Mary Douglas


    

    British Social Anthropologist

        1921 - 2007

 

Strengths: Intellectual self-confidence and driving purpose.

Weaknesses: Devisive

Special skill: Stirring things up in the House of Commons.

 

 

Sign: Aries

 

 

 

Internationally renowned, Dame Mary Douglas has been called an intellectual path-breaker. Her work addressed an array of topics and has been influential not only in the field of anthropology, but also in the fields of economics, psychology, politics, religious studies and folklore. Douglas made significant contributions to the anthropological analysis of cosmology, consumption and risk perception. She was interested in uncovering the principles behind the way we classify the world around us. Douglas believed that symbolic meaning is created to maintain social and personal boundaries. Her most popular works, Purity and Danger (1966) and Natural Symbols (1970) established her wider intellectual reputation. Douglas continued to write well into her eighties. She died at the age of 86 on May 16, 2007.

 

 

Selected Works: