MacKendrick/Evil, 2. Classification and Magical Thinking

Provides an overview of the power of classification and the relation of classification to dangers and aversions; key thinkers include Mary Douglas, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Bruce Lincoln; ethnographic examples will be drawn from Cantonese funerals, Maori cosmology, and Protestant purity debates (U.S.). This chapter will also include a discussion of “magical thinking” as the backbone of classificatory thinking.