The Interpretation Of Cultures

This is 2024 and I find this classical piece relevant not just to my MA thesis but to my career as a young anthropologist whose interest is in audit culture. In audit culture, I would say "deep play" is about grasping the deeper meanings behind how organizations behave. You know, like really getting why they do what they do, beyond just the surface stuff. Right, and "thick description" means giving a detailed context so you can tell the difference between actions that matter (the "winks") and those that are just for show (the "twitches"). I can only say much about this book!

Besides the great price on the book, they kept me informed as to when my book had shipped and the time-line in which I would be seeing it on my doorstep. Great service. I would buy from them anytime.

This remains one of the seminal works in not just Anthropology, but also in the field of social science, written by a brilliant Social Scientist. When it was first written in 1973, it was not just "leading-edge," but utterly revolutionary. Today however, in the era of full-fledged "cultural and ethnographic relativity," and in the interim, where symbols have earned a more prominent if not wholly respected cross-disciplinary cachet and place in social science scholarship, many of Professor Geertz's seminal ideas now seem strangely "quaint," but have in any case become as much a part of the mainstream as they have become controversial. For my money, I prefer to judge this brilliant scholarship, on its own merits as well as against the standards of the times in which it emerged. I have yet to read a first chapter in an English book that is as well constructed and as informatively exciting as that in this book. Geertz, in drawing a bright line between what is universal and constant about man -- versus what is local, ever changing, and merely parochial about him -- attempts to answer the question: Just how important are human differences, and especially differences between cultures? To answer it, the author moves with seamless facility across, between and well beyond the ossified boundaries of "normal" Anthropology, into myriad related and not so related, fields: such as sociology, philosophy, and the philosophy of science, linguistics, psychology and evolutionary biology, among several others. From their intellectual intersection, Geertz builds up a beautiful theory that culture is a system of shared symbols that allows its members to give shape and meaning to their respective experiences. In 1973, making the full connection between the significance of man's ability to weave meaning from webs of symbols and symbolisms, was not fully appreciated by most social scientists, and certainly (and curiously) even less appreciated by most Anthropologists, who arguably were "pulling up the rear" in developing interpretative theories upon which to base their mostly ethnographic practices. More than anything else, Professor Greetz "changed the game" and arguably brought the field of Anthropology out of the "theoretical backwaters" and "dark ages" into a more updated and respected place in the academic sun. With his philosophy of science and general philosophy bent, he gave the field of Anthropology a new more exciting cachet and a deeper more meaningful theoretical resonance, mandate and motive: If one was to fully understand culture, he had to first be able to unravel, and then decipher the web of intertwined meanings of symbolic actions and interactions: that is to say he had to be able to understand the full meaning of the whole panoply of culturally determined symbols, totems, events, customs, rituals, rites, politics, etc. Even so, there was only a limited amount that an "outsider" could expect to learn, as culture remains mostly an enigmatic "interi

This is a book for scholars but it is very readable and will definitely throw you into what anthropology is (should be?) about. You might have to read through each essay a couple of times to make sure you understood the points he was making, but it's not annoying to do because the points he is making are so excellent. One of the best book purchases I have ever made.

"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs..." These cultural "webs of significance" Clifford Geertz speaks of are constructed of religious beliefs and practices, cultural customs, social interactions, attitudes and behavior -- everything around us that we have constructed as rational beings capable of thought and imagination. According to Geertz, the role of the anthropologist is, in a sense, to 'decode' the symbolic meanings of these certain events, practices, customs and interactions that take place within a specific culture, however insignificant they may seem to the observer. Detail is of utmost importance. An anthropologist must become part of the culture -- looking in from the outside he will understand nothing. Of course, in order to reduce the occurrence of the anthropologist's own cultural bias and to attempt to more accurately understand a culture, one could easily say that it is imperative that anthropologists emerge themselves in the customs and practices of that culture. But, even then, is it ever possible for one to grasp an understanding of a culture in which one was not born into? Are humans socialized from birth to perceive all cultural customs and practices through a shady lens, clouded by perceptions of the world they have acquired during childhood? Geertz believes that, while to some extent it is possible to reach an understanding of a culture outside of our own, it is important to understand that anthropological writing is merely a "thick description," an interpretation of an interpretation. In other words, the anthropologist is interpreting the culture's interpretation of the event that is taking place. There is nothing precise, categorically logical or rational about anthropological writing: Cultural analysis is strictly the process of creating various hypotheses, examining those hypotheses, and then deriving explanations from the best hypotheses. As Geertz says, the analysis of it is not an "experimental science in search of law" but, rather, "an interpretive one in search of meaning." It is the job of an anthropologist to first attempt to understand how an event is interpreted by the culture in which it takes place, then to make an interpretation of that interpretation, and then it is left up to the reader of anthropological writing to interpret the final interpretations. It is difficult, if not impossible, to derive any absolute factual conclusion from data constructed of so many interpretive layers; thus, interpretation is not definitive. The role of an anthropologist, according to Geertz, is to construct the finest interpretations possible, and most importantly, to be an active participant in the culture, rather than a passive observer. This book is THE classical text for a modern cultural anthropologist. It's also an excellent book for anyone skeptical of social science in general, and serves as a great introduction for anyone just curiou

When i found his Book - or rather a few of its included essays - it was like if it just had been laying there waiting for me to handle some of the very fundamental puzzlement I've had with the grand theories in social science. I have found use of it in my reflections about the link between micro- and macro elements of society postulated by such giants as George Ritzer and Jeffrey Alexander, as well the classical distinction between the existential and normative character of culture itself - formally defined in Anthony Giddens distinction between signification and legitimation - and, even more important, helping me to understand the analytical dualism of culture and structure made by Margaret Archer. Geertz was far ahead of them all, perhaps due to an enormously rich empirical material - which both enriches the "thick" theories he has as well as function as a pedagogic device to illustrate the points he makes. A must for anyone with an interest in how och why individuals and societys work as they do, regardles of beeing in the discipline of sociology, anthropology or any other field within social scienses.