CULTURAL

ANTHROPOLOGY
SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Dilemma for anthropologists
Interpreting Meaning
Do categories organizing life for Europeans and
Americans have equivalents in other societies. e.g.
Ancestor worship
is this Religion, Kinship or Social Organization?
and if angering the ancestors results in punishing the
living, is this Law?


KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM

Malinowskis belief : the ethnographers primary
task

is to grasp the natives point of view,
his relation to life, to realize his vision
of his world
(Malinowski, 1922, p. 25)

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Language important to discuss issues and world views of
the people under consideration.
Since 1970s Interpretive Anthropology Approach:

describing and interpreting what is meaningful to
natives
cultures as texts whose forms, and particularly
meaning, must be read and deciphered in specific
historical and cultural contexts.

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Definition of culture
Ideas based on cultural learning
and symbols.
Enculturation involves the
individualization of previously
established system of meanings
and symbols.
Cultural system defines their
world, expresses their feelings
and helps making judgments.

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
THICK DESCRIPTION
(Geertz, 1975)

Guides methodological
approach for
interpretive
anthropology
Thick Description is
delving below the
surface of customs and
events to detect
deeper levels of
signification
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Contraction of one eye
Q1 Is the action a wink or twitch?
If a twitch = action is unconscious
If a wink = action is conscious
Q2 What does the wink mean?
Flirtation?
Acknowledging a shared secret?
Prearranged signal?
A gesture of disrespect?

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Aim of Thick Description = to account for
meanings as accurately as possible

View focuses on symbols, or meanings attached to
actions, things, experiences
These are under constant renegotiation and
reinterpretation
They are also implicit and shared between
participants.

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
According to Geertz :
anthropologists can choose anything in a culture that
interests or engages them, fill in the details, and
elaborate to inform their readers about meanings in
that culture. Meanings are carried by public
symbolic forms, including words, rituals, customs

BUT The interpretations of outsiders remains
contestable.


KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
VICTOR WITTER TURNER
British cultural anthropologist
Best known for work on
symbols, rituals, rites of
passage

Symbolic or Interpretive
anthropology
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
TURNERS WORK
Exploration of rituals and
concern with conflict
Created the new concept of
Social Drama to account for
the symbolism of conflict
and crisis resolution
among Ndembu villagers in
Northern Rhodesia
(Zimbabwe)
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
According to Turner,
Ritual is
"a stereotyped sequence of activities involving
gestures, words, and objects, performed in a
sequestered place, and designed to influence
preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the
actors' goals and interests"

(Turner 1977:183)

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Life-crisis rituals / Rites de Passage
Mark the transition of one phase of a persons
physical or social development to another phase
e.g. birth, puberty, or death
Among the Ndembu = initiation ceremonies for boys
and girls, and funeral rites. Rituals of affliction were
performed for individuals described as "caught" by
the spirits of deceased relatives whom they had
forgotten or neglected.

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Turner recognised connections between :
symbolic anthropology
the study of symbols in their social & cultural context other
fields e.g. psychology, social psychology & psychoanalysis.

Sigmund Freuds psychoanalysis : symbols had meaning for
individuals emerging during analysis & interpretation of
their dreams.

Q: Is anthropology a science or branch of the humanities?

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Lets try to Interpret the meanings behind
Body Art or Tattooing
? Form of body modification, made by the
insertion of indelible ink into the dermis skin to
change the pigment.
The Oxford English Dictionary : derives from the
Tahitian 18
th
Century word tatu. The
pronunciation was changed to conform to
English phonology as "tattoo
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Interpret photograph 1

Where and Who?
Why?
Stylised / Random?
Explicit / Implicit?



KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Interpret photograph 2

Where and Who?
Why?
Stylised / Random?
Explicit / Implicit?


KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Interpret photograph 3

Where and Who?
Why?
Stylised / Random?
Explicit / Implicit?

KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Interpret photograph 4

Where and Who?
Why?
Stylised / Random?
Explicit / Implicit?
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM
Interpret photograph 5

Where and Who?
Why?
Stylised / Random?
Explicit / Implicit?
KEY CONCEPT SIX : INTERPRETIVISM

Tattoos as symbolic forms

5 images of tattoos show:

The social and cultural context of their
application affects Meaning and Interpretation
References

Kottak, C.P. (2009). Anthropology: the exploration of
human diversity. 13
th
ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific.
New York:Dutton
Perry, R.J. (2003). Five Concepts in Anthropological
Thinking. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice-Hall
Turner, V. (1977) Symbols in African ritual. In Symbolic
anthropology: A reader in the study of symbols and
meanings, edited by J. L. Dolgin, D. S. Kemnitzer and D.
M. Schneider, 183-194. New York: Columbia University
Press.


Conclusion of Interpretivism, thank you