Sprache - Kultur - Kommunikation / Language - Culture - Communication

und Eddie Hartmann, Potsdam (Deutschland)

14.Clifford Geertz on language and theory of culture

1.Ethnography in the light of history

2.From domesticating the other to listening without understanding

3.Selected references

1.Ethnography in the light of history

Clifford Geertz began his career in the 1950’s, during the time of decolonization. He first worked in Java with a group of anthropologists and a linguist, making studies of a range of cultural topics: religion, kinship, economic life and so on. The culture of Java was studied with something close to completeness. But certain topics were not included. There was little reference to Javanese texts by comparison with previous Dutch studies. Later, textual studies under the sign of orientalism ...