This is the first full length account of the life and ideas of Mary Douglas, the British social anthropologist whose publications span the second half of the twentieth century. Richard Fardon covers Douglas' family background, and the pervasive influence of her catholic faith on her writings before providing an analysis of two of her most influential works; Purity and Danger (1966) and Natural Symbols (1970). The final section deals with Douglas' more controversial writings in the fields of economics, consumption, religion and risk analysis in contemporary societies. Throughout, Fardon highlights the centrality of Douglas' role in the history of anthropology and the discipline's struggle to achieve relevance to contemporary, western societies.

Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography

Biographies & Memoirs

Fardon, Richard

Community & Culture

Routledge

Mary Douglas

Counterworks argues that the apparent oppostion between strong westernizing forces and a weak concept of culture needs rethinking in a world where a sense of culture has become a wide spread property of people's social knowledge.

Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (ASA Decennial Conference Series: The Uses of Knowledge)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Dustjacket is tattered at edges and sun-faded. Boards bumped.

Raiders and Refugees: Trends in Chamba Political Development, 1750-1950

Politics & Government

Smithsonian

Cultures and Crises: Understanding Risk and Resolution

Written in the last two decades of her life, Cultures and Crises finds Mary Douglas developing analyses of critical conditions facing contemporary societies, sometimes in the company of distinguished co-authors across the whole gamut of social sciences. The essays focus on the collaborative development of ′cultural theory′ from the ′grid and group′ analysis of the 1970s through to its application and elaboration in her later thought. The material covers questions of culture and institutions, the challenges to culture posed by climate change and the nature of risk in culture. What emerges is the most complete picture of Mary Douglas′s cultural theory that is currently available to us. The book will add to the legions of Douglas′s readers across the disciplinary divisions of the social sciences. Mary Douglas was one of the most widely read social anthropologists of the 20th Century. She is celebrated both as a literary stylist and an anthropological thinker who challenged common presuppositions and understandings of religion, economy and society. As a cornerstone of modernism in social anthropology, and a precursor of 21st Century interdisciplinarity, her work remains highly influential both within and outside the social sciences. Richard Fardon is Mary Douglas′s Literary Executor and Head of the Doctoral School and Professor of West African Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, UK.

DOUGLAS, Mary

Sage Publications Ltd.

Written in the last two decades of her life, Cultures and Crises finds Mary Douglas developing analyses of critical conditions facing contemporary societies, sometimes in the company of distinguished co-authors across the whole gamut of social sciences. The essays focus on the collaborative development of ′cultural theory′ from the ′grid and group′ analysis of the 1970s through to its application and elaboration in her later thought. The material covers questions of culture and institutions, the challenges to culture posed by climate change and the nature of risk in culture. What emerges is the most complete picture of Mary Douglas′s cultural theory that is currently available to us. The book will add to the legions of Douglas′s readers across the disciplinary divisions of the social sciences. Mary Douglas was one of the most widely read social anthropologists of the 20th Century. She is celebrated both as a literary stylist and an anthropological thinker who challenged common presuppositions and understandings of religion, economy and society. As a cornerstone of modernism in social anthropology, and a precursor of 21st Century interdisciplinarity, her work remains highly influential both within and outside the social sciences. Richard Fardon is Mary Douglas′s Literary Executor and Head of the Doctoral School and Professor of West African Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, UK.

Written in the last two decades of her life, Cultures and Crises finds Mary Douglas developing analyses of critical conditions facing contemporary societies, sometimes in the company of distinguished co-authors across the whole gamut of social sciences. The essays focus on the collaborative development of 'cultural theory' from the 'grid and group' analysis of the 1970s through to its application and elaboration in her later thought. The material covers questions of culture and institutions, the challenges to culture posed by climate change and the nature of risk in culture. What emerges is the most complete picture of Mary Douglas's cultural theory that is currently available to us. The book will add to the legions of Douglas's readers across the disciplinary divisions of the social sciences. A Very Personal Method showcases that the range  of Mary Douglas's interests, which had few parallels amongst the leading social anthropologists of the twentieth century. Although inspired by the classics of the discipline of anthropology, her theories were idiosyncratic and her applications of them never predictable. By bringing together writings in different genres that she composed over the entirety of her career, this volume demonstrates her distinctive style of thought and expression. The topics she addressed ranged freely between family and friends, the demands of domestic routine, her belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, and cultural similarities and differences on a global scale. In her method and style, as much as in her explicit arguments, Mary Douglas constantly invited her readers to reflect on the inextricable intertwining of the personal and the theoretical in her thought. More than any previous collection of Mary Douglas's work, A Very Personal Method reveals a mind restlessly reworking her enduring preoccupations and finding echoes of them in the new concerns she continued to draw from life. Mary Douglas was one of the most widely read social anthropologists of the 20th Century. She is celebrated both as a literary stylist and an anthropological thinker who challenged common presuppositions and understandings of religion, economy and society. As a cornerstone of modernism in social anthropology, and a precursor of  21st Century interdisciplinarity, her work remains highly influential both within and outside the social sciences. Richard Fardon is Mary Douglas's Literary Executor and Head of the Doctoral School and Professor of West African Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, UK

Mary Douglas Collection: Cultures and Crises/A Very Personal Method

Anthropology

Franz Baermann Steiner (1909-52) provided the vital link between the intellectual culture of central Europe and the Oxford Institute of Anthropology in its post-Second World War years. This book demonstrates his quiet influence within anthropology, which has extended from Mary Douglas to David Graeber, and how his remarkable poetry reflected profoundly on the slavery and murder of the Shoah, an event which he escaped from. Steiner's concerns including inter-disciplinarity, genre, refugees and exile, colonialism and violence, and the sources of European anthropology speak to contemporary concerns more directly now than at any time since his early death.

Franz Baermann Steiner: A Stranger in the World (Methodology & History in Anthropology, 42)

Adler, Jeremy

Professionals & Academics

Berghahn Books

Lela in Bali tells the story of an annual festival of eighteenth-century kingdoms in Northern Cameroon that was swept up in the migrations of marauding slave-raiders during the nineteenth century and carried south towards the coast. Lela was transformed first into a mounted durbar, like those of the Muslim states, before evolving in tandem with the German colonial project into a festival of arms. Reinterpreted by missionaries and post-colonial Cameroonians, Lela has become one of the most important of Cameroonian festivals and a crucial marker of identity within the state. Richard Fardon’s recuperation of two hundred years of history is an essential contribution not only to Cameroonian studies but also to the broader understanding of the evolution of African cultures.

Lela in Bali: History through Ceremony in Cameroon (Cameroon Studies, 7)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fardon, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fardon, Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fardon, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography

Mary Douglas

Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (ASA Decennial Conference Series: The Uses of Knowledge)

Raiders and Refugees: Trends in Chamba Political Development, 1750-1950

Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography

Cultures and Crises: Understanding Risk and Resolution

Cultures and Crises: Understanding Risk and Resolution

Mary Douglas Collection: Cultures and Crises/A Very Personal Method

Franz Baermann Steiner: A Stranger in the World (Methodology & History in Anthropology, 42)

Lela in Bali: History through Ceremony in Cameroon (Cameroon Studies, 7)