The line of inquiry in Purity and Danger traces the words and meaning of dirt in different contexts. Two themes of the book: Taboo as a spontaneous device for protecting the distinctive categories of the universe. Evans-Pritchard’s work, in contrast to Mary, followed structural functionalism (Guest 46). The most surprising thing about reading Mary Douglas's 1966 anthropological classic Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, was my sheer enjoyment of the thing.This is a theoretical work, written less for a lay audience than for Douglas's fellow cultural anthropologists, and yet her style is clean and lively, with barbs of wit to keep things interesting. Mary Douglas was a British anthropologist and Oxford graduate. 0. Rather, ritual is an “attempt to create and maintain a particular culture, a particular set of assumptions by which experience is controlled” (158). At Oxford, she was influenced by E.E. Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas – Book Notes Posted: October 4, 2017 by Todd in Books Tags: anthropology, leviticus, purity, sacrifice. Summary Of Mary Douglas's Purity And Danger. Purity and Danger Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis. (Douglas took that lead from William James. Evans-Pritchard. But there are some cases in which the structure of the society itself is self-defeating and contradictory. 773 Words 4 Pages. Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition . Show More. Chapter 9 Summary: “The System at War with Itself” Societies often have to fend off attacks, both from without and from within. Summary. One of her most famous writings was Purity and Danger written in 1966. Purity and Danger Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis. In chapter 1 of her famous "Purity and Danger", titled "Ritual Uncleanness", structuralist anthropologist Mary Douglas bases her distinction between the clean and sacred and the unclean and unsacred, while refuting dominant attitudes in 19 th century British anthropology.Douglas argues with the "evolution of culture" paradigm represented by thinkers such as James Frazer and Robertson Smith. Chapter 7 Summary: “External Boundaries” It is not the case that primitive rituals are simply social projections of individual neuroses. Purity and Danger Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis Chapter 4 Summary: “Magic and Miracle” One of the assumptions at the root of our culture—reflected by some early anthropologists—is that primitive peoples lacked a truly spiritual conception of religion, believing instead in … What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place. Taboo protects the local consensus on how the world is organized.