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© 2026 Ann Mathenge · Built with love, coffee, and cat hair.
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© 2026 Ann Mathenge · Built with love, coffee, and cat hair.
By Profess Douglas, Mary Douglas, Mary Douglas, Professor Mary Douglas
There are no such things as natural symbols. Every culture naturalises a certain view of the human body to make it carry social meanings. This work focuses on how the selections from blood, bones, breath or excrement, are made. Body symbolism is always in service to social intentions, and the body cannot be endowed with universal meanings.
In this now classic work Mary Douglas shows how certain forms of social life bring forth regularly the same varieties of symbolic expression. Hierarchy treats the body as a hierarchy; sect treats it as a closed system; individualism treats it as pervasive energy. Political movements as well as religions have their rituals, medicine, ethics, educational theory, aesthetics, a huge range of judgements fall into line behind the standard cultural bias.
Published
September 30, 2003
Format
-
Pages
240
Language
English
ISBN
9780415314541