ABSTRACT
The antinomies of pure/impure and clean/dirty have been discussed and treated by means of many different theoretical frameworks: historical, anthropological, philosophical, psychological, sociological and religious. The reason for this substantial as well as heterogeneous interest may be mainly found in the symbolic meaning attached to these concepts (i.e., purity, impurity, cleanliness, dirtiness). For instance, in everyday language the adjectives “clean” and “dirty” are used both in reference to concrete situations of physical cleanliness/dirtiness and in a moral connotation of a person’s behaviour (e.g., a dirty person, referring to his/her supposed dishonesty). Differences in the representations of purity and impurity, cleanliness and dirtiness between individuals and groups has indeed not only a broad impact on everyday practices such as hygienic customs, alimentary traditions, and shared conventions of good manners. As we will discuss, they also have a great infl uence on our Weltanschauung , that is, our “worldview”, and on how our beliefs infl uences relationships with others. These differentiations are also implicated in more complex collective processes such as those deriving from the effect of social categorization, including forming one of the bases for the generation of stereotypes and prejudices. As Mary Douglas ([1966] 2002) pointed out, refl ecting on dirtiness involves a refl ection on the relationship between order and disorder, being and non-being, the formal and the informal, life and death.
