Clifford Geertz and the Interpretive Turn in Anthropology: Thick Description and the Semiotic

Approach

Clifford Geertz’s essay “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” (1973) marks a
foundational moment in the development of interpretive anthropology. Departing from earlier
models that treated anthropology as a natural science—most notably those shaped by Bronisław
Malinowski—Geertz proposes that culture should be understood not as a system of observable
behaviors or universal laws, but as a web of meanings. In his own words, inspired by Max Weber,
Geertz writes: “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,” and he
defines culture as those webs. Anthropology, then, is not an experimental science in search of law,
but an interpretive one in search of meaning.

The Semiotic Conception of Culture

Central to Geertz’s project is a semiotic conception of culture. Culture, for Geertz, is composed of
symbols and signs through which people communicate and understand their world. These symbols—
gestures, rituals, language, customs—do not simply reflect reality but constitute it by assigning
meaning. Understanding a culture therefore requires interpreting how people within that culture
produce, negotiate, and live within systems of meaning. This interpretative process is what Geertz
famously terms “thick description.”

The idea of thick description contrasts with “thin description,” which offers a simple factual account
of behavior. For example, a thin description might state that a person rapidly closed one eye, while a
thick description might identify this as a conspiratorial wink, a parody, or a nervous twitch depending
on context. Thick description, then, seeks to embed an action in the layers of meaning and context
that give it significance. This requires ethnographers to consider not just what people do, but what
they mean when they do it.

Ethnography as Interpretation

Geertz emphasizes that ethnography is fundamentally an act of interpretation—and a deeply partial

one at that. The ethnographer does not simply record “facts” but constructs interpretations of other
people’s constructions of what their actions mean. This layered process—what Geertz refers to as
“winks upon winks”—requires close engagement with the symbolic forms people use to make sense
of their lives. A “thick description” captures these interwoven meanings and contextualizes them
socially, culturally, and historically.

One illustrative example Geertz provides is the anecdote of the burglary of Cohen, a Jewish trader in
the Moroccan village of Marmusha. On the surface, the event is a straightforward tale of theft and
revenge. However, a thin description—such as "a sheep raid occurred"—misses the intricate
interplay of Jewish tradition, Berber tribal norms, and French colonial law. A thick description, by
contrast, distinguishes between these multiple frames of interpretation and shows how their
misalignment turned a traditional act of compensation into a political farce. It reveals how Cohen’s
quest for justice was interpreted differently by the Berbers, the French, and himself—each viewing
the same events through incompatible symbolic systems.

The Microscopic Approach and the Limits of Theory

Geertz also emphasizes the microscopic nature of ethnography. Anthropology, he argues, is not
about generalizing from small data points to universal laws. Rather, it is about understanding big
issues through small places. Localized, richly contextualized accounts—such as the Balinese
cockfight or Cohen’s sheep raid—offer insights into broader social dynamics like power, identity, and
colonialism. These small facts, Geertz insists, can speak to large issues, but only if interpreted
properly.

Geertz critiques both the microcosmic model (which sees villages as miniature representations of
larger cultures) and the natural laboratory model (which views field sites as controlled environments
for experimentation). Instead, he argues that interpretation must remain grounded in specific
instances of cultural practice, resisting the temptation to overgeneralize or theorize prematurely.

At the same time, Geertz acknowledges the limits of interpretive theory. The goal of anthropology is
not to generate predictive laws but to expand our understanding of human experience.
Interpretation is inherently open-ended and contestable, and no description is ever final.
Ethnographic knowledge, he argues, grows not cumulatively but by plunging more deeply into
particular cultural contexts.

Critiques and Reflections

Geertz’s interpretive approach has had a profound influence on anthropology, literary studies, and
beyond. However, it has not gone unchallenged. Critics such as Renato Rosaldo argue that Geertz
underemphasizes the role of emotion in cultural life, while others contend that his approach neglects
political structures, power, and change. Scholars like Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson have also
critiqued the notion of the ethnographic “field,” challenging the assumptions of spatial and cultural
boundedness implicit in Geertz’s work.

Despite these critiques, Geertz’s contribution remains foundational. His insistence that culture is
meaning, and that anthropology is a conversation about meanings, shifted the discipline toward a
more reflexive and interpretive practice. In doing so, he provided not a set of rigid methods, but a
vocation—to understand the many ways in which human beings try to make sense of their worlds,
and to make those understandings available to others.

As Geertz himself put it, the task of the anthropologist is not to answer our deepest questions, but to
make available the answers that others have given. Interpretation, for Geertz, is not about closing off
meaning, but about opening up the imaginative universe in which human action becomes
intelligible.

IMP POINTS

In "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture" Geertz outlines four parameters for
an adequate "thick description" and a study of culture:

1. Interpretative study: since anthropology is a semiotic endeavor, cultural analysis should be an

interpretative practice which traces the manner in which meaning is ascribed. The raw observational
material collected by an ethnographer is not sufficient if we are to achieve a thick description of a
culture.

2. The subject of interpretation is the flow of social discourse. Interperative ethnography

according to Geertz should produce the codes required for decoding social events.

3. Interpretation deals with extrovert expressions. Data collection and interpretation are limited
to what local informants can tell us. Therefore the thickest of descriptions can only be based on
extrovert expressions of culture.
4. Ethnographic description is microscopic. According to Geertz ethnographic findings describe
local behaviors and truths as serve as an ethnographical miniature. We always view specific and
contextualized happenings, and these make up the thick description.