The Approach of Interpretive Anthropology - Research Paper Example

 The Approach of Interpretive Anthropology Introduction Interpretive anthropology denotes the precise method used in ethnographic writing and practice that is interconnected with other viewpoints developed in sociocultural anthropology during the Vietnam war, the colonization movement as well as the Cold War (Klenke, 2008, p. 200). It is a viewpoint that was created by Clifford Geertz as a reaction to the traditional objectivized ethnographic position that dominated anthropology at the time, as well as calls for epistemology and writing methodologies that enable anthropologists to interpret cultures through understanding the manner in which people in a culture interpret themselves and their personal experiences. Geertz proposed that culture is a complicated collection of texts that constitute various meanings, with the meanings being comprehended by the actors and are consequently construed by anthropologists in a manner in which sections of a text are understood by literacy detractors. This is done through integrating into the analysis the contexts of the attendant, which provide the possibility of meaning for all the people involved in the interpreting. Geertz was against the widespread ethnographic practices of observations and instead supported active integration of the anthropologists in an ethnographic context. In this manner, interpretive anthropology considered Malinowski’s claims of disconnected and impartial observation that had been the approach to anthropology up to the sixties and in a remarkable twist returned ethnographic practices to the German epistemological genealogy that had been recognized by Franz Boas. Therefore, in disapproval of the standpoint taken by Malinowski in the way he describe sexual activities among the savages, Geertz suggested Boasian deep involvement in the cultural activity. Even though it is intellectually connected to the anthropology of experience suggested by Victor Turner, cognitive anthropology that was established by Steven Tyler along with symbolic anthropology by David Schneider, interpretive anthropology addressed the intellectual developments outside the context of anthropology that took part in figurations through which local structures if meaning were analyzed anthropologically. Symbolic and interpretive Anthropology In theory, the school of symbolic and interpretive anthropology postulates that culture cannot exist past individuals; instead, culture is inherent in the interpretations of the occurrences and things around the individual. While referring to symbols and signs that are established socially, people influence their Behavioral patterns while at the same time affording meanings to the experiences they face. Thus, the objective of interpretive anthropology is to assess the manner in which individuals afford meanings to their realities and how these realities are expressed through their cultural symbols. Symbolic and interpretive anthropology was established in the sixties, by Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner and David Schneider who were at the University of Chicago and it continues to be influential (Hadder, 2007, p. 144). Interpretive anthropology deviates from the model of physical sciences that emphasizes on practical material aspects while being based on literature. However, this does not imply that interpretive anthropology does not entail fieldwork but refers to the act of drawing on literature that is not of an anthropological nature as the main source of its data. Interpretive anthropologists perceive culture as a mental aspect and discard the notion that culture can be modelled mathematically or logically. When studying symbolic actions in various cultures, interpretive anthropologists utilize a variety of instruments that range from literature, to history and psychology. This approach has been critiqued for lacking an objective method, as it appears to allow analysts to perceive meanings in the ways they want to. Regardless of this denigration, interpretive anthropology has obligated anthropologists to have an awareness of cultural texts they infer as ethnographic as well as the ethnographic texts they develop. So that they can function as intercultural, anthropologists are supposed to have an awareness of their personal biases and other cultures they study. The British school of thought of interpretive anthropology is concerned in the manner in which societies remain cohesive and demonstrated by the work of Mary Douglas and Victor Turner. On the other hand, Clifford Geertz and Sherry Ortner have illustrated the American school that emphasized on the manner in which ideas shape the actions and subjectivities of individuals. A significant contribution of interpretive anthropologists, especially Clifford Geertz, is the idea of thick description that inspires rich portrayals and elucidations of conduct with an end objective of understanding the importance of culture. Geertz copied this theory from Gilbert Ryle who is an Oxford philosopher with the characteristic examples of thick description being the dissimilarity between blinking and winking (Rapport and Overing, 2000, p. 349). A blink is considered as an instinctive twitch while winking is a conspiratorial gesture to another individual where these are identical physical movements with different connotations. Thick description In philosophy and anthropology, thick descriptions are an account that describe actions within their first contexts and is a concept that initially utilized by Gilbert Ryle and later borrowed Clifford Geertz. The concept of thick description is usually used in qualitative fields to provide greater meanings to reports as it copiously positions the reader and the writer in the area of study. In Geertz’s case, the concept is more nuanced and any ethnography is through its characteristics a thick description since accounts consist of various levels of cultural importance and value (Thomas, 2000, p. 475). Data associated with anthropological writing is completely wound up in its context and the functions of ethnographers include elucidating this context making the concept of thick description a fundamental component of anthropology. Dissimilarity between wink and twitch The original characterization by Gilbert Ryle, which is similar to numerous other thick description characterizations, puts thin description against thick description where the former is an action that is removed from its context or a naked slice of conduct that is removed from rich social context where it occurred devoid of meaning. A thick description of an act entails heaping layers of meaning and applying context on thin description so that is can be understood. On the other hand, thick description brings together a sandwich of importance, which with every layer; goes nearer to a precise account of an object or an action. He makes use of the examples of a boy, who is winking, with the thinnest description of this action being that the boy is tensing and relaxing muscles on his right eye rapidly. This is an accurate description, but it continues to miss the denotation of the action. In this vivid depiction of a closing eye, there is no means of distinguishing between twitches and winks. Through additions of layers of description, the observer is able to create a context and becomes aware that the tensing of the eye was a deliberate action that was directed at another individual and that it indicated involvement. With this piled levels of description, the depiction creates a richer representation where a twitch may be considered as a certain wink. Moreover, these layers are not distinct actions, as they are layers that are supposed to be piled on an action so that it can be perceived as a wink. Therefore, thick descriptions provide multiple layers of one complicated action. Gilbert Ryle employs the theory of thick description as a means of opening up languages that are used in descriptions of thought and unpacking mental actions through making their descriptions thicker (Ruttan, 2003, p. 51). This concept has been eventually introduced into social science, where it remains fundamental to the theories of the assessment of contexts. The work of anthropologists and thick description Clifford Geertz borrowed the thick description developed by Ryle Gilbert Ryle, which he utilized in his own context and this emphasis in context works especially well with Geertz own comprehension of culture. As an interworked structure of construable signs, culture cannot be considered as power or an aspect to which social occurrences, conduct or processes may be informally ascribed, it is a framework that can be used to comprehensibly describe them. If culture is considered as a context, the thick description can be a means of accounting for actions as well as the actions that inform them. This form of portrayal is fundamental to anthropology whereby culturally placed activities are the principal data, thus the work of the ethnographer is comprehending the cultural position (Clark, 2004, p. 76). This therefore makes ethnography thick description, and the ethnographer experiences complicated conceptual systems, most of them are overlaid on each other. Thick description is comprised of the key components of anthropology as it allows anthropologists to get culture, and as a result, Ryle and Geertz approach the subject from two different perspectives. When Ryle is considering that layers can be added to thin description in the same way as a sandwich, Geertz attempts to understand this aspect. The descriptions faced by anthropologists are usually thick and their work entails extraction of information concerning culture from the basic thick descriptions that are offered by ethnographic data. Through thick description, Geertz directs the emphasis of ethnography from organization and cataloguing of actions to comprehension of their denotations. Cultural analysis entails deducing meanings, assessment of guesses as well as drawing descriptive conclusions from the best guesses. In Gilbert Ryle’s view, a description can become substantially thick and completely contextualized, but Geertz states that context is not an aspect that can be defined in its totality. Culture is a complicated phenomenon, and the context it allows for action is challenging to pinpoint making cultural analysis essentially incomplete and descriptions can be substantially thickened, but there are other additional levels of explanations. Culture should be interpreted as a web of symbols through isolations of its elements, specification of the internal connections among the elements and characterizing the entire structure in a general manner based on the key symbols that inform its organization, the fundamental systems that express its surface or the conceptual ideologies on which it is founded. It is however important to remain careful as some hermetical methods could essentially create a separation from the appropriate object of culture analysis, which is actual life’s informal logic (Sarat and Simon, 2003, p. 56). By definition, ethnography is thick description and through the example of winking, Geertz assesses the manner in which twitching can be differentiated from social gestures like winking. This makes it imperative to move past action to specific social comprehension of winking as a gesture, what the person who is winking is thinking about, the audience and how they understand the action of winking. Winking is thin description while thick is the meaning that informs it and its representative import between communicators or in the society. Conclusion Clifford Geertz established interpretative anthropology though his book The Interpretation of Culture that described culture as a structure of connotations in regards to which individuals inferred their experiences and influenced their actions. The way to comprehend these connotations was to stimulate the complete variety of associations that originate from occurrences and objects. Culture was considered as a system of collective symbols with connotations created by the implications they accumulate in their day-to-day life. These systems of meanings assist in locating personal experiences in some form of structure and provide an explanation of it. A well-known example that was utilized by Geertz was derived from Gilbert Ryle, which is a wink and a twitch, which is an involuntary movement in the eye, as physically identical occurrences; however, one is inherent with code denotations while the other is not designed to express any message. Interpretive anthropology borrows from hermeneutic inclinations as far as philosophy is concerned and in anthropology, hermeneutics addresses the role of the part of the observer in regards to interpreting knowledge. Among the concerns raised by Geertz was the manner in which to avoid imposing external meanings. Regardless of the intricacy of cultural systems, Geertz perceived them as to responsive interpretation and by concentrating more on the elucidations given by the locals; he was able to synthesize the two perspectives. Interpretive anthropology has resulted in an increase in interest in insider explanations over theorization of outsider anthropologists with initial functional assessment tending to force its own simulations on societies being studied. Interpretive anthropology underscored tangible portrayals and the importance of the precise terms used as well as the manner in which they could be translated in to terms which can be understood by the culture of the anthropologists without distorting local understandings. In spite of this, detractors have developed the argument that emphasizing on local perceptions remains challenging if culture is regarded as a uniform whole. Bibliography Clark, E. 2004, History, theory, text, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Hadder, R. 2007, Apparitions of difference, University of Texas, [Austin, Tex. Klenke, K. 2008, Qualitative research in the study of leadership, Emerald Group Pub, Bingley, UK. Rapport, N. and Overing, J. 2000, Social and cultural anthropology, Routledge, London. Ruttan, V. 2003, Social science knowledge and economic development, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Sarat, A. and Simon, J. 2003, Cultural analysis, cultural studies, and the law, Duke University Press, Durham. Thomas, J. 2000, Interpretive archaeology, Leicester University Press, London. Read More