Clifford Geertz

Question 1

Representative of symbolic and interpretative anthropology

Answer 1

Influence of Weber, focus on interpretive understanding of an act from actors point of view. This focus on meaning specific to time and place is contrasted with casual explanation

Question 2

Webs of significance

Answer 2

Focus on symbols and relations between them. ‘Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of a law but an interpretive one in search of meaning’

Question 3

Thick description

Answer 3

As opposed to thin; a method. Cultural analysis needs to be an interpretative act, what things mean to actors.