What we call our data are really our own constructions of other peopleβs constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.
Clifford GeertzRead
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
Interpretation
Anthropology blends literary expression with empirical research, highlighting the importance of writing in this field.
In this quote, Geertz addresses the intersection of anthropology and literature, suggesting that while some may see his style as overly literary, the essence of anthropology lies in both the narrative and the research that informs it. He emphasizes that writing is not just a presentation of data, but a critical component of making sense of cultural experiences through the lens of field research.
In practice
This quote can be used in an academic setting to discuss the role of writing in social sciences.
What we call our data are really our own constructions of other peopleβs constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.
The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.
[Culture] denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms, by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.
It may be in the cultural particularities of people β in their oddities β that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.
To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.
Culture is public, because meaning is
Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they're not known for educating large numbers of poor young people.
When I'm writing, I'm never trying to teach anything - maybe I'm trying to illuminate.
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
Education from the lowest to the highest form must have for its object the training of the individual so that, in seeking the fullest satisfaction of his own nature, he will harmoniously perform his function as a member of a corporate society.
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