Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology

 Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology is the study of symbols in their social and cultural context, which was brought about in the 1960s and progressed through the 1970s. These symbols are generally publically shared and recognized by many and could be words, customs, or rituals. Symbolic Anthropologists describe and interpret symbolic meaning in emic terms meaning that they interpret the symbols in the context of the culture that they are studying. A symbolic anthropologist believes that culture can be found in the public performance of symbolic systems and that there is generally a response to these symbols. Symbolic Anthropology was created in contrast to structuralism.12

          Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology states that symbols are learned and shared. This means that most symbols can be recognized by the people in that culture and often by people in other cultures. It also states that symbols are vehicles of culture, meaning they hold cultural meaning and significance. Symbols also transmit meaning and communicate ways that people should view the world and feel about the world. 

          Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) the main key figure of Interpretive Anthropology, was considered to be the world’s most influential anthropologist of the second half of the 21stcentury.3Geertz argues in Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology that "culture is not a model inside people's heads but rather is embodied in public symbols and actions".4 Geertz also focuses on the meaning of the symbols: "Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take cultures to be those webs, the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning"

Victor Turner is the main key figure of Symbolic Anthropology who "approached symbolic analysis from a different angle".8 Turner "examined symbols as mechanisms for the maintenance of society"9 vs Geertz who looks at cultural symbols in order to see a worldview of a society. Turner did not follow Geertz's thick description, instead "he believed that the interpretation of ritual symbols could be derived from three classes of data: (1) external form and observable characteristics, (2) the interpretations of specialists and laymen within the society and (3) deduction from specific contexts by the anthropologist".10 This is seen to be a combination of both emic and etic descriptions.

          Turner believed "Ritual symbols were the primary tools through which social order was renewed"11 which is similar to what Clifford Geertz's student Sherry Ortner then went on to study. Ortner was also a very big contributor to Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology with her first book, Sherpa Through Their Rituals published in 1978. In this book Ortner maps out a few rites which are related to the field of Symbolic and Interpretive anthropology. The first of these rites is the rite of atonement which is a rite used to bring back together the family and the symbols of the family after someone or thing has been hindered by sin. The second rite is the rite of exorcism which is a right that takes are persons from poverty, meaning they have no value in their life currently and are unaffiliated with the community, and resores them to wealth, meaning they are being brought back into the community. The third and final rite is the rite of hospitality which is a rite that incorporated symbols of power, authority and order into how you would treat someone if they were to come to your home or present themselves to you . Ortner's concluding point that she presented in her book was, "the symbols of rituals lead us toward discovery of structural conflict, contradiction, and stress in the wider social and cultural world".These rites are specifically important within Symbolic and Interpretive anthropology because all rites are designed to fix something or to make sure something stays the same.