Sociologica

Introduction: The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty

Andrea Cossu, Matteo Bortolini — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Introducing the symposium “The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty,” editors Andrea Cossu and Matteo Bortolini reflect on the dynamics of the iconicization of texts and the paradoxical quality of so-called “classics”: their being present while being rewritten and forgotten. A brief illustration of the papers by the contributors to the symposium — Joan W. Scott, Anne Taylor and Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ann Swidler and Ronald Jepperson, Simon Susen, and Monika Krause — completes the introduction.

“Ideology” and After: Reinscribing the Aesthetics of Symbolic Structure in Geertz

Jeffrey C. Alexander, Anne Taylor — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This essay explores the transformational effects that Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures had on the development of a meaning-centered cultural sociology. Though “Deep Play” and “Thick Description” were his most popular essays, we argue that it was “Ideology as a Cultural System” that marked Geertz’s most significant contribution. In response to Parsonian functionalism and conflict theory, Geertz’s emphasis on interpretation — inspired by cutting-edge work in the humanities in the mid-20^th century — brought the relative autonomy of culture back into focus in the human sciences. While considering how “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” and “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” also helped pave the way for a systematic theory of culture, we argue that they also represented a dangerous new tendency in Geertz’s work, namely his refusal to move beyond empirical description. The late resistance to theorizing undercut the purchase of Geertz’s breakthrough ideas for contemporary efforts at socio-cultural explanation.

The Interpretation of Cultures: Geertz Is Still in Town

Simon Susen — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) is widely regarded as one of the most important contributions to the humanities and social sciences in general and anthropology in particular. On its 50^th anniversary, the literature drawing on this monumental work is so vast that it is hard to see how anything of significance may still be added to the wide range of insights gained from the in-depth engagement with its main argument. The noticeable differences in opinion between followers and detractors of Geertz’s project notwithstanding, most commentators will agree that The Interpretation of Cultures, having dominated the agenda of Anglophone anthropology for at least two decades after its publication, has had a major and lasting impact on neighbouring disciplines and subdisciplines — notably sociology, social psychology, politics, history, philosophy, and cultural studies. This paper aims to demonstrate that the key conceptual components of Geertz’s enterprise can be located in his case for an interpretive theory of culture, epitomized in the methodological commitment to providing a ‘thick description’. The first half of this paper comprises an inquiry into the core assumptions underlying Geertz’s defence of this endeavour, before moving, in the second half, to an assessment of some controversial issues arising from his approach.

Interpretation, Explanation and Theories of Meaning

Ann Swidler, Ronald L. Jepperson — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

We use the work of Clifford Geertz to examine long-standing questions about the relationship between interpretation and explanation. We extract from Geertz’s work explanatory theories of what we are calling meaning and meaningfulness. We argue that making explicit interpretivists’ implicit theories about how these differing kinds of cultural experience work clarifies what interpretivists like Geertz are doing, but also allows us to examine the strengths and weaknesses of theories that underlie interpretive practice. We find that Geertz was more of a generalizing theorist of culture than he claimed to be and that the theories he worked with provide fruitful elements for an ongoing, theoretically-guided research program into how culture works.

Interpretation and Critical Classification. Geertzism and Beyond in the Sociology of Culture

Monika Krause — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

How can we explain the success of Geertz’s Interpretation of Cultures in American sociology? On rereading Geertz today, it seems insufficient to point to the limits of Parson’s account of values and the lack of culture elsewhere in the discipline at the time to understand why such relatively concept-free and eclectic essays could become the placeholder for “culture” in some circles. If Geertz was successful partly because of the ambiguity of his work, this ambiguity is not perfectly open. The paper works towards a critical understanding of the celebration of Geertz in sociology in the context of the alternatives occluded within it. It discusses the consequences of an interpretation of “hermeneutics” and “the humanities” that goes back only as far as Dilthey, which ignores alternative, earlier forms of hermeneutics; it also discusses Weber’s position, which was also already an answer to Dilthey. What is at stake is the question as to how interpretation is defined, what it is defined against, and whether and how it is possible to combine interpretation with observation and critique in the sense of situating social phenomena within the range of possibilities for how things could be otherwise.

On Rereading Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures 50 Years after the Fact

Joan W. Scott — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

The essay offers two readings of Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures, one from the author’s perspective in the 1970s and a later one from her thinking in the present. The present thinking, influenced by post-structuralism, questions the sharp distinction between politics and scholarship that Geertz offers in this work.

The Power of Babel: When Misunderstanding can be Productive

Özgecan Koçak, Phanish Puranam — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Misunderstandings often lead to accidents, delays, missed opportunities, waste, and conflict in organizations. However, on occasion, they can also lead to beneficial outcomes, at least for one of the parties involved. Prior scholarship on productive misunderstandings and strategic ambiguity illustrates this with a range of examples in diverse contexts, but there is no coherent framework to understand the conditions under which misunderstandings can be beneficial. This paper elucidates three mechanisms — establishing truce, encouraging search, and creating resonance — through which misunderstandings can create positive outcomes, as well as the different boundary conditions for each mechanism.

Howard Becker: A Sociologist between Worlds and Eras

Ugo Corte — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Howard Becker, one of the most influential and revered sociologists of our time, died on August 16, 2023. His theorizing and methods for doing research have influenced three generations of researchers. He began as an outsider in the field, yet drew people to his approach. This essay is a tribute to his memory.

Beyond the “Dangers of Geertzism.” Giovanni Levi in Conversation with Giovanni Zampieri

Giovanni Zampieri, Giovanni Levi — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

In this interview with Giovanni Zampieri, historian Giovanni Levi reflects on his intellectual career, focusing particularly on the relationship between history, sociology, and interpretive anthropology as practiced by Clifford Geertz. In the interview, Levi elaborates on debates at the intersection of these disciplines concerning comparison and generalization and the relationship between knowledge and language. These themes open new avenues for reflection at the porous borders of history and the social sciences, in continuity with the insights offered by the other contributors to “The Interpretation of Cultures at Fifty”.