GROUP-GRID ANALYSIS:
a method of social analysis developed by anthropologist Mary
Douglas as means of comparing societies and their cosmologies. Douglas argues that similar
social structures will produce similar cosmologies. Thus an observer ought to be able to
deduce the cosmology of a society from information about its social structure and
re-create its social structure on the basis of a knowledge of its cosmology. The technique
is based on the concept of positional control or the social restraints, physical or
otherwise, which limit the ability of people to act.
