1. Thick Description Presented by: Miqdad Sibtain
BS Social Sciences Section B
Instructor: Sohail Muhammad Ali

2. Types of Anthropologies
Symbolic anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Biological anthropology
Masculine anthropology
Feminine anthropology
Interpretative anthropology
Physical anthropology
Psychological anthropology
Forensic anthropology
Social anthropology

3. Basic Premises Symbolic Anthropology An area of Cultural anthropology
symbolic system that arises primarily from human interpretations of the world

4. Continuation….
Furthermore there are two major premises governing symbolic Anthropology:
Basic Premises: The ways in which people understand and interpret their surroundings as well as the actions and utterances of the other members of their society
The second major premise is that actions are guided by interpretation.

5. Culture
Geertz believes that an analysis of culture should "not (be) an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning".
Example: Hindu’s burn the dead bodies because they believe in the return of the composition of body particles.

6. Principal Concepts of Culture
Thick Description was a term which was originally borrowed by Clifford Geertz from a renowned anthropologist Gilbert Ryle to describe and define the aim of interpretative anthropology.

7. Social Anthropology is based on ethnography or the study of culture.
In order to understand culture, it is very important to understand symbols that guide social behavior.

8. By analyzing culture, one develops a thick description of culture.

9. What is Thick Description?

10. 3 characteristics of thick description
Interpretative
Interpretative consists of taking the said and changing it into things that can be studied.
Microscopic
Interpretative is ones way of thinking to a particular study
The study is then analyzed in depth to understand the logic
Then every minute details are studies to understand the pro’s and con’s of a particular study.

11. How does thick description work?

12. Winking & Twitching
(A twitch and a wink can look exactly the same, but have completely different intents)
Opposite sex may take winking as a sign of opposite sex attraction, while twitching is biological disorder. But a guy twitching may be misunderstood by a girl. Both the actions may be studied differently because either you wink or twitch, it is your facial expressions that make you different.

13. Object of Thick Description
“Stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures”
thin description – what you can observe
thick description – the meaning behind the action.
Thin Description is what one observes. This area is related to phenomenology, while think description believes in the depth of the subject or query.

14. Examples of Thick Description
Why do Muslims condemn the eating of pork, ham or any other foods related to pigs swine?
Why do Muslims condemn drinking when a hardcore drinker can stand upright or behave normally(according to the social circle) even if he is 5 pegs down?

15. Why do male teachers usually act cheeky with female students?

16. Sources and References:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences
vlib.org/SocialSciences 
Ssrn.com
Notes and Handouts
Class Lectures

17. SAY
To Social Sciences…
Warning: It causes mental disorder

18. Thank You 