'Seeing Everything in Black and White: the origins of sectarian violence and the problems of small groups'

On Tuesday 3 April 2007, Dame Mary Douglas, one of the world's most eminent social scientists and anthropologists gave a rare lecture at the UCL Cruciform Theatre. The event attracted over 400 eager participants from fields as wide as local government to anthropology.

Mary has influenced the world of policy as well as academia over the last 40 years on issues as diverse as risk, social conflict, consumption and pollution, through classic books such as ‘The World of Goods', ‘How Institutions Think' and ‘Purity and Danger'. Mary was honoured in 2007's New Year Honours list. Mary spoke about small groups, their problems of internal organisation, and their tendency to solve them by violence against outsiders. The implications for terrorist groups are complex - not obvious, but nonetheless relevant to current concerns. The event was chaired by Young Foundation director Geoff Mulgan.