Instead, he uses events in time (t-1) and space (s-1) to generalize far beyond
that specific situation. The excellent discussion of “place” versus “space” by
Tuan (1997)isdirectly relevant. There is really very little about “place” in
Geertz’s essay. The police raid on the cockfight is an event in t-1 and p-1;
but, it does not lead Geertz to then discuss in the kind of detail required by
thick description the one hundred other cockfights he may have attended.
He does not summarize a set of idiographic observations of different very
specific places. Instead, he uses the one symbolic event as a metonym
(or, synecdoche) of his broader comprehension of Balinese cock-fighting
gambling rules. He then adds the layer of Utilitarian axiomatic assumptions
from Jeremy Bentham. The intricacies of gambling which he reports are
specifics of the general Balinese situation, but they are specifics he could not
possibly have learned about that very first time and the very first place. He
must have picked up knowledge through interviews and perhaps through
written accounts. He quickly moves from place to space (Tuan, 1997).
Another extremely well-known anthropologist,Anderson (1972, 2006)
wrotecritically about Geertz’s work. The main point Anderson made was
often that in some of his work Geertz skipped over crucial aspects of the
comparative-historical aspects of Balinese society, Javanese society, and so
forth. Anderson tried to develop a broader “sociological” theory about
“imagined communities” and he has become justly famous for that. It bene-
fits the researcher going into the field in Bali to read both Geertz and
Anderson to get a better idea of what both Methodology and methods are
and how each author utilizes them. To a large extent Geertz is given more
credit for actually doing thick description than he in fact did. Nevertheless,
that does not mean that his work is not excellent. It just is not precisely
what he sometimes said it is. In his oeuvre he relied much more heavily on
secondary sources and comparative insights than he sometimes acknowl-
edged. But it is ironically also true of the one example “everyone” cites as
THE example of “thick description”. The “Deep Play” essay, read care-
fully, brings out Geertz’s reliance on broader factual material in stark
detail. Many people seem to only read the first few pages of that essay.
They then cite it as an example of “thick description.” But it does not con-
stitute a real example of the use of only thick description. Moreover, by
studying only a ritual carried out illegally by men (and boys), Geertz
ignored the even “deeper play” of the village anniversary celebrations, the
odalan. He seems to have never done a thick description of the glue that
holds Balinese together, choosing instead to study a gambling activity that,
when all is said and done, is rather peripheral. It is a bit like saying you are
doing a thick description of American society and restricting the little bit of
104 J. I. (HANS) BAKKER