Geertz

Geertz

1. Ethnography defined

   • "The scientific description of peoples and culture" Oxford Uni
   • "Study and systematic recording of human cultures" Merriam-Webster
   • "Literally 'writing about people'... fieldwork" Barnard 2000
   • "Understanding another way of life from the native point of view" Spradley 1980

2. Regarding definitions

   • Not culture or society
     • NOT a person and his/her thoughts/experiences
       • RATHER systematic relationship between persons and beliefs they share
   • Knowledge of a culture of society and its description
     • Written description
   • Various methodological strategies
     • Principle: participant-observation

3. "Native point of view" as per Spradley

   • "Goal... grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life... his vision of his world... what concerns him the most" Malinowski 1922
   • A question of understanding
     • How do we know NPOW?
       • A question of translation - share?
   • "The ethnographer is... a translator of strange ideas, customs. The danger is... [we] turn them into pale carbon copies of his own culture" Bohannan 1963

4. The culture concept - a theoretical side

   • "A semiotic one" Geertz 1973
     • "The analysis to be... an interpretive one in search of meaning" Geertz 1973
       • As people we have the capacity to make our world meaningful - and to communicate meaning
       • Social process = varies between groups
       • Not individual experience but "webs of significance" according to meaning of common experience
         • E.g. difference of twitching and winking metaphor

5. Thick description as interpretation

   • "In the study of culture, analysis penetrates into the very body of the object that it is we begin with our own interpretation" Geertz 1973
   • "Anthrpological writings are themselves interpretations" Geertz 1973
   • Not experiments
   • Not about collecting data then analysing that data (writing) RATHER analysis is inherent in the very process of collection

6. Knowing culture whilst being an 'outsider'

   • People who do not live in that culture cannot know that culture
   • "No complete way to misunderstand a foreign civilisation than to see it in terms of one's own civilisation" Bohannah 1963
     • E.g. white residents in Triobriands - Malinowski 1922
   • Two implications
     • We - as outsiders - tend to view the significance of other peoples lives in our own cultural terms
     • Only by being/living in a culture do we see its significance on lives it effects

7. Knowing culture: being an "Insider"

   • People who live a culture often do not know its a culture
     • "The natives obey... they do not comprehend them [rules]" Malinowski 1922
   • Methods which depend on informal (Spradley 1980) self-reflexively representing their cultural knowledge = insufficient
   • One must retain the position of an 'outsider' to describe culture
   • The professional stranger (Geertz)
     • Not seeking to become or mimic natives
       • P-O: Insider P, Outsider O
       • Sympathetic insight
         • Become uncultured
         • True to themselves