thick description you actually do simply to being chased by the police for
illegal betting on horse races.
SOCIAL THEORY VERSUS SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
How we think and write about the Balinese odalanor any other topic
related to a traditional society or remnants of a traditional society in a glo-
balized postmodern agedepends in part on which “research paradigm”
we use. If we wish to limit ourselves to the use of disciplinary anthropologi-
cal and sociological theories then we will express ourselves in a different
way than if we are writing outside of those disciplinary traditions. This dis-
cussion has attempted above all to retain some key insights from the
Symbolic Interactionist tradition. One of the key contributors to the
Symbolic Interactionist approach to theory and methodology is, of course,
Herbert Blumer.
Blumer (1954, p. 3)writesabout one form of “sociological theory,”^6 but
mentions in a footnote that there are two other “legitimate” forms. “One
of them [Interpretive Theory] seeks to develop a meaningful interpretation
of the social world or of some significant part of it.” This essay has been an
attempt to clarify such an Interpretive theory of the social world of the
Balinese ritual calendar and the deep play involved in a society where sym-
bolization of the sacred is still very highly regarded.Bruner (2005)praises
Geertz specifically because Geertz promoted an Interpretive approach.
Peacock (2005) even claims that the emphasis on Interpretive social
science is extremely important in the new globalized context.Fischer (2005)
points out that “reconstruction” requires the kind of knowledge with
an Interpretive approach tends to promote. But in praising Geertz for his
interpretive, symbolic anthropology, none of the contributors to his
Festschrift make the explicit connection with Weber’s verstehende
Soziologieand Weber’s general Methodological views.
That point is made, however, by Charles Keyes (2005). The conjuncture
of “Weber” and “anthropology” is rarely emphasized, but it becomes
immediately apparent when we go back to the history of German Idealist
philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) and Neo-Kantian epistemology
(Windelband, Rickert, Lasch). Weber was strongly influenced by the older
generation of philosophers, especially Wilhelm Dilthey, and a close reading
of Geertz’s “thick description” will make it clear that he does not intend to
promote an exclusively idiographic (“thick”) approach at the expense of
Geertz’s “Thick Description” and a Balinese Temple Ritual 105