Mary Douglas

Risk and blame : essays in cultural theory

First published in 1992, this volume follows on from the programme for studying risk and blame that was implied in Purity and Danger. The first half of the book Douglas argues that the study of risk needs a systematic framework of political and cultural comparison. In the latter half she examines questions in cultural theory. Through the eleven essays contained in Risk and Blame, Douglas argues that the prominence of risk discourse will force upon the social sciences a programme of rethinking and consolidation that will include anthropological approaches.

RISK AND CULTURE: AN ESSAY ON THE SELECTION OF TECHNICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERS

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.

Implicit meanings : essays in anthropology

Why do people want to become a psychotherapist? How do they translate this desire into reality? On Becoming a Psychotherapist explores these and related questions. Ten leading therapists write about their profession and their careers, examining how and why they became pyschotherapists. The contributors, representing a wide cross-section of their profession, come from both Britian and America, from different theoretical backgrounds, and are at different stages in their careers. They write in a personal and revealing way about their childhoods, families, colleagues, and training. This absorbing and fascinating book offers a fresh perspective on psychotherapy and the people attracted to it.

Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World

Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ‘Clumsy solutions’– policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved – are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.

The self as risk taker: a cultural theory of contagion in relation to AIDS

Some people are prepared to take high risks with their lives and those of others. Should this be surprising? Is it more normal to be risk-taking? or risk averse? The argument below will be that the risk taking facet and the risk-averse facet of the personality each emerges in the course of a public debate on freedom and control. It is not psychology but anthropology that shows how the community forces sharp and clear ideas about the self upon its members.

Four cultures: the evolution of a parsimonious model

Cultural theory works with a parsimonious model of four cultural types, each emanating from a specific form of organisation. The four types are identified as attitudes and values that justify the organisation. The hierarchical type, with its ranked levels and symmetrical branchings, depends on the adoption of hierarchical values and the expression of matching judgements. Likewise for the enclavist culture, the individualist culture and that of the isolates. There is no assumption of fixity, on the contrary, the four types are represented in any community, and social life is in permanent tension and flux. This article gives a summary of the early history of the theory.

The Case for Clumsiness

Most climatologists agree that by burning fossil fuels and engaging in other forms of consumption and production we are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases that float around in the atmosphere. These gases, in trapping some of the sun’s heat, warm the earth and enable life. The trouble is, some predict, that if we continue to accumulate those gases, over the course of the new century the average temperature on earth will rise and local climates will change, with possibly catastrophic consequences. Will this indeed happen? Does climate-change put the future of the world at risk? Can only a radical reallocation of global wealth and power rescue us from this threat? Or should people not be overly worried, as the steady march of technological progress will see us through in the end?

Being Fair to Hierarchists

Dan Kahan and Donald Braman propose to conduct a new survey of attitudes toward gun control. They use the cultural theo of risk developed in the 1970s and 1980s to analyze public concern. about dangerous technology. This Commentay offers background on the cultural theoty of risk after a quarter centuy o] refinement. It also demonstrates some of the difficulties in applying cultural theory of fisk to which Kahan and Bramans work is not immlune. In critique of the Kahan and Bravman article, Professor Donglas focuses on the difficulty of excluding observers" bias firom the construction of a suvey on culture.

Do dogs laugh? A cross-cultural approach to body symbolism

THE BODY, as a vehicle of communication, is misunderstood if it is treated as a signal box, a static framework emitting and receiving strictly coded messages. The body communicates information for and from the social system in which it is a part. It should be seen as mediating the social situation in at least three ways. It is itself the field in which a feedback interaction takes place. It is itself available to be given as the proper tender for some of the exchanges which constitute the social situation. And further it mediates the social structure by itself becoming its image. Some of this I have discussed in an earlier contribution to this journal [l], and in Purity and Danger [2]. To adapt the signal box metaphor to show the full involvement of the body in communication we should have to imagine a signal box which folds down and straightens up, shakes, dances, goes into a frenzy or stiffens to the tune of the more precise messages its lights and signal arms are transmitting. This paper is offered as a background to those others which treat of specialised signalling systems such as the voice and the face. It is offered as a preface to Professor Jenner’s discussion of endogenous factors. I will suggest a parallel set of social factors exogenous to the biological organism, feedback pathways which control the rhythm of social interaction. A young zoologist, who asked my advice about a study he was making of laughter in human and non-human species, complained that sociologists had given him very little help. Indeed it is very difficult for us to produce a theory or even a vague hypothesis on the subject. My own idea on the body’s role in joke symbolism is not easily adapted to an experimental approach to laughter [3]. We know that some tribes are said to be dour and unlaughing. Others laugh easily. Pygmies lie on the ground and kick their legs in the air, panting and shaking in paroxysms of laughter [4]. Francis Huxley noted the same bodily abandonment to convulsions of gaiety in Haiti [5]. But we have so far found nothing to say about these differences that could help the zoologist. It is just as difficult for us to suppose that laughter in different tribes means the same thing, as to be sure that animals are laughing when they grin and splutter. Bergson declared that laughter is the unique prerogative of humans [6]. However, we have it from a biologist that dogs laugh as they play. Lorenz in Man Meets Dog [7] describes the case: “* - - an invitation to play always follows; here the slightly opened jaws which reveal the tongue, and the tilted angle of the mouth which stretches almost from ear to ear give a still stronger impression of laughing. This ‘laughing’ is most often seen in dogs playing with an adored master and which become so excited that they soon start panting”. He suggests that the same facial expression marks the beginning of erotic excitement. Here is a description of the beloved master playing with his dog. Thomas Mann describes ways of rousing and stimulating his dog. “Or we amuse ourselves, I by tapping him on the nose, and he, by snapping at my hand as though it were a fly. It makes us both laugh. Yes. Bashan has to laugh too; and as I laugh I marvel at

Terrorism: A Positive Feedback Game:

This article offers an approach to political systems in enclaves (i.e. closed, dissident minorities) from the standpoint of Cultural Theory; it seeks to identify different kinds of organized dissent, as well as the constraints facing them, most especially those deriving from manipulation and control of information. In this latter case, the resulting choices have implications with regard to both structure and behaviour, which defy all explanations that are based exclusively on the personalities of members or leaders. This approach provides a means of classifying and subdividing enclaves, and proposes, in so doing, a bimodal developmental schema with four forks. The first fork examines demographic security: it focuses on concerns regarding defection, and on the means of controlling information. The second considers internal organization, as well as alternatives to defection. The third fork, on external relations, looks into the alternative steps that are available in order to control factionalism and negotiations with the outside. Finally, the fourth fork explores the availability and control of resources (funds as well as military equipment), and the different effects these have on central vs. peripheral autonomy, as well as with regard to the nature of reconciliation. A close examination of how information is shaped by institutions shows that the behaviour and personal attitudes of enclavists are largely defined by the constraints imposed on the options that are available to them. It is not the personalities of members but these constraints that ultimately channel their understanding.