An Analysis of Clifford Geertz's The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (The Macat Library)

Clifford Geertz has been called ‘the most original anthropologist of his generation’ - and this reputation rests largely on the huge contributions to the methodology and approaches of anthropological interpretation that he outlined in The Interpretation of Cultures.The centrality of interpretative skills to anthropology is uncontested: in a subject that is all about understanding mankind, and which seeks to outline the differences and the common ground that exists between cultures, interpretation is the crucial skillset.For Geertz, however, standard interpretative approaches did not go deep enough, and his life’s work concentrated on deepening and perfecting his subject’s interpretative skills.Geertz is best known for his definition of ‘culture,’ and his theory of ‘thick description,’ an influential technique that depends on fresh interpretative approaches.For Geertz, ‘cultures’ are ‘webs of meaning’ in which everyone is suspended.Understanding culture, therefore, is not so much a matt