Mary Douglas

"Shared meal practices create imagined communities."

"The arrangement of space tells us what a society values."

"Danger lies at the boundaries between categories."

"Rituals do not express beliefs so much as create them."

"Understanding requires translating between systems of meaning."

"Modernization does not eliminate purity concerns but transforms them."

"The ability to cross boundaries marks power and status."

"Gift exchange creates permanent bonds of loyalty."

"Debt and obligation are the foundations of social order."

"Anomalies reveal the structure of normal categories."

"We are more willing to examine others' categories than our own."

"Order is always provisional and must be constantly renewed."

"The self is constructed through social relation and exchange."

"Gratitude is the appropriate response to gift receipt."

"Pollution beliefs regulate access to sacred and valuable things."

"The human mind seeks pattern and coherence even where none exists."

"Society requires mechanisms for managing ambiguous or transgressive elements."

"The margins of order are where innovation often begins."

"Symbols carry different meanings at different thresholds of experience."

"Relative purity is achieved through ongoing social effort."

"Context determines whether something is pure, polluted, or neutral."

"The organization of objects reveals the organization of society."

"Strangers are dangerous because they exist outside our systems of classification."

"Trust requires shared systems of meaning and classification."

"What we find disgusting tells us about our values."

"Systems of purity and danger are always relative, never absolute."

"The rite of passage creates new categories of being."

"Hierarchy is naturalized through systems of classification and distinction."

"Reciprocity is not symmetrical but builds relationships of power."

"The body is the primary site where social order is inscribed."