The Interpretation of Cultures

Citation

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. Basic Books.

Chapter Summary

The book is a collection of fifteen essays, not a single sustained argument. The publisher presents it as the work in which Geertz developed the concept of thick description: culture, he argues, does not drive behaviour but is a web of symbols that helps us understand what that behaviour means. The titles below follow the contents list of the Basic Books edition.

Chapter 1: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture

The opening essay states the programme for the whole volume. A thick description explains behaviour together with the context in which it occurs, and describing something thickly is, on Geertz's view, the anthropologist's fundamental task. It is the essay that introduces the concept the book is best known for.

Chapters 2–3: The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man; The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind

These two essays place the concept of culture in relation to ideas about human nature and to the evolution of the mind. Together they set out the broader theoretical argument before the case studies begin.

Chapters 4–7: Religion as a Cultural System; Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols; Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example; "Internal Conversion" in Contemporary Bali

A group of four essays on religion. The first two are general, on religion as a cultural system and on the analysis of sacred symbols; the next two apply this approach to a Javanese ritual and to religious change in Bali.

Chapters 8–12: Ideology as a Cultural System; After the Revolution; The Integrative Revolution; The Politics of Meaning; Politics Past, Politics Present

Five essays on ideology and politics. They treat ideology as a cultural system and look at nationalism and civil politics in the "new states", and at the uses of anthropology in understanding them. The full titles of Chapters 9, 10 and 12 are: "After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States", "The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States", and "Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology in Understanding the New States".

Chapter 13: The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Lévi-Strauss

A discussion of the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. It is the only essay in the contents list devoted to another theorist.

Chapters 14–15: Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali; Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

The book ends with two essays on Bali: one on person, time and conduct, and one on the Balinese cockfight. The collection closes with this case study, not with a summary chapter.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3

• Thick description: description that supplies the context needed to say what a piece of behaviour means, as opposed to recording it alone.
• Interpretive theory of culture: the aim named in the subtitle of Chapter 1, in line with the publisher's account of culture as a web of symbols to be understood for what behaviour means.
• Culture and the concept of man: the question of how the concept of culture changes ideas about human nature.

Chapters 4–12

• Religion as a cultural system: the proposal to study religion as a system of symbols.
• Ethos and world view: the paired terms named in the title of Chapter 5, where they are used in the analysis of sacred symbols.
• Ideology as a cultural system: the same cultural-system approach applied to political belief.
• Primordial sentiments and civil politics: the pair of terms in the title of Chapter 10.

Chapters 13–15

• Culture as a web of symbols: the publisher's summary of Geertz's position, that culture helps us understand behaviour rather than driving it.
• Deep play: the notion explored in the cockfight essay.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A theory demonstrated through cases. The essays pair general statements (Chapters 1–5, 8) with applications to Java, Bali and the new states, so a reader sees the method used and not only described.
• Wide influence. The Times Literary Supplement listed the book among the 100 most important publications since the Second World War, and the American Sociological Association gave Geertz the Sorokin Award in 1974 for his essays in it. The Basic Books edition carries a foreword by Robert Darnton.
• Literary quality. The obituary notices quoted by the publisher and the press stress Geertz's literary flair and his sophisticated prose, which helps explain why the essays are read beyond anthropology.

Limitations

• A collection, not a textbook. The subtitle describes selected essays, and the contents list ranges from general theory to religion, politics and Bali, with no concluding chapter. Students should expect to assemble the overall argument themselves.
• Dated political material. The titles of Chapters 9, 10 and 12 refer to "the new states", so these essays need historical context and a check of their original dates.
• Assumes background. The essay on Lévi-Strauss presupposes some familiarity with his work.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the anthropological theory course, this is a primary text of interpretive and symbolic anthropology. Erickson and Murphy's A History of Anthropological Theory and Eriksen and Nielsen's A History of Anthropology are concise overviews that set Geertz among other schools, so one of them is a good companion or preparation. Moberg's Engaging Anthropological Theory is a historical account of how theories emerged from, and responded to, social and political debates.

Marcus and Fischer's Anthropology as Cultural Critique is a methodological and historical argument for anthropology as a critical practice, covering experimental writing, cultural interpretation and the limits of conventional social science, and is a natural follow-up to Geertz. Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice is a work of practice theory that introduces the concept of habitus and frames the relation between social structures and individual agency, which makes a useful contrast with Geertz's emphasis on meaning.

How to Use This Book

The collection suits students who have met the main schools of anthropological theory, for example through a short history, and who want a primary text. Read the first chapter carefully first; it supplies the vocabulary for everything else. Chapters 2–3 add the argument about culture and human nature and can be skimmed on a first pass.

After that, choose by interest. For religion and ritual, read Chapters 4–7; for politics, Chapters 8–12; for the best-known case study, Chapters 14–15. Chapter 13 repays reading once you know something of Lévi-Strauss. For a seminar, a compact path is Chapters 1, 4 and 15: the programme, the application to religion and the most famous example.

While reading, note which statements are claims about method and which are interpretations of a particular case. Try to restate one case study as a thin description and compare it with Geertz's.