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1.0 Introduction介绍
随着全球一体化的到来和互联网时代的到来，世界各地的文化交流空前。但是，在交流过程中也存在着一系列的问题，包括不同文化之间的冲突，如强势文化对土著文化的影响，使其面临消亡，传统文化与现代社会文明发展的冲突等。关于科学技术等（Parker，1985，第102-118页）。这些冲突的存在不仅影响着世界上各种文化的和谐共存，也影响着当今文化在新的经济技术条件下得到更好的发展（Parker，1985，第102-118页）。因此，文化研究越来越受到重视。但值得注意的是，关于如何阅读和研究文化，不同的学者提出了不同的理论和研究方法。这些研究理论和方法都有其自身的价值和缺陷。目前，文化研究方法还缺乏黄金标准，这给从事文化研究的人们带来了一定的痛苦。在文化研究理论中，格尔茨（1973b，第3-30页）将文化解释为文本，并用粗描述来解释，这被认为是一种被更多人采用的文化研究理论和方法。本文旨在介绍格尔茨的理论和方法，为研究者采用文化研究方法提供有价值的参考。本文首先介绍了关于文化的定义和如何阅读的争论，其次介绍了格尔茨如何用粗描述来解释文化，最后分析了格尔茨理论和方法的优缺点。
With the advent of global integration and the advent of the Internet era, all cultures in the world have enjoyed unprecedented exchanges. However, there have been a series of problems in the process of exchange, including conflicts between different cultures, such as the impact of strong culture on indigenous cultures, which makes it face demise, the conflict between traditional culture and the development of modern social civilization, science and technology and so on (Parker, 1985, p.102-118). The existence of these conflicts not only affects the harmonious coexistence of various cultures in the world, but also affects the current culture to obtain better development under new economic and technological conditions (Parker, 1985, p.102-118). Therefore, more and more attention has been paid to the study of culture. However, it is worth noting that about how to read and study culture, different scholars have put forward different theories and research methods. Each of these research theories and methods has its own value and defects. At present, there is still a lack of a gold standard on cultural research methods, which gives people engaged in cultural studies some distress. In the theory of cultural studies, Geertz (1973b, p. 3–30) interprets culture as text and uses thick description to interpret it, which is taken as a theory and method of cultural studies adopted by more people. The purpose of this article was to introduce Geertz's theory and method to provide a valuable reference for the researchers to take the method of cultural studies. This article first introduced the dispute about definition of culture and how to read, followed by how Geertz interpreted culture by using thick description, and finally it analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of Geertz's theory and method.
2.0 Main body主体
2.1 Dispute about definition of culture关于文化定义的争议
文化的定义和研究方法主要有两个流派。一个是功能主义学派，另一个是解释人类学学派。前者认为，文化在每一个文明、所有习惯、物质对象、思想和信仰中都起着至关重要的作用，需要完成某些任务，文化满足社会或个人的需要。他们声称使用自然科学方法进行人类学研究（Wood，1981，第65-126页）。学校努力建立“科学人种学”范式，对实地调查方法作出了严格的规定和要求。伍德（1981，第65-126页）认为人类学必须像自然科学一样严谨和透明，就像物理或化学实验一样。实验报告应详细描述所有实验安排，包括所用仪器、观察方法、观察次数、观察时间、每次测量的近似程度等。因此，人们可以分辨出土著人直接观察或解释的材料与作者推断的材料之间的区别。
There are mainly two schools on the definition of culture and research methods of culture. One is the school of functionalism, the other is interpretive anthropology school. The former believes that culture plays a crucial role in every civilization, in all habits, material objects, thinking and beliefs, with certain tasks to be accomplished and in which culture meets the needs of a community or individuals. They claim using natural science methods to carry out anthropological research (Wood, 1981, p.65-126). The school tried hard to establish the paradigm of "scientific ethnography", for which they made strict rules and requirements on field investigation methods. Wood (1981, p. 65-126) believed that anthropology must be as rigorous and transparent as natural sciences, like a physics or chemical experiment. The experimental report should give a detailed description of all the experimental arrangements, including the instruments used, the methods of observation, times of observations, time spent on observation, the approximate degree of each measurement and so on. Thus people can tell the difference between material directly observed or interpreted by indigenous people and the material inferred by an author based on his general knowledge and psychological understanding. That is to say, it should let readers understand that how the material is obtained and the credibility (Hoffman, 2009, p. 417-430).
Interpretive anthropology school puts forward different views on the definition of culture and cultural studies. Geertz (1973b, p.3–30) held that social reality is fundamentally composed of people and their meaningful social behaviors. In Weber's view, social and cultural fields are different from the natural world. Research on social culture should not treated by using the same principles as research on the natural society, the study of natural science discusses its regularity, causal link. The study of social culture involves the study of human being. Human being is an extremely complex subject of study, they have thinking and awareness. Their actions do not follow the laws of nature. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the meaning of people’s actions, from the inner understanding to grasp the meaning of behavior (Parker, 1985, p.102-118).
According to Geertz (1973b, p.3-30), culture is a set of generations-passed concepts that use symbols to communicate, with these symbols, people can exchange, renew and develop their attitudes about life and attitude towards life. The cultural concept Geertz (1973b, p.3-30) advocated is actually a semiotics concept. Gertz's definition of culture is essentially that of Weber’s, Max Weber argues that humans are animals hanging in the net of their own weaves. Geertz agrees and further explains that culture is the meanings net. Moreover, Geertz (1973b, p.3-30) argued that research on culture is not an experimental science that seeks regularity, but an interpretive science that seeks meaning. Thus, Geertz argues that cultural analysis is not an experimental science that seeks regularity, but rather a kind of science of interpretation which explores meaning, what he pursues is analysis and interpretation the mysterious social expression (Parker, 1985, p.121-147).
2.2 Debate on how to read cultural text
Malinowski (1944, p. 88-127) thought that the first task of ethnographic field work is to figure out all the principles and laws of tribal life, to identify those permanent and certain things, analyzing their culture and describing their social structure. Namely, scientific ethnography aims to ultimately seek the laws (Malinowski, 1944, p. 88-127). Geertz (1973b, p.3-30), who belonged to interpretive anthropology school argues that cultural analysis is not an experimental science that explores the laws, but an interpretive science that explores meaning. Such as Geertz's study of Balinese cockfighting, he was not content with his own description of the "cockfighting" game. His further analysis was why Balinese residents were always enthusiastically, often joined in the fighting game, and even disregarding morality condemnation, punishment of the law. Geertz found that in the game, money was not so much a measure of utility, it was about status, fame, honor, dignity, and respect (Geertz, 1973b, p.3-30) Freeman has come to the opposite conclusion to Mead’s, which is a strong response to those who argue that anthropology is an objective and fair cultural description. Driven by Geertz, ethnography no longer advertises science and rationality as the sole guideline for writing, but rather fully comprehends the moral ideals, aesthetic concepts and emotions of indigenous communities and indigenous peoples to deeply understand indigenous peoples' inner world (Geertz, 1973b, p.3-30; Shankman, 1984, p.261-280).
Geertz (1973b, p.3-30) put forward the concept of thick description on how to read and explain culture. The term "thick description" refers to revealing the meaning of his action through the description of the social behavior of a subject (Geertz, 1973b, p.3-30). For example, a person blinks spontaneously, and the other people blinks to send information to his companions. If only the action is described, they are all the same, and the inner meanings of the blinking of the two can not be discerned. However, an in-depth study of the winking behavior requires people to find out the meaning behind their actions, which requires the research approach of thick description (Geertz, 1973b, p.3-30).
Geertz (1973b, p.3-30) believed that ethnography is often used in anthropology, it is an attempt by anthropologists to conduct thick descriptions when studying culture. Anthropological field ethnography is mainly analysis and interpretation of different cultures. This process must be based on the anthropological approach, namely, field investigation. Often it visits field collaborators, observes ceremonies, verifies kinship terms, traces the route to property inheritance and conduct a more in-depth analysis on these field materials (Schneider, 1987, p.809-839). Geertz argued (1973b, p.3-30) that the study of ethnography is not a simple process of reproduction and reflection, but rather understanding and interpreting the deep understanding of a culture and integrates the observer's self-reflection into the understanding and interpretation of different cultures. Geertz (1973b, p.3-30) refers to ethnographic methods to tell the rationality of using thick description in studying and reading. |
