THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES

CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Chapter 1 /Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture
I
Geertz highlights how Susanne langer pointed how certain new ideas emerged on the
intellectual landscape as resolving many fundamental problems and believed to solve all others.
The grande idee is used to in very connection, experiments with generalisations and derivatives,
and once it becomes a part of the general stock of theoretical concepts, it is viewed in a more
realistic way as to being able to explain everything as initially thought. However, it does remain
to explain something.
This has been the case with eh concept of culture around which the entire discipline of
anthropology arose and now attempts are made to limit the domination of culture to keep it
relevant to allow for a narrow and theoretically powerful concept of culture to replace what
Tylor called as "most complex whole," concealing more than it revealed.
Geertz thus forwards specific semiotic concept of culture, viewing culture as the webs of
significance spun by man, the analysis of which is not to be an experimental one in search of
laws but an interpretive one in search of meaning.
II
Operationalism pointed to idea that in order to understand a science one needs to look at what
practitioners of it do. In anthropology, the practitioners do ethnography. Doing ethnography is
not just about the methods like establishing rapport, transcribing, etc but is an intellectual
endeavour in thick descriptions. (term given by gilbert Ryle)
Ryle talks about the difference between a an eye twitch and wink where both are the same
physical movements the latter is a deliberate communication to someone giving a message
according to an established code which the rest do not know. If a third person parodies the
gesture it is no longer conspiratory but ridicule or the others may think he is twitching. Though
all contract their right eyelid, the intent behind each action differs: a genuine wink, a mimic,
and a parody. If misunderstood—as a twitch or an actual wink—the meaning collapses. One
might even rehearse the parody alone, which again appears identical in behaviour but differs
in purpose. These layered meanings—from twitches to rehearsals—show that actions only gain
significance through cultural context. Ethnography seeks to uncover this “thick description,”
the complex web of interpretations that give simple gestures meaning beyond mere behaviour
rather than thin description that would just focus on the act itself.
He gives an example of a thick description from his own field journal and points to how the
data collected is more the ethnographers construction of other peoples construction. Noth
acknowledging this makes anthropological research more os an observational than interpretive
activity.
Analysis involves looking at the structures of signification and determining their social context.
n this case, it involves recognizing the three different cultural perspectives at play: Jewish,
Berber, and French. These overlapping interpretations led to deep misunderstandings that
turned traditional practices into social farce. The ethnographer is faced with complex
conceptual structures which he needs to grasp while interviewing informants, tracing property
lines, writing his journal, etc. doing ethnography is like trying to read a manuscript- foreign,
faded, written not in conventional graphs but transient examples of shaped behaviour.
III
Culture as an acted document is public. It does not exist in someone’s head. Once human
behaviour is seen as symbolic action, questions of culture being objective or subjective fades
away. The context of things rather than ontological status is important.
Though debates exist in terms of culture as superorganic or in patterns of behavioural events,
main theoretical confusion comes from culture seen as “in the minds and hearts of men.” This
cognitive anthropology views culture as made of psychological structures that guide individual
behaviour forwarded by scholars like ward Goodenough. Culture thus is seen to a society’s
rules which ethnographers can describe, though this blending of subjectivism and formalism
raises questions as to whether it reflects native view or is an imitation. However, like a
Moroccan trade pact is not just about the ritual used, it is a cultural act shaped by meaning.
Culture is public because meaning is public like one cannot wink without knowing what
winking is. he error of cognitive anthropology is treating culture as private mental structures to
be analysed like math or logic. Culture, however, is not just in the mind—it’s in shared systems
of meaning. Understanding is cultural is not just about psychological insights but understanding
eh symbolic world within which the actions are signs.
IV
Ethnographic research is the uneasy process of trying to “find our feet” in unfamiliar cultures,
and writing about it means trying—often imperfectly—to explain how we think we’ve done
so. Geertz clarifies that the ethnographer is not become a native or mimic them, rather they
need to converse with them. Anthropology thus seeks to enlarge the universe of human
discourse which a semiotic concept of culture can help with. For culture as systems of
constructable signs, it is a matter of context which can be described rather than power which
events are oriented to.
Looking at the different forms that the ordinary takes reveal the degree to which meaning varies
with different patterns of life. understanding a culture makes exposes it normalness while
retaining its particularity, making them accessible. The anthropological interpretations of other
peoples symbol systems need to be actor-oriented. Describing cultures meaning interpreting
how the people understand their own experiences. These descriptions are that of the
anthropologist rather than a part of the cultures. They thus are second order interpretations,
fictions- something made, with the first interpretation being that of the native.
Anthropological knowledge exists in the book, film, etc while culture exists in the field.
Ethnographic are about the authors ability to explain what goes on in the unfamiliar places, to
understand their contexts, rather than simply develop thin descriptions and record raw data.
Good ethnography brings us closer to the lived experience of others, not just their actions.
V
However, viewing culture as pure symbolic system by isolating its elements, specifying the
internal relationships among those elements, and then characterizing the whole system in some
general way-according to the core symbols around which it is organized, the underlying
structures of which it is a surface expression, or the ideological principles upon which it is
based, is argued to take away from the informal logic of actual life. acknowledging behaviour
is important because it is through it that cultural forms are expressed. Symbol systems can only
be understood by looking at empirical events. Though a minimal degree of coherence is
required it is not the a major test for validity of a cultural description.
Anthropological interpretations that need to into account what it that is being interpreted, not
divorced from reality. For code does not always determine conduct as seen in Cohen’s case.
The anthropologist thus needs to map the flow of meaning and turn it into something that can
be analysed, rather than show what exactly happened. The ethnographer "inscribes" social
discourse; he writes it down. Passing events thus are turned into accounts which can be
reconsulted. What is written is the meaning of the event rather than the event itself.
The ethnographer writes—or more precisely, inscribes based on the information he accesses
through the informants. This may seem obvious, but it's a shift from the usual view that the
ethnographer simply observes, records, and analyses. Cultural analysis thus is guessing at
meanings, assessing the guesses, and drawing explanatory conclusions from the better guesses,
not creating a perfect world of meaning r universal model. (one doesn’t need to know everything to understand something)
VI
Ethnographic interpretations are interpretive of the flow of social discourse preserving the
“said” into perusable lasting terms. It is also microscopic. Though it encounters grand realities
like other disciplines like power, work, etc it looks at them in a particular context. To establish
generalisations anthropologists have relied upon flawed models like the Jonesville-is-America
model that falsely argues essence of nations can be found in villages, localised research is not
about representing the world but about the experiences of people in the context studied not the
entire picture. The natural laboratory model too is flawed for it treats the field data as purer
than other inquires and the variables are not experimentally manipulable. ell-known studies
like reversed gender roles in Tchambuli or the Oedipus complex in Trobriand society are not
scientific proofs but interpretive insights. Ethnographic accounts thus offer perspective and are
not privileged over others.
The value of anthropology lies in its detailed, specific findings—gathered through long-term,
immersive fieldwork—that help bring abstract concepts like legitimacy, conflict, or meaning
to life. The challenge isn’t to treat a remote locality as the entire world, but to recognize that
minor social actions can reveal profound truths about broader societal dynamics.
VII
Interpretive approaches generally resist conceptual articulation and systematic assessment.
However, it needs to engage in theorisation to be science. It faces difficulties like keeping the
theory close to the ground rather than abstraction for the semiotic approach needs to gain access
to the conceptual world of the subjects to converse with them. This creates a constant tension
between grasping meaning and analytical rigor. Its generalisations come from distinctions
rather than abstractions. The knowledge of culture further grows in spurts rather than each
endeavour building upon cumulative findings, newer research moves from its own elementary
beginning and understandings, parallel to not building over earlier studies. It thus is difficult to
abstract from eh studies into a culture theory for when removed from their context they seem
hollow.
The essential task of theory building here is not to codify abstract regularities but to make thick
description possible, not to generalize across cases but to generalize within them.
Generalisations are made similar to clinical inference. in cultural study, beginning with
symbolic acts placed in an intelligible frame and the goal is not therapy but interpreting social
meaning and using theory to uncover hidden significance. Cultural theory further is not
predictive mostly interpreting matters present but the theoretical frame needs to provide
suitable interpretation of new social phenomena to come. Theoretical ideas are adopted from
related studies to deal with new interpretive problems and when they stop being useful they are
not used.
The line between description and explanation becomes a distinction between "inscription"
(thick description) and "specification" (diagnosis). Ethnographers aim to reveal the meanings
behind social actions and then explain what these meanings show about the society and culture
more broadly. Theory in this context offers a vocabulary to express what symbolic actions
reveal about human life. using concepts like identity, ritual, etc in ethnographic work attempts
are made to relate specific events to larger cultural truths. Theory thus is related to
observational levels. altering social relationships reshapes how people experience the world.
In this sense, social forms are the very substance of culture.
VIII
Cultural analysis is always incomplete and he semiotic approach leading to ethnographic
assertions always being contestable. Every contestation however increases precision. There is
an increased interest in the role of symbolic forms in human life and the question of meaning
that was earlier left to the philosophers. Geertz’s approach focuses on analysis of symbolic
forms close to concrete events, the public world of common life and establish interconnections
between theories and descriptive interpretations. The threat remains that cultural analysis
would lose touch with reality and thus the analysis needs to be trained to focus on such realities.
Studying symbols isn’t an escape from life’s hard questions; it’s a way of engaging with them.
Interpretive anthropology doesn’t provide ultimate answers—it shares the diverse answers
others have given, adding them to the collective human record.
Chapter 2 /The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man
I
Geertz builds upon Lévi-Strauss argument that scientific explanation isn’t about simplifying
complexity, but about replacing a less intelligible complexity with a more understandable one.
In studying humans, this often means swapping simple views for more complex, nuanced
ones—while still trying to keep the clarity that made the simpler views appealing. Scientific
advancement comes when the comprehensible appears incomprehensible, and the simple no
longer satisfactory.
The scientific concept of culture developed in a similar vein along with the view of human
nature transformed from the simple enlightenment view to more complex, and thus attempts
have been made to understand what man is by anthropologists. The enlightenment thought
viewed human nature as law governed and immutable. The differences between men were held
to be insignificant in defining his nature, being distortions. However, Geertz argues that who
man is is entangled with the context within which he is located. This idea led to the rise of the
concept of culture which held that men are not unmodified by the customs of and that it is
impossible to access the backstage of human nature. One cannot differentiate between the
universal and local in man.
Humanity can be seen as various in essence and expression, neither custom nor universal nature
reigns supreme. Rather in cultural patterns one can find the defining elements of human
existence which is variable but has a distinctive character.
II
To locate man within custom, a stratigraphic approach is usually used that views man as
composed of biological, psychological, social, and cultural levels. Each level had an
incontestable place and bringing different level research would reveal culture of cardinal
importance as the only level distinct to man. Attempts thus were made to find cultural
universals and relate them to these layers to determine the cultural dimension of the concept of
man. 18th and 19th century theory thus saw man as split in 2 as independent and dependent on
inward motions.
The consensus gentium approach was argued to fail for the empirical universals like religion,
marriage, etc were not same in content everywhere. Geertz argues that this is not to say that
there are no generalisations to be made about man as man, but this cannot be achieved through
the Baconian idea of cultural universal kind of public-opinion polling of the world's peoples.
Relativism however is dangerous and can be dealt with by bringing them within one concept
of man.
Problems also surface in linking the cultural universals to the different stratas. A common
solution is to use "invariant points of reference"—basic human needs or social requirements
that all cultures must address like humans need personal growth, metabolism, etc. cultural
universals thus can be argued to meet these needs. However, only a correlation rather than
meaningful integration is achieved through this.
The components of the concept of man thus may instead be found in the cultural particularities
of people which anthropology can help reveal.
III
Avoidance of cultural particulars comes from a hear of historicism among anthropologists of
losing any fixed bearings. However, Geertz argues against the idea of unless a cultural
phenomenon is empirically universal it cannot reflect anything about the nature of man. What
we need to look for is systematic relationships among diverse phenomena, replacing the
stratigraphic conception with a synthetic one where biological, psychological, sociological, and
cultural factors can be treated as variables within unitary systems of analysis. Different theories
thus can be integrated to from meaningful propositions.
Culture within such a context can be viewed as a set of control mechanisms governing
behaviour and man is dependent upon such ordering. Man, thus can be defined by mechanisms
that reduce his inherent capacity leading to specific accomplishments. This control mechanism
view takes human thought as social and public. Thinking takes place using significant symbols
that are used to impose meaning upon experience, which are available already for use in his
community. Without these cultural patterns, that is, organised system of significant symbols,
man’s behaviour would be ungovernable running int a chaos of potential acts and emotions,
making culture essential.
Recent insights into human evolution support the idea that culture and biology are deeply
intertwined. Three key findings stand out: (1) human physical and cultural development
evolved interactively, not sequentially. Earlier it was believed that cultural evolved after the
biological evolution was completed gaining the potential to produce and carry culture like
transmit knowledge, customs, etc. however such a moment is argued to not exist where
transition to culture took many genetic changes and elementary forms of culture were presents
with earlier humans. Culture rather could be seen as contributing to the evolution of Homo
with developments like tools, fire, family structures, and symbolic systems (language, myth,
ritual) created a new environment to which humans had to adapt. Those best able to use culture
gained an advantage, leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens. This created a feedback loop
where culture, body, and brain evolved together.
(2) the main biological changes leading to modern humans occurred in the brain. The overlap
of cultural and biology led to neural development. Human nature cannot be conceived
independent of culture. Without it they would be mental basket cases. The neural development
also made guiding behaviour dependent upon systems of significant symbols. As genetic
control over behaviour lessened, we relied more on culture for guidance. Symbols thus are a
prerequisite to human existence.
and (3) humans are biologically incomplete—what makes us unique isn’t just our capacity to
learn, but how much and what we must learn to function. Man completes himself through
culture and is dependent upon learning conceptual structures and systems of symbolic meaning
to locate food, organise social groups, etc unlike animals for learning in encoded in their genes.
Complex human behaviour is a mixture of innate and cultural control like capacity to speak is
surely innate; our capacity to speak English is surely cultural. It through the use of significant
symbols that the first is transformed into the second. Men thus are cultural artefacts where
ideas, values, emotions, etc are cultural products manufactured out of tendencies and capacities
one is born with.
IV
Both the enlightenment and classical anthropology developed typological approach to human
nature. Like the former tried to uncover the natural man away from culture, while the latter
looked at the consensual man looking at cultural commonalities. Differences between
individuals however are treated as secondary as deviations from normative type. However, an
opposition does not need to be there between general theoretical and circumstantial
understanding. Science itself draws general from the particular and thus the concept of man
can be drawn from variousness.
When seen as a set of symbolic devices for controlling behaviour, extrasomatic sources of
information, culture provides the link between what men are intrinsically capable of becoming
and what they actually become. Humans becoming individuals under the guidance of cultural
patterns which are specific like who should marry whom, what men and women are alike, etc.
man is defined by the link between his innate capacity and actual behaviour. Culture shapes
both man as a species and as separate individuals. this is realised by many natives like among
the java a normal adult is taken to be one who has adopted the culture. Like it is not eating but
preferring certain foods, following table etiquette, etc. to be human thus is to be a particular
man depending upon the culture and within a culture differences exist like between a rice
peasant or civil servant. It is thus through a review of cultural particulars that we can find what
it is to be man. The road to the general lies through the particular illuminated by theories from
biology, psychology, social science, and their interactions.