ABSTRACT

Risk and danger are culturally conditioned ideas. They are shaped by pressures of social life and accepted notions of accountability. The risk analyses that are increasingly being utilised by politicians, aid programmes and business ignore the insights to be gained from social anthropology which can be applied to modern industrial society.
In this collection of recent essays, Mary Douglas develops a programme for studying risk and blame that follows from ideas originally proposed in Purity and Danger. She suggests how political and cultural bias can be incorporated into the study of risk perception and in the discussion of responsibility in public policy.

part |2 pages

Part I RISK AND BLAME

chapter 1|19 pages

RISK AND BLAME

chapter 2|16 pages

RISK AND JUSTICE

chapter 3|17 pages

RISK AND DANGER

chapter 4|28 pages

MUFFLED EARS

chapter 5|19 pages

WITCHCRAFT AND LEPROSY

Two strategies for rejection

chapter 6|21 pages

THE SELF AS RISK-TAKER: A CULTURAL THEORY OF CONTAGION IN RELATION TO

A cultural theory of contagion in relation to AIDS

part |2 pages

Part II WANTS AND INSTITUTIONS

chapter 8|6 pages

WANTS

chapter 9|12 pages

NO FREE GIFTS: INTRODUCTION TO MAUSS’S ESSAY ON THE GIFT

Introduction to Mauss’s essay on

chapter 10|20 pages

INSTITUTIONS OF THE THIRD KIND: BRITISH COMPARED

British and Swedish labour markets compared

chapter 11|22 pages

AUTONOMY AND OPPORTUNISM

part |2 pages

Part III BELIEVING AND THINKING

chapter 12|24 pages

THOUGHT STYLE EXEMPLIFIED

The idea of the self

chapter 13|20 pages

CREDIBILITY

chapter 14|16 pages

A CREDIBLE BIOSPHERE

chapter 15|24 pages

THE DEBATE ON WOMEN PRIESTS

chapter 16|19 pages

THE HOTEL KWILU

A model of models