Mary Douglas: Collected Works

Mary Douglas is a central figure within British social anthropology. Studying under Evans-Pritchard at Oxford immediately after the second world war, she formed part of the group of anthropologists who established social anthropology’s standing in the world of scholarship. Her works, spanning the second half of the twentieth century, have been widely read and her theories applied across the social sciences and humanities. While her research in the Congo clearly inspired her later studies, Douglas also applied her theories to Western societies and thus played a crucial role in normalizing the contemporary acceptance of the West as a legitimate field of anthropological investigation. Douglas’ work has excited debate in such diverse areas as economics, religion, philosophy, the sociology of food, and risk analysis. This collection reproduces, in facsimile, twelve of Mary Douglas’s groundbreaking works, all of which are also available for individual purchase. The first volume includes a new introduction written by Douglas for this collection.