “anti-ritualist” position.
These two volumes present her as very much our contemporary, and explain
why she was, according to Fardon, the most widely read British social anthropologist
of the second half of the 20th
century. Fittingly enough, especially given the topics that
they cover, both of the volumes finish with two beautiful “Endpieces” – the first one,
with Oscar Wilde’s ‘“Selfish Giant,” and the second one, with the Brothers Grimm’s
“Golden Fish”. Perhaps the last sentence in the second one can be applied to illustrating
the presence of the concepts that Mary Douglas developed in her anthropological career
spanning sixty years: ‘And there they live to this very day’ (p. 308).
References
Bošković, Aleksandar. 2010. Kratak uvod u antropologiju. [A Brief Introduction to Anthropology.] Zagreb:
Jesenski i Turk.
Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
Douglas, Mary. 1970. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. London: Barrie & Rockliff, Cresset
Press.
Douglas, Mary. 1995. Demonology in William Robertson Smith’s Theory of Religious Belief. In William
Johnstone (ed.), William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
pp. 274-292.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, and Finn Sivert Nielsen. 2013. A History of Anthropology. 2nd
edition. London:
Pluto.
Kuper, Adam. 2014. Anthropology and Anthropologists: The British School in the Twentieth Century. 4th
edition. London: Routledge.
Leach, Edmund (ed.). 1967. The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism. ASA Monographs, 5. London:
Tavistock.
ALEKSANDAR BOŠKOVIĆ
University of Belgrade and Institute of Social Sciences (Serbia)
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123
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