Mary Douglas, RIP

Mary Douglas has died. She began her career as a cultural anthropologist, writing seminal works on purity, symbols, food, social organization, and other topics. She collaborated with Aaron Wildavsky on a book on risk. But perhaps her greatest contribution has been to theology and biblical studies. Her work exploring the logic of food and purity laws in Leviticus became a touchstone of OT scholarship, and she ended her life with several anthropologically-oriented commentaries on Leviticus and Numbers.

The London Times obit includes some personal glimpses:

“Douglas aroused strong opinions among fellow anthropologists, partly because of her personality but also because of her dismissal of people whose work she did not rate. ‘The time has come to topple Mary Douglas from her pedestal” was the headline to an article in The Times Literary Supplement.

“Her intellectual self-confidence was combined with a sense of driving purpose. Some found her divisive as she used her penetrating intellect to force home a conclusion. She seemed to sense herself as an outsider, although she stood in the central tradition of Durkheim-descended British social anthropology. She held few institutional positions in her discipline, but many of her ideas and insights entered its general patrimony. As a follower of Durkheim she had to contend with the different perspectives of those who looked to Max Weber or Karl Marx . . . .

“Douglas could spot the symbolic significance of the most humdrum activities such as the choice of food and seating arrangements at meals. She argued that the changes in Vatican II, affecting the Mass, abstinence and the habits worn by some religious orders weakened the social rituals and thereby the social boundaries of Catholicism. Indeed, some complained that on occasion her work displayed her religion too openly; one critic dismissed Natural Symbols as Roman Catholic propaganda.

“It would be difficult to understand Douglas without appreciating her devotion to her husband James. Both had parents from the Anglo-Indian world and inherited their Catholicism from their mothers. James Douglas was director of the Conservative Research Department between 1970 and 1974.

“Widely respected for his intellect and ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries, he stimulated and encouraged her to look beyond anthropology in her work. She turned down offers of chairs elsewhere because of her concern for his career. Both were Conservatives of the R. A. Butler kind, even Christian Democrats. They were out of sympathy with Thatcherism and Reaganism, regarding the emphasis on competition and individualism as a licence for selfishness and a cause of social divisions.”

The entire obituary is at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1805952.ece.