What were the technical quals that would’ve marked a culture as primitive for a 1960s structuralist like Mary Douglas?
Our book club is reading Purity and danger this month and I’m having trouble with what she actually means by primitive. I know by some colonial era anthropologists it was used in a kind of broad racist way, but it really does seem like she’s using it specifically to refer to a particular kind of social structure.
My best guess is it something to do with having every component of the cultural umbrella influenced by the same set of factors, so for example symbolic systems underlying art are the same as those underlying religion and marriage. Thats literally just a guess though, I’m not an anthro girly. Sorry if this is asked and answered somewhere else! I did search, but I know it’s not always perfect.
u/2039485867 — 6 days ago