Thick description

Thick description is a system developed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz American theoretical concept for understanding a culture.

Starting from a critique of the eclecticism of the culture concept developed Geertz the thick description as a special form of mental effort in the context of interpretive anthropology. This mental effort refers primarily to the fact that the researcher receives with its own role and approach to the description and interpretation. There are according to Geertz no "pure" data, but this data our expectations and our background knowledge have always been included. Although the anthropologist collects a lot of data, however, must not give the impression that the collection of data is the main task of the ethnologist, it is rather the interpretation of these data and artifacts.

Ethnology means for Geertz always a thick description. The aim of anthropology is the extension of human discourse universe with him. A thick description does not aim to arrive at general statements that refer to different cases, but only be attempted generalizations in the context of the individual case. The ethnographic analysis suggests the flow of social discourse. The interpretation is to snatch what is said of the transience of the moment.

The task of the anthropologist is by Geertz one hand in uncovering presentation structures that govern the actions of the subjects in each context and the other in the development of an analytical concept system that is capable of producing the typical properties of the structures in relation to other determinants of human behavior. Geertz developed the thick description based on a semiotic concept of culture.