Local Knowledge: Further Essays In Interpretive Anthropology

by Clifford Geertz

In essays covering everything from art and common sense to charisma and constructions of the self, the eminent cultural anthropologist and author of The Interpretation of Cultures deepens our understanding of human societies through the intimacies of "local knowledge." A companion volume to The Interpretation of Cultures , this book continues Geertz's exploration of the meaning of culture and the importance of shared cultural symbolism. With a new introduction by the author.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Essays, Philosophy, Sociology, Theory, Ethnography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist and served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Emanuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attenzione: non ho proprio letto il libro perché non esiste la versione digitale e non è più disponibile quella cartacea. Ho trovato invece in rete il suo riassunto in .pdf e l'ho confrontato con l'edizione ebook in spagnolo, per sistemarlo in formato .epub e correggere i refusi. L'unica immagine trovata in rete della copertina è sfuocata.
Questo lavoro mi ha comportato una mattinata di tempo, compresa la lettura, per cui mi attribuisco come lette tutte le 299 pagine del testo originale.

Sono una raccolta di otto saggi, tutti molto interessanti anche per i non addetti ai lavori, che interpretano le manifestazioni culturali di alcuni popoli, secondo una visione non occidentale-centrica e a volte intimamente conflittuale rispetto ad alcuni temi: arte, morale, diritto, senso comune, potere, oltre che dare indicazioni di etnografia moderna, pensiero sociale, comprensione antropologica.
Ormai ci siamo abituati a questo genere di approccio con le realtà diverse dalla nostra, ma le semplificazioni nel dare significati a noi vicini, sono sempre in agguato.

Penso che, chi stia studiando questi argomenti abbia necessità almeno di avere un riferimento anche sintetico dell'opera, visto che l'editore non lo fa, metto a disposizione i file (.epub, .mobi) che ho sistemato e che si possono scaricare dalla cartella condivisa su Google Drive.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the essays in this book are magnificent (for example, The Way We Think Know: Towards an Ethnography of Modern Thought) and others are arduous and semantic (which is not really my bag). Worth reading if you are really into anthropological theory and want a pretty varied book. Less worthwhile, if you are interested in anthropological theory but not interested in quite an old set of semantic essays (i probably fall more into this category).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of academical essays in which Geertz, with trademark ironic wit, invites readers to meditate with him on the central puzzle and conundrum of the humanities and interpretive social sciences: Human nature, presumably everywhere one and the same, comes to us only in its local varieties, as a bewildering diversity of languages, cultures, cultural practices, beliefs, mentalities, behaviors, prescriptions, proscriptions, taboos -- in short, as varieties of local knowledge that appear mutually and reciprocally repellent or incurably allergic to one another in their inconsistency as illuminations of the truth of experience or reality. The real mystery that awes and intrigues Geertz, however, is not how unknowable we must be to one another, locked as we are into our relativistic local prisons, but how humans manage -- and we do somehow manage -- to make ourselves comprehensible to one another and to make our cultures in their various local strangenesses available to one another or (semi)translatable into one anothers' terms. What that work of comprehension or translation is, and how study in the humanities and social sciences might contribute to it, is for me the true subject and interest of the book.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

First came across Geertz reading some sociology about workers struggles in the US (Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity). Came across him in more depth in an anthropology class. Still trying to figure more out about him.

[Ellison Moorehead]

Honestly, I fell in love with Clifford Geertz while I was reading these essays, and it felt intellectually exciting and stimulating and also kind of secret and special and unique. In fact, I finished the book and immediately started another by him, his more famous earlier selection, the Interpretation of Culture. I felt like I had to see if he really was worthy of such breathless interest and attention, or let this particular book settle in my mind before I could even say anything about it.

And what can I even say?

I'd heard about Geertz briefly in a class on postcolonial theory and orientalism (he has a book on Morocco), and not in a particularly good way, but I couldn't and I can't quite remember what the complaint was. No problem, I'll find it, I thought. So I was on edge and I had my pencil out just poised to catch him doing something wrong, doing something orientalist, being an imperialist discourse producer! I'd catch him! That is, of course, what I'm trained to do and I like to think I'm pretty good at it.

Alas. I was completely swept away by this elegant (elegant!) writing, his personal style (style, remember that? something that smacks of an individual and his many layers of learning and location?), his little ticks and his wide-reaching references, his excuse-me parentheticals, his schoolmasterly tone ballast keeping us steady but buoyed along by his clear enthusiasm for people and all the little wild things they do. His wonderful story-telling (anthropologists can be like eating a fistful of cinnamon sometimes).

And then what he's saying, oh, what he's saying! He made my mind work, he made all of it tingle and feel alive, thinking, thinking, thinking, and I was struggling to keep my guard up, to keep that pencil poised, but he was so dazzling me, dizzying me, knocking me around in a pleasant exercise in being in the presence of someone far far smarter than you, so I ended up laying sprawled on my bed, pencil no where to be seen, and reading him like you might read poetry, repeating sentences, taking pictures of them (!!).

I'm not proud, but I will admit that that's how things worked out between me and Geertz, and at least for now I'm still very much in the honeymoon phase. Just ignore me.

[Jenny J · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, present day psychology, in an obsession with the scientific, seems to pursue physiological processes and correlations rather than incisive understandings of what is means to be human. Whenever those inconvenient questions arise, psychologists seem to relegate them to fields of sociology and philosophy. However, seeing that my attraction to psychology did in fact stem from a curiosity as to “what does it mean to be human,” (and perhaps I just chose the wrong field/wrong century) I have found that anthropological readings have been fairly satisfying in filling in the soulless gaps.
Instead of taking western definitions for granted – “law,” “common sense,” “art,” etc – anthropology looks at how different cultures – symbol systems – construe of these terms, and how these notions are inseparable from its place, its community and the community’s way of perceiving life. (Out of the limited reading I have done over the past year, Cassirer's "An Essay on man," Rollo May, and Geertz’s other book “The Interpretation of cultures” all have similar emphasis on symbol systems. Bloch’s “the historian’s craft” also touches upon the elusiveness of language: “…the great despair of historians, men fail to change their vocabulary every time they change their customs.” (p.34))

[ruinsofday]

"We like to think that the reality principle is good for us,
except perhaps when it finally kills us."

I don't know if I have a love or hate relationship with Geertz's writing, all I know is sometimes I do like his ramblings. Especially when he starts to use similes and metaphors like a poet instead of an anthropologist.

But hey, who says one can't be two? For I am too.

Often times I do get impatient and wish he would say what he wants to say already, though. This opinion came nonetheless because I am currently using his symbolic interpretative perspective on my sarjana's thesis, in hope I can graduate this February. I'm in a hurry, I'm sorry.

I'm not going to give it a rating, it feels weird to give one.
So I only gave my thoughts. I think this collection of essays and this thoughts I left here would be a nice time capsule in the future, a reminiscence of a moment where I am currently in a rush hour, a prayer of me to get to my destination in time; graduation.

[Frank R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to this book and genuinely enjoyed Part I, but the rest of these essays, written for various occasions where Geertz was asked to produce a piece for a journal or conference, was as rambling and—sometimes—skirting around points with long, rambling sentences much like this one: a whole paragraph that is really just one sentence! :)

[Marianna Ferreira-Aulu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clifford Geertz uses in this book a particularly difficult vocabulary, and reading this book was energy-consuming. I did not enjoy the read, and although the message in the book is important for my research, I will likely not use the book as a reference in my dissertation, as there are other scholars that write about the same subject is a more clarified way.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of essays with though provoking analysis and thought. The author also uses his humor and wit to make an academic subject enjoyable to read.

[mvsophie]

Ja nawet tego nie oceniam, bo ostatnie 100 stron przeleciałam na tyle, żeby wiedzieć, co tam jest. Ja po prostu nie chcę mieć więcej doczynienia z Geertzem

[Stella]

Skimmed this hard but I still read it. Probably not even useful for what I was looking for but kind of fun.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of lectures that Geertz gave in the 70s and 80s on various topics including art and law from an anthropological perspective. The most valuable lectures cover the state of the practice of anthropology itself (and by extension sociology, since the only difference between the two is sociology is about "us" and anthropology is about "them"). Chapters 1-4 should be read by anyone contemplating entering the field of cultural (Geertz prefers interpretive) anthropology. Know what you are getting in for.

[Joéverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não é por acaso que este livro figura entre as referências do pensamento social do século XX: nesta obra curta, mas de impacto, Clifford Geertz, que "está dizendo B" neste livro, nos brinda com uma série de artigos onde ele, antropólogo, deixa de pregar em sua tribo para tentar contribuir ao debate interdisciplinar com outras áreas da ciências, além até das "humanidades". Leitura indispensável, sempre.

[Logan Bickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a spectacular medium through one can contemplate multiple humanitarian discussions. From art to imagination and then to morals, culture is affectively examined in this collection of essays. Clifford Geertz does a wonderful job drawing the reader in to the book to form their own opinions and to further augment their spectrum of possible beliefs.