Purity and Danger¶
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge.
Cited by¶
5 citations across 5 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Boundary
- Douglas's Purity and Danger
This sourcedirt as 'matter out of place'; biological/bodily boundaries (clean vs. unclean) map onto social and ritual classification, and boundary-crossing/ambiguous things are treated as polluting and dangerous.
- Douglas's Purity and Danger
- Purity and Pollution
- The classic formulation belongs to Mary Douglas (1966), who defined dirt as "matter out of place" and showed that pollution rules are not pre-scientific hygiene but a symbolic system that defends the integrity of a culture's classificatory boundaries.
This sourceFoundational anthropological account defining dirt as "matter out of place" and pollution as a symbolic classificatory system; supports the core definition, the binary-plus-contagion commitment, the three-part classification–contagion–cleansing machinery and its structural signature, cross-substrate recurrence, the prime's agnosticism about real danger, the three-part distinguishing test, and the reading of Leviticus dietary law/untouchability/purification rites as analogies policing cherished categories.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Publisher's page confirms Douglas's 1966 book and its purity-as-universal-theme thesis, but carries no text of the book, so 'matter out of place' and the boundary argument stay unconfirmed.
“In Purity and Danger Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society.”
- The classic formulation belongs to Mary Douglas (1966), who defined dirt as "matter out of place" and showed that pollution rules are not pre-scientific hygiene but a symbolic system that defends the integrity of a culture's classificatory boundaries.
- Sacred
- Mary Douglas (1966) showed that purity and pollution rules are the everyday enforcement machinery of such boundaries—"dirt" being matter out of place, and defilement a transgression of the classificatory order rather than mere uncleanliness.
This sourceFoundational anthropological account defining dirt as "matter out of place" and pollution as a symbolic classificatory system; supports the core definition, the binary-plus-contagion commitment, the three-part classification–contagion–cleansing machinery and its structural signature, cross-substrate recurrence, the prime's agnosticism about real danger, the three-part distinguishing test, and the reading of Leviticus dietary law/untouchability/purification rites as analogies policing cherished categories.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
Routledge's own description of the book makes purity a key theme of every society, backing the frame but not the quoted definitions.
“In Purity and Danger Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society.”
- Mary Douglas (1966) showed that purity and pollution rules are the everyday enforcement machinery of such boundaries—"dirt" being matter out of place, and defilement a transgression of the classificatory order rather than mere uncleanliness.
- Taboo
- Taboo is a distinctive form of cultural prohibition characterized by absolute prohibition with sacred or polluting grounding, where violation evokes qualitatively different emotional responses (disgust, dread, contamination-anxiety) than ordinary rule-breaking and where the prohibition is often treated as intrinsically wrong rather than instrumentally justified
This sourceFoundational anthropological account defining dirt as "matter out of place" and pollution as a symbolic classificatory system; supports the core definition, the binary-plus-contagion commitment, the three-part classification–contagion–cleansing machinery and its structural signature, cross-substrate recurrence, the prime's agnosticism about real danger, the three-part distinguishing test, and the reading of Leviticus dietary law/untouchability/purification rites as analogies policing cherished categories.
- Taboo is a distinctive form of cultural prohibition characterized by absolute prohibition with sacred or polluting grounding, where violation evokes qualitatively different emotional responses (disgust, dread, contamination-anxiety) than ordinary rule-breaking and where the prohibition is often treated as intrinsically wrong rather than instrumentally justified
Mechanisms¶
- Ritual Ablution or Cleansing Act
- This is the logic Mary Douglas identified when she read pollution rules as symbolic ordering rather than hygiene — dirt as "matter out of place," and cleansing as the act that puts it back in place.
This sourceTreats pollution and taboo as systems of symbolic classification, famously characterizing dirt as matter out of place and cleansing as restoration of an ordered scheme.
- This is the logic Mary Douglas identified when she read pollution rules as symbolic ordering rather than hygiene — dirt as "matter out of place," and cleansing as the act that puts it back in place.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 2 of 5 citations: 2 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Was it audited? Yes. A second, independent pass read the citation against the article text and recorded a verdict.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
See how references were verified.
Registry ID ref:7a9b66665ec6 · see in the full table