Toni Ahvenainen
Purity and Danger
Week 6, Wednesday
Most of my days are spent with Aura as I'm babysitting her home while Sari goes to work. This might sound like I have loads of time to use on photography, but it's actually other way around. I need to take care of routines like eating, playing, going outdoors etc. When Aura is taking her afternoon naps, I get two hours of free time, which I usually use for my freelance work if there is any to be done at the moment. When Sari comes from work, I get couple hours of free time which I usually put working on my thesis. Finally when Aura goes to sleep, usually at nine o'clock at evening, it's time for photography. So because of these daily routines I don't get much free time for photography and it makes me very satisfied if I can squeeze some pictures while doing every day routines, like taking care of dishes.
Every day routines might sound like a boring subject for photography, but it doesn't have to be. One of my early meeting with a anthropologic knowledge was a little book called 'Purity and Danger – An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo' (1966) written by influential anthropologist Mary Douglas. It addresses different ways how we give cultural ways meanings to dirt. In (very) short, dirt isn't just dirt, but any matter that is considered to be out of its place, a categorical mix-up which endangers our cultural order. Food on a plate is in its right place, but when we have eaten it, it suddenly becomes dirt. Meal which once was delicious becomes something so disgusting that we don't even want to touch it anymore. My example is of course simple and perhaps not even a very good one regarding what Mary Douglas is actually trying to say. To put it in other words, she claims that by maintaining boundaries between purity and impurity societies also try to maintain their symbolic and cultural order. Therefore cultural concepts of impurity, pollution and dirt are not just health regulations or medical knowledge (as often interpreted), but something that endanger cultural order deep within us. Normative cultural and social order is then maintained and restored by different kind of rituals which we learn by socialization – the act of cleaning in its simplicity, but also other things like rules regarding roles, behavior and appearance, just to name few. Following Douglas one might say that taking care of dishes is actually important work because it, in its own way, restores a cultural order.
As this might sound an idea that only has a function in so-called 'primitive' societies, and while many things are rationalized pretty far in modern societies, purity and danger lives in modern world too. It's just disguised and being part of normal cultural order, we don't acknowledge it so easily. I'm just going to give one example which tells something about how broad subject Douglas is speaking about. While in contemporary world there are detailed laws and regulations regarding refugees and asylum seekers, they are still often presented something dangerous in nation-states politics. And while there are many different political views about this subject, the anthropologic explanation is simple: being out of their place refugees and asylum seekers endanger the national order of things which organizes our perception of world. They are anomalies in our categories and because of that it's difficult to categorize them same way as we tend to categorize foreigners ('good' and 'bad' based on their national origin and stereotypes). Because of that they often transform to 'dirt' or something uncontrollable in political speech, with a very sad outcome. Like Mary Douglas said, purity and danger.
Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com
Purity and Danger
Week 6, Wednesday
Most of my days are spent with Aura as I'm babysitting her home while Sari goes to work. This might sound like I have loads of time to use on photography, but it's actually other way around. I need to take care of routines like eating, playing, going outdoors etc. When Aura is taking her afternoon naps, I get two hours of free time, which I usually use for my freelance work if there is any to be done at the moment. When Sari comes from work, I get couple hours of free time which I usually put working on my thesis. Finally when Aura goes to sleep, usually at nine o'clock at evening, it's time for photography. So because of these daily routines I don't get much free time for photography and it makes me very satisfied if I can squeeze some pictures while doing every day routines, like taking care of dishes.
Every day routines might sound like a boring subject for photography, but it doesn't have to be. One of my early meeting with a anthropologic knowledge was a little book called 'Purity and Danger – An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo' (1966) written by influential anthropologist Mary Douglas. It addresses different ways how we give cultural ways meanings to dirt. In (very) short, dirt isn't just dirt, but any matter that is considered to be out of its place, a categorical mix-up which endangers our cultural order. Food on a plate is in its right place, but when we have eaten it, it suddenly becomes dirt. Meal which once was delicious becomes something so disgusting that we don't even want to touch it anymore. My example is of course simple and perhaps not even a very good one regarding what Mary Douglas is actually trying to say. To put it in other words, she claims that by maintaining boundaries between purity and impurity societies also try to maintain their symbolic and cultural order. Therefore cultural concepts of impurity, pollution and dirt are not just health regulations or medical knowledge (as often interpreted), but something that endanger cultural order deep within us. Normative cultural and social order is then maintained and restored by different kind of rituals which we learn by socialization – the act of cleaning in its simplicity, but also other things like rules regarding roles, behavior and appearance, just to name few. Following Douglas one might say that taking care of dishes is actually important work because it, in its own way, restores a cultural order.
As this might sound an idea that only has a function in so-called 'primitive' societies, and while many things are rationalized pretty far in modern societies, purity and danger lives in modern world too. It's just disguised and being part of normal cultural order, we don't acknowledge it so easily. I'm just going to give one example which tells something about how broad subject Douglas is speaking about. While in contemporary world there are detailed laws and regulations regarding refugees and asylum seekers, they are still often presented something dangerous in nation-states politics. And while there are many different political views about this subject, the anthropologic explanation is simple: being out of their place refugees and asylum seekers endanger the national order of things which organizes our perception of world. They are anomalies in our categories and because of that it's difficult to categorize them same way as we tend to categorize foreigners ('good' and 'bad' based on their national origin and stereotypes). Because of that they often transform to 'dirt' or something uncontrollable in political speech, with a very sad outcome. Like Mary Douglas said, purity and danger.
Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com