Overview

In the 1960s and 70s, anthropology shifted. Instead of looking at function (what does this do?), it started looking at meaning (what does this say?). Clifford Geertz, the father of this movement, famously said: “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” Culture is that web.

Core Idea

The core idea is Culture as Text. You read a ritual like you read a poem. It has metaphors, layers, and ambiguities. A cockfight in Bali isn’t just chickens fighting; it’s a story the Balinese tell themselves about status, masculinity, and violence.

Formal Definition

A theoretical school that focuses on understanding culture by discovering and analyzing the symbols that are most important to its members. It emphasizes Thick Description and Hermeneutics.

Intuition

If you see a man wink, physically it is just a contraction of the eyelid. That is “Thin Description.” But if you know he is winking to signal a joke to a friend, mocking a third person, in a specific social context—that is “Thick Description.” Symbolic anthropology is entirely about the wink, not the twitch. It seeks the “native’s point of view” on what the wink means.

Examples

  • The Balinese Cockfight: Geertz’s essay “Deep Play” analyzes the cockfight. He shows that the men identify with their roosters. The fight is a dramatization of status rivalry. It is “a story they tell themselves about themselves.”
  • Ndembu Rituals: Victor Turner analyzed the “Milk Tree” used in Ndembu initiation. He showed it had multiple, contradictory meanings (breast milk, matrilineal descent, unity, conflict) depending on the context. Symbols are “multivocal” (they speak with many voices).
  • Purity and Danger: Mary Douglas analyzed the dietary laws of Leviticus (why no pork?) as a symbolic system of order and boundaries, not hygiene.

Common Misconceptions

  • It’s just guessing: Critics argue it is too literary and subjective. If I interpret the cockfight one way and you interpret it another, who is right? Geertz would say: the one who makes the most sense of the most details.
  • It ignores power: By focusing on symbols and shared meaning, it can ignore the hard reality of economic exploitation and political power (Marxist critique).
  • Semiotics: The science of signs (Saussure). Symbolic anthropology applies semiotics to culture.
  • Hermeneutics: The philosophy of interpretation (Gadamer). Geertz brought this into anthropology.
  • Thick Description: The method of describing behavior with enough context that it becomes meaningful to an outsider.

Applications

  • Brand Strategy: Marketers use symbolic anthropology to understand the “meaning” of a brand (e.g., Coke = happiness/America) and how it fits into the cultural web.
  • Organizational Culture: Understanding the rituals and symbols of a corporation (the corner office, the casual Friday) to manage change.

Criticism / Limitations

  • Subjectivity: It relies heavily on the literary talent of the anthropologist. A good writer can make a convincing interpretation that might be wrong.
  • Mentalism: It focuses on what is in people’s heads (symbols) rather than what is in their stomachs (material conditions).

Further Reading

  • Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. 1973.
  • Turner, Victor. The Forest of Symbols. 1967.
  • Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols. 1970.