Theoretical background for Russian Talk (anth3100a)
Roots of
symbolic anthropology (UK)
interpretative anthropology (US)
Neo-Kantian philosophy of
Wilhelm Dilthey & co
Natural sciences versus social sciences
(naturwissenschaften- geisteswissenschaften)
natural sciences deal with entities amenable to generalizations
social sciences deal with "mental" entities (individual and group)
Edmund Husserl
Natural science is unsuitable for the study of cultural life.
Cultural life has meaning (meaning can be understood subjectively as a "lived
experience").
Symbolic and interpretative anthropology
Social and cultural worlds are held together by interpenetrating networks of
symbols, each of which is a carrier of cultural meaning.
Clifford Geertz (b. 1926)
Develops his own semiotic theory of culture (which depended on the social
circulation and ritual performance of symbols).

Semiotic: Pertaining to the relationship between symbols and what they
represent.
Geertz - inspired by Max Weber (vs. Victor Turner inspired by Durkheim)
Emphasis on meaning versus structure.

Core of culture is a set of integrated moral values that preserve the
correspondence of the world "as it is" with the world :as it should be".

Interpretative anthropologist aims to show how lived experience is
integrated in a coherent, public system of symbols that both renders the
world intelligible, and seems uniquely suited to do so.

Thick description: the process of interpreting culture as text (i.e. fine
details of human life that make their behaviour intelligible).
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