Beschreibung
Environmental squalor is a salient feature of Indian cities,
standing in surprising contrast to clean private settings.
This study of ideas and practices relating to cleanliness in
a South Indian town found that im/purity concepts pertaining
to hygiene are closely related to so-called ritual ideas of
purity and pollution and are nearer to orthodox beliefs than
to germ theories. The danger of dirt is less its direct
threat to health but its impact on social status and on the
mood of deities, who penalize with misfortune. Cleanliness
is crucial for private well-being; public pollution is
obsolete.
Damaris Lüthi is an Associated Researcher at
the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of
Berne.
