thick description
Rich contextual interpretation
Thick description is an anthropological term for detailed, context-rich accounts of human behavior that interpret not just actions but their meanings within a culture.
Coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle and popularized by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, it contrasts with thin description—mere observation of what happens.
A thick description of a wink would explain whether it's a conspiratorial signal, a flirtation, or a nervous tic: Her ethnography offered thick description of village funeral rites, revealing how mourners' gestures encoded social hierarchies.
- ethnographySystematic study of peoples
- anthropologyStudy of human cultures
- contextCircumstances shaping meaning
- interpretationAssigned meaning
- social actionOrganized efforts for change
human behavior · culture · meaning · fieldwork · ritual · observation · narrative · nuance · layers · texture · immersion · participant · symbolic · webs · understanding · qualitative · detail · richness
- anthropologyanthropology, fieldwork, ethnography, social anthropology, cultural anthropology
- analysis methodstextual analysis, rhetorical analysis, critical analysis, close reading, comparative analysis
- fieldworkfieldwork, field work, field journal, field guide, field study
- ethnographyethnic groups, field notes, tribal societies, ethnographies, cultural practices
- interpretivismhermeneutics, meaning-making, subjective experience, phenomenology, ethnography
- qualitative researchcoding, data collection, interviews, field notes, saturation
thick descriptionbehaviorism
Psychology studying observable conduct
empiricism · reductionism · data collection · survey research · measurement
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