Thick Description

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

The term thick description was first introduced into the literature of qualitative research by the noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the early 1970s, in a seminal essay titled “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In this essay, Geertz undertakes to operationalize what researchers do when they practice social anthropology. For Geertz, doing anthropology means doing ethnography, which in turn means doing thick description. By this he is referring not simply to the methodological practice of writing field notes but also to the type of intellectual effort that shapes the ethnographic writing process. Geertz borrows the term thick description from the British language philosopher Gilbert Ryle, who uses the example of a wink to explain the different levels of meaning-making associated with describing and interpreting human activity. A thin description of a wink describes it simply as a physiological action involving the rapid contraction of one eyelid. A thick description, in contrast, gives an interpretative account of what the act of winking signifies, depending on the social context and circumstances.

For Geertz, who applied Ryle's philosophical investigations to ethnography, the meaning of the wink as a culturally informed activity—whether it is intended to communicate seduction, complicity, parody, or anything else—rests not in the movement of the eye but in the intricate layers of inference and interpretation that turn the movement of an eye into an act of social significance. The role of the ethnographer, in her or his effort to collect meaningful data that make sense of the social world, is to try to grasp and render the often-jumbled and -inexplicit terrain of everyday social interaction. From Geertz's perspective, thick description is an ongoing process of interpretation intended to achieve a level of insight into the nuances and complexities of human actions that are always open to further interpretation.

Although originally situated in the discipline of anthropology, the term thick description has come to be used extensively in other social disciplines where qualitative research is carried out. Many qualitative researchers apart from anthropologists use the term thick description to highlight the necessity of paying attention to significant detail in the process of doing research field work. According to the well-known qualitative research methodologist Norman Denzin, the importance of thick description is that it makes thick interpretation possible. It is not just quantity of detail that matters but the illumination such detail can afford. Thick description does not mean accumulating voluminous details about everything that happens, to the point of trivia. Description must be balanced by analysis, seeking to establish the significance of actions, behaviors, or events for the participants involved.

...