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72 pages 2 hours read

Clifford Geertz

The Interpretation of Cultures

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1973

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Background

Historical Context: Cultural Anthropology

Situating The Interpretation of Cultures within the historical development of the field of cultural anthropology illuminates the ways Geertz inserts himself into the academic conversation.

Cultural anthropology has its origins in 19th century European/Western political and intellectual threads in which colonialism played a key role. Continuing Enlightenment Era ideas of the 17th and 18th centuries, 19th century thought concerned itself with challenges to religious dogma and the search for universals that could define humankind; at the same time, it sought justifications for Western subjugation of various Eastern, African, and American Indigenous peoples. With Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), in which he articulated evolutionary theory, came an organizing principle around which to justify the subjugation of non-Western peoples from a cultural anthropological standpoint: “A major task of cultural anthropology was thought to be that of classifying different societies and cultures and defining the phases and states through which all human groups pass—the linear interpretation of history” (Historical Development of Cultural Anthropology.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/cultural-anthropology/Historical-development-of-cultural-anthropology.). The need to distinguish so-called “civilized” societies from so-called “primitive” societies while maintaining a universalism under which humankind could be subsumed is the prime motivating factor in the cultural evolutionist framework of 19th century cultural anthropology. 

However, 20th century anthropologists took issue with this evolutionary theory and, in turn, developed cultural relativism as the guiding principle of anthropological study. Based on the idea that “each culture represented an original development” (“Historical Development of Cultural Anthropology.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.), as opposed to an evolutionary development, cultural relativism sought to part with the sweeping generalities and abstractions of its predecessors in favor of an emphasis on non-hierarchical particularity.

Two distinct approaches were essential to the schools of thoughts that developed within cultural relativism. On the one hand, there was Franz Boas’s functionalist approach, which emphasized fieldwork and first-hand observation, holding that cultural facts are explained by their function in the social system at the present time. On the other hand, there was Marcel Mauss’s structural approach, focused on building models of society that accounted for all its constituent elements. Although different in approach, functionalism and structuralism share a certain ahistoricism and are marked by an attempt to model anthropology after the “objective” scientism of the natural sciences.

Geertz’s response is to revise dominant 20th century thought. He addresses both cultural evolutionism and relativism, illuminating where they converge and how this convergence is inadequate to the development of a viable theory of what culture is and how to study it. At once embracing 19th century psychic unity theory and 20th century particularist theory, Geertz seeks a conceptual revision of culture in which that psychic unity is revealed through particularity. Furthermore, he illuminates how functionalist and structuralist approaches fail to adequately handle social change because they don’t do enough to distinguish between culture systems and social systems and their respective patterns of integration, and because their ahistoricism fails to account for the historical contexts and developments in which those systems are situated. 

Geertz was working at a time when there was much debate about the objectivity of social sciences generally and about anthropology’s colonialist past specifically. Geertz is simultaneously a beneficiary of that colonialist past and a challenger to it. For example, it is evident that he attributes the problems in new state politics not to the disruption that colonial rule imposed on tradition, but rather to the process of modernization that characterized the transition from colonial rule to independence.

At the same time, Geertz’s interpretive approach to the study of culture allows for evaluative conceptions of religion, ideology, and “savagery” to be diminished. Furthermore, the interpretive approach lays to rest questions of objectivity in the social sciences: Geertz demonstrates that the anthropologist’s articulation of culture systems is not an objective description of that culture system, but rather as an interpretation that includes the anthropologist’s experience. This becomes integral to later cultural anthropology methodology, in which anthropologists are upfront about the role that their positioning plays in their interpretations. Geertz’s hermeneutical approach to cultural study is a clear alternative to the scientism, determinism, and relativism of his day.

Furthermore, as cultural anthropology accepted the study of so-called “primitive” and “traditional” cultures as mere data collection, Geertz was among those who rejected the idea that static interpretation of social conflict was an indication of social disequilibrium prompted by the failure of culture systems. He found the fieldwork of the 1950s through the 1970s to be a necessary component in understanding the interplay between modernisms and traditionalisms; a more dynamic approach illuminated how this tension was necessary to the process of modernization. Geertz devotes many chapters to the discussion of these tensions, and in the process, provides conceptual revision to his predecessors’ lines of thought. In addition, he articulates how the interpretive aspect of social sciences returns historicism to the theoretical frameworks. 

In sum, Geertz’s work must be understood as simultaneously a continuation and revision of dominant strands of thought in cultural anthropology. While he relies on his predecessors’ visions of cultural study, he also provides valuable insight that helps to render those visions compatible with concrete realities. Furthermore, he repositions cultural anthropology to a central role in multidisciplinary study by demonstrating that the interpretive approach to cultural study clarifies the sociological, psychological, historical, political scientific, philosophical, and even biological implications of the approach.

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