geertz - cultures, rituals
TRANSCRIPT
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Clifford Geertz 1926- 1926 Born San Francisco
1950 BA Antioch College
Ohio studying English andPhilosophy
1950 Meets Margaret
Mead and decides enrolls inanthropology at Harvard
1952-54 to Java as part of a
research team with theexplicit goal of improving
economic growth
1956 PhD. on religion and
social change in Java
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1960 The Religion of Java
1963 Peddlers and Pr inces
a study in how religion playsa role in adopting to economic
change
1963 Agricultural I nvolution
a macro-economicexamination of Indonesias
economic problems
1965 The Social H istory of an
I ndonesian Town
A synthesis of political andeconomic development in the
community from its mid
19tyh century establishment
to the late 1950s.
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Thick Description Toward and
Interpretive Theory of Culture
The concept of culture I espouseis
essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with
Max Weber, that man is an animalsuspended in webs of signif icance he
himself has spun, I take cul tures to be those
webs, and the analysis of it to be thereforenot an exper imental science in search of
law, but an interpretive one in search of
meaning. (Geertz 1973:5)
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Geertz Interpretive Anthropology:
PREMISE: man is an animal suspended in webs of
significance he himself has spun and our name for
those webs is culture
CONCLUSION: the analysis of it therefore is not an
experimental science in search of law but aninterpretive one in search of meaning
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THICK DESCRIPTION
A wink or a twitch
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between what Ryle calls the "thin description"
of what the rehearser (parodist, winker, twitcher .
. .) is doing (rapidly contracting his righteyelids) and The "thick description" of what he
is doing (" practicing a bur lesque of a fr iend
faking a wink to deceive an innocent into thinkinga conspiracy is in motion" ) l ies the object of
ethnography: a strati f ied hierarchy of meaningful
structures in terms of which twi tches, winks, fake-winks, parodies, rehearsals of parodies are
produced, perceived, and interpreted
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Unraveling and identifying those context and
meanings requires thick description:.Geertz argues that this is precisely what
ethnographic writing does
Unlike many postmodernists (for whom there
can beno theory), Geertz seeks to situate
interpretive or semiotic anthropology in an
historical matrix (harking back to Weber andSapir)...
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Anthropological writings are themselvesinterpretations, and second and third-order
ones to boot. (By definition, only a native
makes first-order ones: its hisculture).
They are, thus, fictions; fictions in the sense
that they are something made, something
fashioned... not that they are false...
Case example: the story of Cohen, as
recounted by Cohen in 1965.
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PLAYERS & CULTURAL CONCEPTS
1. CohenJewish trader (spoke Thamazighth [Berber],
Arabic and French) with a shop near Sefru
2. Capitaine DumariFrench commander of the town of
Sefru and its environs
3. Marmusha (Imarmushen)Transhumant Berber tribe of
the Middle Atlas, in 1912 unpacified by the French* * *
mezrag:pact in an inter-tribal code of trading honor, in areas of
siba(highland Berber tribes, beyond government control)
those linked by such a pact can move and trade unmolested and
their deals will be enforced by the shaikhs of the tribes
r: indemnity for a wrong (blood feud, or violation of a mezrag
pact)failure to pay reflects shame on the shaikh
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Ait Mgild tents, Middle Atlas
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Geertz anthropological interpretation of this story = thesorting out of the structure[s] of signification...
distinguishing three unlike frames of interpretation
(Jewish, Berber, French)... and why in a particular
circumstance their copresence produced a situation inwhich systematic misunderstanding reduced traditional
form to social farce... i.e. what tripped Cohen up.
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...ethnography is thick descr iption. Whatthe ethnographer is in fact faced withexcept when (as of course, he must do) he is
pursuing the more automatized routines of
data collectionis a mul tipl icity of
complex conceptual structures, many ofthem super imposed upon or knotted into one
another, which are at once strange,
ir regular, and inexplici t, and which he mustcontr ive somehow first to grasp and then to
render...
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Doing ethnography is like trying to
read (in the sense of constructing a
reading of) a manuscr ipt-foreign,
faded, ful l of el l ipses, incoherencies,
suspicious emendations, andtendentious commentar ies, but written
not in conventional graphs of sound
but in transient examples of shaped
behaviour.(1973:10)
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A semiotic emphasis does not give priority totechnology or to any other conception of the
nature/culture interface
culture does not exist in some superorganic realmsubject to forces and objectives of its own
culture cannot be reified.
culture is Neither brute behaviour or mental
construct subject to schematic analyses or
reducibility to ethnographic algorithms.
What Culture is Not
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Culture consists of socially established structures of
meaning, with which people communicate; it isinseparable from symbolic social discourse
Culture is Public because meaning is, and systems of
meanings are what produce culture, they are the
collective property of a particular people
Culture is Symbolic
Culture is CommunicationMeaning is contextual
Culture is Complex
Culture is an assemblage of texts
What Culture is
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the method of the interpretiveanthropologist (who accepts a semiotic view
of culture) is similar to the method of literary
critique analyzing a text
Culture is the fabric of meaning in terms of which
human beings interpret their experience and guide
their action; social structure is the form that action
takes, the actually existing network of social
relations. Culture and social structure are then but
different abstraction from the same phenomena.
(Geertz 1973:145).
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Javanese Funeral.
Ritual and Social Change : A Javanese Example (1957)
li i i J i ti i f I l d Hi d i
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This balance has been
upset increasingly during
the 20th century as
conservative Islamicreligious nationalism
crystallized in opposition
to a secular, Marxist
nationalism whichappealed to pre-Islamic,
Hinduist-animist
indigenous religions
religion in Java is a syncretic mix of Islam and Hinduism
overlain on an indigenous SE Asian animism
Hindu gods and goddesses, Moslem prophets and saints,
and local spirits and demons all found a proper place
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In post-independence Indonesia, political parties formed
along these dividing lines:
Masjumi became the conservative Islamic party and
Permai, the anti-Islamic mix of Marxism and nativism.
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The mood of a Javanese funeral is not one of
hysterical bereavement, unrestrained sobbing, or even
of formalized cries of grief for the deceaseds
departure (1973:154).
Rather, it is a calm, undemonstrative, almost languid
letting go, a brief ritualized relinquishment of a
relationship no longer possible
This willed serenity and detachment depends on the
smooth execution of a proper ceremony that seamlessly
combines Islamic, Hindu and indigenous beliefs andrituals. Javanese believe that it is the suddenness of
emotional turmoil that causes damage
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But in this particular case, the dead boy was from a
household loosely affiliated with the Permai party, and when
the Islamic village religious leader was called to direct the
ceremony, he refused citing the presence of a Permai political
poster on the door and arguing that it was inappropriate for
him to perform the ceremony of another religion.
At that moment the self-willed and culturally definedcomposure surrounding the death-unraveled
Geertz describes the emotional chaos that ensued, tracing
its roots to a central ambiguity: religious symbols had
become political symbols and vice-versa, which combined
sacred and profane and created an incongruity between the
cultural framework of meaning and the patterning of social
interaction
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Its an example of thick description
Nothing about this case, its selection, its historical
background, the political dimensions, the cultural
expectations, the motives of distraught family and
neighbors, none can be explained except byexposing a multiplicity of conceptual structures,
many of them superimposed upon or knotted into
one another, which are at once strange irregular,
and inexplicit, and which the anthropologists mustcontrive to somehow first to grasp and then to
render (1973:10).
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Geertz distinguishes the experiencesnearer native
point of view from the experience-distant realm of
social theorists and argues that the ethnographerstask is to explicate the links between the two.
The presentation of ethnographic interpretations as
observed facts simply reflects the selection of a genre,
not an epistemological reality
His method involves a case study ( a better sense
than ethnography which implies a traditionally
formatted overview of a culture) of an extrapolationof meaning system ie. Culture, from a localized place
or event, usually in essay format
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Deep Play: The Balinese Cockfight
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It is not just cocks that are fighting but men
Cocks are masculine symbols
The word cock is used metaphorically to mean bachelor,
lady-killer, tough guy etc
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The Balinesecockfight, is
fundamentally a
dramatization
of status
concerns.
nothing really
happens at acockfight.
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The conflicts, alliances, wins and losses are all symbolic of
things that happen elsewhere.
In the cockfight all action is symbolic.
The real causes lie elsewhere, presumably in material
circumstances.
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If cultural knowledge is inherently interpretive, how can
we invalidate the truth of an interpretation since there are
potentially as many true interpretations as there are
members of a culture?
I.e. If ethnography is interpretation how can we know thatinterpretation is correct.
Most of us cannot go to Bali or northern Morocco and
check the interpretation
We need some other ways to evaluate the ethnographers
claims but what are they?
Questions
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In traditional ethnographies we could
search for various validation points:is the ethnographer fluent in the local language,
did she live in the culture for an extended period
was he or she methodical or biased in their
observations?
Were the informants representative of a largerculture?
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if all such claims are equally valid, then the
most anthropology can hope for is to create a
rich documentary of multiple interpretations,
none denied and none privileged.
This means that it cannot be a science since it
cannot generalize from truth statements or
tests the statements against empirical data; thenature of culture precludes this
Geertz triggered a profound rethinking of the
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Geertz triggered a profound rethinking of the
anthropological enterprise
forced anthropologists to become aware of the cultural
contexts they interpret and the ethnographic texts they create.
He is also touched off a major debate in about the
fundamental nature of anthropology
The Interpretation of Cultures was catalyst for a debate inanthropology
Whatis the nature of culture?
How is it distinct from social structure?
How is culture understood?
What is the relationship between observer and observed?
how are interpretations constructed by the anthropologist who
works in turn from the interpretations of his informants
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These Issues arose against a backdrop of a changing
world and world view
new Third World nations that emerged after WWII
interconnected world in which there were no
uncontacted societies living in Eden-like isolation
As independence movements transformed former
colonial subjects into new national citizens, intergroup
conflicts intensified as power was reconfigured and
new governments exerted their control
In the face of such change, the idea of functionally
integrated societies was difficult to maintain since
there were no isolated societies and little evidence of
equilibrium
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The anthropologists role had
changed as wellInstead of studying an isolated society for a year or
two and returning to be the expert on their people,
anthropologists were working in communities andinstitutions in the US, Europe and developing
countries among people who had their own story to
tell and means to tell the,
The relationships between anthropologists and
informants also changed, sparking a self-
examination of the nature of anthropological inquiry
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POSTMODERNITY
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THE ITERATION OF AN
ERA AFTER THE MODERN
Anthropological theory largely developed on the
assumption that the Modern paradigm of society
mass, industrial societies
democratic and pluralistic
was the evolutionary end-point of all social change
But by the mid 80s many social theorists began to posit
a post-modern era
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MODERNIZATION THEORY
IN SOCIOLOGY & ECONOMICS
traditionalpre-
modern modernprimitive
predominantly urban society in ademocratic nation-state
thriving industrial economy tweaked by
restrained government intervention
secular education provided by state
consumer economy
taken-for-granted:
the modern pattern
is the end-point of
social evolution
the notion that a
further pattern of
social economy
would follow was
unconsidered
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THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
footloose capitalability of corporations to relocate manufacturing
facilities rapidly andcheaply
Volkswagen
assembly plant,
Cuernavaca,
Mexico
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THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
global reach of capitalmultinational corporations diffuse similar
goods and tastes worldwide
MacDonalds
in Beijing
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relative cheapness of transport of goods makes distance increasingly irrelevant
Container
port, Kobe,
Japan
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
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world transport networks erode political barriers
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
Convoys trucking goods to Baghdad at height of UN embargo
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THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
goods that
enhance individual
autonomy find
their way to theremotest corners
of the Earth
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worldwide shift from heavy industrial
economy to service and information
economy
in information economy, jobs can cometo people (reversal of pattern of the
industrial age)
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
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inexpensive communications equipment enable people to bypassgovernments control over information
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
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inexpensive travel allows global contact on a regular basis
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
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CHEAP, ACCESSIBLE, COMMUNI-
CATIONS TECHNOLOGIES ERODE
ESTABLISHED AUTHORITY & EMPOWER
NEW & COMPETING FORMS OF AUTHORITY
mimeographed leaflets and postersthe modern
technology to attack state authority
cassette players and tapessermons of Imam Khomeni
diffused throughout Iran prior to fall of Shahs regimevideocamscrucial in filming repressions during collapse
of USSR & DDR, Tienamin Square crackdown, Rodney King
beating
computersmajor source of communication for all
counter-cultural and revolutionary movements in the world
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worldwide diffusion & marketing of commodities
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
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Street
market,
Kumasi,
Ghana
THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
worldwide diffusion & marketing of commodities
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THE POSTMODERN ECONOMY
worldwide branding corporate
logos on a par with dominant
symbols of nation-states andreligions
KFC in Seoul
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
breakdown of the exclusive authority of centralized institutions(state, church, universities)
coexistence of multiple authorities, each vying for the
assent of the individual
cultural blending becomes routinefusion cuisine, music,
architecture, religion
the hallmark of the postmodernthe juxtaposition of
culturally disparate elements
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
globalizationawareness everywhere ofother societies and countries
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international patterns of migration transformFirst World societies
THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
new lines of diffusion transform modern
cultures
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
Post-
industrial
Cleveland,
Ohio
new lines of diffusion transform modern
cultures
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERN
juxtaposition of disparate cultural elements
Young
Twareg
nobles,
Algeria
Taman-
ghasset,
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THE POSTMODERN PATTERNreinterpretation of old elements within new patterns
Mt. Shasta,
CA
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IMPLICATIONS OF POSTMODERNITY
FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIETIES AND
CULTURES
1. anthropological authority (along with all other
authorities) in question2. shift to interpretive schemas, situated-knowledge
paradigms
3. whats left of the concept of culture?
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