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Development Team Paper No. : 10 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Module : 18 Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Development Team Principal Investigator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Paper Coordinator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Sarika Negi Content Writer Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Prof. Subir Biswas, Department of Anthropology, West Content Reviewer Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal 1 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Anthropology Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Description of Module Subject Name Anthropology Paper Name 10 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Module Name/Title Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Module Id 18 2 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Anthropology Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Contents Introduction 1. History Of The Interpretive Research Tradition 2. Interpretive Anthropology 2.1 Geertzian Anthropology 2.2 Turner’s Anthropology 3. A Critical Perspective on Interpretative Anthropology 3.1 Objectification of researcher 3.2 Causality and Interpretation of culture 3.3 Validation in the interpretive anthropology 4. Recent trends in Cognitive anthropology Summary Learning Outcomes To develop an understanding about the concept of interpretive and symbolic Anthropology To know about the contribution of various scholars to the concept To be able to critically analyze the topic To know about the recent trends in Cognitive Anthropology 3 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Anthropology Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Introduction The anthropological studies seeks aspects of social structure & the analogy involved, which has been taken to the area of understanding of people’s action and how the structure has been placed with the help of symbols and decoding their meaning understood by a shared understanding of the people. It has been quoted in anthropological language “reading between lines”, mean interpreting underlying ‘meaning or message’ (understanding the social code underlying those actions). The interpretive theorists believed that, reality is not ‘out there’ but in people’s mind and the reality is experienced internally, constructed in social realm through interaction and interpreted by the actors, and is based on the definition people attach to it. The primary desire of present Ethnographic approach is to outline the ‘native point of view’ and to explain how different ‘cultural design of reality’ affects ‘social action’. It emphasizes on the peoples’ shared understanding of their own culture, how they locate their own self in it and their experiences. The culture is attributed to the agglomeration of symbols having particular meaning and which is interpreted via actors and therefore interpretive can be understood as study of actor-centred action. In anthropological literature Geertz was the leading figure in Interpretive Anthropology, he considered the concept of culture essentially, ‘Semiotic’ one, i.e. symbolic. Interpretive anthropology is referred as Symbolic Anthropology as well. It has two lines running parallel to each other headed by two different leaders inheriting ideas from different ideals. Symbolic anthropology is led by both, Clifford Geertz and Victor Turner, Geertz was influenced by Max Weber and Turner was influenced by Durkheim. 1. HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH TRADITION It grew out of convergence of disciplines such as philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethno- methodology and sociology. The interpretive social science can be related to the work of Giovanni Batista Vico (1668-1744), Dilthey (1833-1911) and most of all of Weber (1864-1920). In his work Vico consciously developed his idea of scienza (science or knowledge) in opposition to Descartes’ philosophy, the most basic idea from which all knowledge could be derived by way of deductive rules. Vico criticized it in a way that it renders phenomena which cannot be expressed logically or mathematically as illusions of one sort or another. He argued that, complete knowledge of any thing involves ‘how it came to be’, ‘what it is’ as a ‘result of human action’ and the principle attribute of human beings. He is relatively unrecognized for his ideas but, cannot be denied credit for developing vision of human centred phenomena and explanation of these. He emphasized on the cause of phenomena which is a step towards producing a theory. His ideas penetrated in social sciences directly or indirectly in one or the other way. 4 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Anthropology Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology Interpretive drew ideas from hermeneutics too; a prominent figure who made contribution towards the present context was Dilthey who was a historian cum sociologist cum hermeneutic philosopher. Dilthey proposed that the human being live in a web having meanings and that they make these webs them self and to study human we need to comprehend those webs. He is the one who distinguished between human science (Geisteswissenschaften) and natural science (Naturwissenschaften) and also suggested for implementation of hermeneutic methodology to social sciences. Hermeneutics is a subject directed study, drawn from word “Hermes “, a Greek god who was given the job of delivering and interpreting the messages of the other gods for humans. From this came the word ‘Hermeneus’ or ‘interpreter’. The hermeneutic as an ideology came into the social sciences with the close and careful study of all free flowing texts. The hermeneutic approach stress (1) on myths or narrative having meaning in a collective consciousness of the society in sense or knowledge of culture (2) it is the job of social researcher to discover those meaning (3) an acknowledgment to that, the meaning can change with time and can also be different for groups or sub-groups with in a society. In sociology as well Ethno methodology emerged as a critique methodology of conventional sociology which was founded by Harold Garfinkel, a sociologist. Garfinkel wrote ‘Studies in Ethno methodology’ in 1967 in which he showed concern for the methodological problems in understanding of social order. He cited Ethno methodology as the investigation of logical properties of indexical expressions and other practical actions as cause of on -going achievement of organized practices of everyday life. The indirect influence from Durkheim can be traced when, Garfinkel, talks of expression and actions in a relation to the collectively of people. He explained the concept of ‘common culture’ as socially approved ground of inference and action that people use in their everyday affairs and which are assumed by actors as in common or used by others in the same way and these approved facts consists of explanations from the point of view of the members in collective manner. Garfinkel was majorly influenced by Alfred Schutz, whose worked to bridged traditions, sociology and phenomenology but, Garfinkel never denied of ideas brought from sociologists like Talcott Parsons (action theory), who in turn was admirer of sociologist like Max Weber and Durkheim (collective consciousness) and phenomenologist’s like Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Although interpretivism differed from phenomenology but, phenomenology has contribution in developing this theoretical perspective. In sociological tradition, it was Max Weber whose approach of ‘Verstehen’, was taken up even in Hermeneutics and other sciences, which is deciphered as ‘understanding’. He held a prominent figure in relation to interpretivism as developed interpretive sociology. It was Weber and his followers who gradually took forth the idea of understanding texts to understanding actors and their social life in general. Weber’s idea was that, man is an animal suspended in the webs of significance, which was adopted by Geertz therefore only he was the one taking culture as webs and he propounded use of 5 Theories and methods in social and cultural Anthropology Anthropology Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology interpretive analysis instead of experimental science for examining such webs of significance. Weber in 1978 said that, ‘sociology is a science concerning itself with the interpretative understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences… speak of action insofar as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning to his behaviour (Keyes, 2002). 2. Interpretive Anthropology: Interpretivism in anthropological historical discourse was used by Evans Pritchard when he wrote literature on Nuer Religion but, the flagship went to Geertz as this tradition is best reflected in his work and is pursued in his every piece of work. In the anthropological writing a paradigm shift could be observed with Pritchard but, became very much visible with Geertzian ideas and work. His work ‘The Interpretation of Culture’ came in 19th year when Pritchard passed and became a landmark in the interpretive anthropology. Geertz’s work is often seen as a reaction to the disappointment with Levi Strauss’s work on meaning, where contrast between characters of culture was covered and not on the meaning. 2.1 Geertzian Anthropology Clifford Geertz proposed interpretative analysis in order to study culture and the webs of significance. He utilized Gilbert Ryle’s’ notion of “Thick Description” to define the original aim of anthropology. In actual sense, Ryle’s example of
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