American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926â2006) earned his PhD from the prestigious Harvard University, where he followed the interdisciplinary approach pioneered by the institutionâs Department of Social Relations.
Previous generations of anthropologists had imported their own value systems and culture, regardless of which part of the world they were studying. Native cultures were almost always judged to fall short in comparison to colonialistsâ standards. This allowed Western powers to justify their policy of colonizing foreign lands in the name of âcivilizingâ them. By the second half of the twentieth century, however, some scholars were beginning to question this Western bias in cultural studies.
Geertzâs first collection of essays, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), made him a leading voice of anthropologyâs âsymbolicâ movement, which believed scholars should read the signs and symbols of a culture from the perspective of its natives. Geertzâs approach helped anthropology reinvent itself as a scientific discipline that is still relevant today, making himâin the words of one criticââa true giant of social and cultural theory.â