few pages. His wife, Hildred Geertz, actually does a better job of using thick
description in a much later work (Geertz, 2004; but also seeGeertz &
Geertz, 1975). Much of what Geertz wrote is not thick description at all. He
calls it ethnographic thick description, but much of it is actually a kind of
general anthropological and sociological analysis. The work is often very
good analysis, but nevertheless it is frequently not exemplary of the metho-
dology of ethnographic thick description. If one knows nothing about Bali
(or Indonesia) it may be highly misleading to just read “Deep Play.”
Therefore, in discussing the method I am also led to comments on the
assumptions made by Geertz, a very well-known symbolicanthropologist,
about the subject matter as that might be understood by a Symbolic
Interactionistsociologist.
That is, this essay is not just about the method, but develops further
intothe analysis of the object of study. The object of study here (and else-
where) is often as important to the method. The method that is used to
study something is important, but the technique itself is only the means to
an end. The technique of thick description cannot be as effectively consid-
ered in the abstract merely as a method or technique. Hopefully we will not
get lost in all the details. It takes a certain amount of effort to begin to
bend one’s mind to the study of a culture that has vestiges of a much earlier
time. Clifford Geertz’s work is rarely read as a whole but his study of the
Balinese cockfight has become very famous. If students and researchers
read all of Geertz’s oeuvre then some of what is said in this essay would
not be necessary. But unfortunately, many sociologistsas opposed to
anthropologistsonly know Geertz from his one famous essay. In his
famous ethnographic paper Geertz does not completely “lie” with ethno-
graphy (Duneier, 2011)but he also does not present a full analysis of either
the method or the object of study. Meanwhile, few students are introduced
to Bali through more comprehensive work by an author likeBelow (1970
[1953b]), Schulte-Nordholt (1991), van Baal (1969), or evenGeertz (2004).
The key analytical aspect missing from Geertz’s “Deep Play” essay itself is
the broader socio-cultural and political-economic context of religious cere-
monies as opposed to secular games. That background is available (Belo,
1966 [1953a];Keyes, 2005; Peacock, 2005; Stutterheim, 1930).
While Geertz focuses on the cockfight, a small-scale and relatively minor
activity engaged in by men, I wish to focus on acommunity activitythat
involves men and women, boys and girls. While the well-known writer
Geertz uses the method of thick description, albeit not consistently, I also
want to emphasize that such a technique can hardly ever be used in isola-
tion from a broader Methodological framework of Interpretivism. It is
Geertz’s “Thick Description” and a Balinese Temple Ritual 81