Thick description

In the social science fields of anthropology, sociology, history, religious studies, human-centered design and organizational development, a thick description results from a scientific observation of any particular human behavior that describes not just the behavior, but its context as well, so that the behavior can be better understood by an outsider. A thick description typically adds a record of subjective explanations and meanings provided by the people engaged in the behaviors, making the collected data of greater value for studies by other social scientists.

The term was introduced by the 20th-century philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976). Anthropologist Clifford Geertz later developed the concept in his The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) to characterise his own method of doing ethnography (Geertz 1973:5-6, 9-10). Since then, the term and the methodology it represents has gained currency in the social sciences and beyond. Today, "thick description" is used in a variety of fields, including the type of literary criticism known as New Historicism.

In his essay "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture" (1973), Geertz explains that he adopted the term from philosopher Gilbert Ryle, specifically his lecture "What is le Penseur doing?"

Adoption

Geertz's "thick description" approach has become increasingly recognized as a method of symbolic anthropology, enlisted as a working antidote to overly technocratic, mechanistic means of understanding cultures, organizations, and historical settings.

Influenced by Gilbert Ryle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Max Weber, Paul Ricoeur, and Alfred Schütz, the method of descriptive ethnography that came to be associated with Geertz is credited with resuscitating field research from an endeavor of ongoing objectification—the focus of research being "out there"—to a more immediate undertaking, where participant observation embeds the researcher in the enactment of the settings being reported (For critique, see e.g. Munson 1986).

Geertz is revered for his pioneering field methods and clear, accessible prose writing style (compare Robinson's [1983] critique). He was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

See also

• Contextualism
• Cultural studies
• Indexicality

References

Bibliography

• Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture". In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 3-30.
• McCloskey, Deirdre. "Thick and Thin Methodologies in the History of Economic Thought". In The Popperian Legacy in Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. 245-57.
• Munson, Henry 1986 "Geertz on Religion: The Theory and the Practice". Religion 16: 19-32.
• Robinson, Paul 1983 "From Suttee to Baseball to Cockfighting". The New York Times September 25, 1983.

External links

• Robinson, Paul [1]
• Ryle, Gilbert. What is le Penseur doing? — lecture by Ryle (1971), and later published in his collected papers.