Recognizing secular defilement: Douglas, Durkheim and housework

Mary Douglas is generally regarded as a faithful disciple of Émile Durkheim. Yet her classic work Purity and Danger ([1966] 2002. London: Routledge) is best understood as premised upon a fundamental disagreement with Durkheim, who she accused of conflating purity with “the sacred” and impurity with “the profane”. Key to this disagreement was the theoretical status of the “busy scrubbings” of everyday housework. This disagreement has had a substantial legacy since, in turning her attention to purity and impurity in their specificity, Douglas bequeathed anthropology and sociology a theory of purity and impurity that has remained an important, perhaps even dominant, paradigm. This paradigm has been identified as an exemplar of synchronic analysis. Yet this paradigm itself is the product of a specific historical and intellectual context, little recognized today. Attending to this context holds open possibilities, which have otherwise tended to be neglected, for theorizing purity and impurity in their specificity

A Qualitative Exploration of Spiritually Sensitive Hospice Care

Spirituality can be a significant resource for patients at the end of life; however, there is limited research on the manner in which hospice workers provide spiritual care. A qualitative study was conducted to define the relationship factors associated with spiritual care in an effort to further delineate the concept of “spiritually sensitive hospice care.” A purposive, snowball sample of six hospice workers was interviewed about how they identified spiritual needs, provided spiritual care, and determined their effectiveness. The results suggested a variety of factors influenced the delivery of spiritually sensitive hospice care. One relationship factor was the degree of interpersonal intimacy cultivated through the helping relationship. Further research is needed to determine which particular factors influence patient perceptions of spiritual sensitivity