The Interpretation of Cultures

Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) is regarded as one of the most influential and transformative scholars in the field of cultural anthropology. His work in the latter half of the 20th century “revived and transformed the anthropological concept of culture in such a way as to make evident its relevance to a range of humanistic disciplines” and “constructed an important alternative to the then-ascendant scientism of the social sciences” (“Clifford Geertz: Life.” Institute for Advanced Study, 2022. https://www.ias.edu/geertz-life.). Geertz entered the social sciences during an increasing acceptance of multidisciplinary work and projects, and amidst debate about questions of objectivity in the field.

Geertz helped reposition anthropology to a central location in the social sciences, an aim that comes through clearly in The Interpretation of Cultures, which, after noting that anthropology is considered a mere data-gathering discipline, at best tangential to theory construction, endeavors to demonstrate that the study of culture through anthropological methods provides valuable insight to other social science fields and constructs theory out of those specificities and method. To reposition anthropology in this way, Geertz redefined the field of interpretive social science:

Early in his career, Geertz critiqued the scientific models widely used in the social sciences.