thick description

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a concept developed by philosopher Gilbert Ryle and adopted by anthropologist Clifford Geertz to describe the ethnographic practice of interpreting human behaviour not as isolated physical acts but within the web of meaning, intention, convention, and context in which it is embedded; a thick description of a wink, for example, does not merely record the physical contraction of an eyelid but explains whether it is an involuntary twitch, a conspiratorial signal, a parody of a wink, or a rehearsal — interpretations that require knowledge of the cultural context in which the gesture occurs; Geertz's 1973 essay collection The Interpretation of Cultures introduced thick description as the fundamental method of cultural anthropology, arguing that cultures are texts that anthropologists interpret rather than mechanisms they explain; thick description requires sustained, immersive fieldwork and produces rich, contextualised accounts that resist reduction to abstract generalisations