Books by Mary Douglas

In this classic work Mary Douglas identifies the concern for pirity as a key theme at the heart of every society. She reveals its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes tp society, values, cosmology and knowledge.

Can we know the risks we face, now or in the future? No, we cannot; but yes, we must act as if we do. Some dangers are unknown; others are known, but not by us because no one person can know everything. Most people cannot be aware of most dangers at most times. Hence, no one can calculate precisely the total risk to be faced. How, then, do people decide which risks to take and which to ignore? On what basis are certain dangers guarded against and others relegated to secondary status? This book explores how we decide what risks to take and which to ignore, both as individuals and as a culture.

The first section's chapters trace the influence of feminism on the development of feminist therapy, discuss a variety of professional issues and the goals of feminist therapy, discuss developmental issues, and examine the interface between feminist and psychotherapy systems, including psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral and family systems.

The Western cultural consensus based on the ideas of free markets and individualism has led many social scientists to consider poverty as a personal experience, a deprivation of material things, and a failure of just distribution. This book finds this dominant tradition of social thought about poverty and well-being to be full of contradictions.

Mary Douglas was one of the most regarded anthropologists of the 20th Century. This is a dynamic and very personal collection of her reflections upon anthropological and cultural method within the social sciences.

Mary Douglas was one of the most regarded anthropologists of the 20th Century. This is a collection of her latest essays on culture, previously uncollected, from the last decade and a half of her life.

First published in 1963, this volume is a compilation of numerous essays by Douglas on the Lele in the Belgian Congo covering a fifteen year period.

First published in 1985, Mary Douglas intended "Risk and Acceptability" as a review of the existing literature on the state of risk theory. She raises questions about rational choice, the provision of public good and the autonomy of the individual.

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 case studies deal with a variety of exotic drinks.

First published in 1982, this work is based on her meetings with friends in which they attempt to apply the grid/group analysis from "Natural Symbols". The essays have been important texts for preparing grid/group exercises ever since.

First published in 1980, this book provides an overview of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's approach to anthropology. 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.

Presents a cross-cultural study of the moral and social meaning of food. This collection of articles covers the food system of the Oglala Sioux, the food habits of families in rural North Carolina, and meal formats in an Italian-American community near Philadelphia. It includes a grid/group analysis of food consumption.

Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, this text took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times. Instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, the author claimed that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding.

An anthology of works that form part of the author's struggle to devise an anthropological modernism conducive to her opposition to reputedly modernizing trends in society. It contains works by Wittgenstein, Schutz, Husserl, Hertz and other continentals. It complements philosophers' work on language with the anthropologists' theory of knowledge.