The Post-production section of Gallery 347 is for work that follows from class meetings. Your weekly posts may include lingering questions and ideas or new insights and connections about our readings and discussions. You might also write about our workshop activities:  What did you learn? What problems came up and would you do differently? You may include or copy into your post images from our class activities or your work.

These brief posts should be 1-2 paragraphs (250~500 words). They are required for any 10 of our 13 weeks of class meetings and they must be made no later than 2pm on Fridays. They should be tagged under this “Post-production” category (right side of editing page), so that they appear on this page. (If they are not tagged properly, they will not appear!) To earn credit for your brief posts, they must reflect a level of engagement and a make meaningful connection to our course.

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Near the end of our discussion yesterday, I believe Professor H offered the possibility that reality doesn’t exist because everything is a representation of something else that exists or existed at some point in time.  Reality is actually a representation of the parts of the past that have been maintained or improvements of pre-existing entities.

If this is the case, could the opposite be true as well? If everything is a representation, are all representations not its own reality?  The European exhibitions that were put on display were meant to mimic the “reality” outside, but in doing so have created their own world that is unique in itself.  For example, Disney World contains representations of the worlds created in their movies, but I would not consider Disney World to be a representation.  Disney World is its own entity, and the fictional settings from the movies don’t exist.  Therefore, I would categorize Disney World as a reality despite it’s attempts at imitating something else.

Although the European exhibitions were meant to be nearly indistinguishable from the world it was attempting to mimic, I don’t believe that it should be categorized as solely a representation of Cairo.  As theorized above, perhaps everything is a representation and everything is a reality.  Rather than a representation of Cairo, which implies that it’s sole existence is to imitate, I would consider the exhibition a “symbolic tribute.” All things are echoes of other things, but some more intentional than others.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 12:12 pm

Very thoughtful, Matthew. The image your post conjures is of an endless cycle or loop of reality and representations, rather than layers (e.g. turtles) all the way down. Does Geertz have an analogous distinction? The question is whether we need the distinction between the two terms. That is something we’ll ask when we revisit Mitchell on Tuesday.

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Taking ANT347 and my statistics course (SML201) at the same time has brought up questions about data and its relationship to objectiveness. In my SML201 class, data means Excel-like datasets, where narratives, events, contexts are squashed into a single integer, string of characters, ones and zeros. My professor exclaimed that statistics and the use of extrapolating meaning from datasets allows for more objective insights to drive our decisions (versus our subjective experience and intuition). She broke down the extrapolation process of datasets for us:

1. Contextualize the dataset (where is this data coming from, what was going on historically)
2. What dose the variables mean in the dataset?
3. What questions do you want to ask from this dataset?
4. Use programming to gain insights from your variables to answer the question at hand

What I thought was interesting is that there is a certain level of objectiveness that comes with my statistics class that doesn’t come with the data we’ve discussed in this class (i.e. Rodney King video; Colonialism and Culture). But what exactly makes for these more “objective” insights that my professor mentioned? Because in both of these classes, contextualizing is critical as it imbues meaning to our data, regardless of whether that is the video from Rodney king or the 0s and 1s in my dataset. It not only gives meaning, but also a helps us to selectively focus and pay attention to what is deemed as “important” within our data; for Rodney King that was his movements, in SML201 it is what variables I choose to engage with. Yet as seen through the Rodney King trial, the very act of imbuing meaning to data and selective attention already steers us away from objectiveness and “thin” descriptions — and by engaging in contextualizing, datasets would be far more subjective than I first thought.

My conclusions was that statistics is more objective because of it’s ability to remove oneself/ human touch from the data in my statistics class and use mathematical calculations that makes my final conclusions from my dataset more “correct” and therefore more valuable. And furthermore, there is no rigorous process of incorporating multiple perspectives and interpretations like during The Rodney King trial (but perhaps there will be in higher level stats courses or real world projects) and thus allows us to view the data from a distance creating more objectiveness.

To add on more questioning: are my datasets are really more objective than the Rodney King video or the insights from Colonialism and Culture if (1) I’m only contextualizing from my own point of view and understanding of the situation versus gathering a “thick” description of the context and (2) I’m engaging with a dataset that was already created, morphed, changed by another human being before it came to my own hands? I’m left wondering if there is a way to combine ethnography with statistical projects to create a more accurate portrayal of reality with thick descriptions.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 12:07 pm

This is a fascinating connection, Emily. These 4 questions about extrapolating data do seem to resemble the work of contextualization that defines cultural interpretation, or thick description, for Geertz. If that is the case, then what might make data appear “objective” would be analogous to a convincing interpretation. Think about how the Simi Valley jury believed the defense’s case – that the meanings they extrapolated from the video made “objective” sense.

We will be asking your questions about data when we get to the second part of the course!

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A European conceptualization of representation, assumes that there is a reality and that there is a representation. Maya’s comment says that there can be an incorrect representation, Prof H says that implies a representation can be correct. We set it up as a binary, but I think it’s more of a gradient, degrees of “correctness” or degrees of how closely a representation can get to reality. Clearly here is the issue because there will be disagreement on how close various representations are to reality. When we talk about how positionality is going to affect one’s view of the world -categorization of objects and concepts, understanding of language and symbols- there is bound to be disagreement over how well a representation captures reality.

That disagreement over how well a representation emulates reality is seen when considering the video of the beating of Rodney King as a representation of reality. In this case reality is not a place, like Cairo, but a finite point in time, an event. That leaves the court with only representations of reality to work from. 

Our reading of Geertz last week introduced the idea of “turtles all the way down”, that is interpretations layered on top of interpretations. At this point I am unsure if it is helpful to be conflating interpretation with representation, but I do feel that the two are linked. In the documentary we watched on California v. Powell we saw the layering of interpretations on a representation, the video of the beating, in effect. As was briefly mentioned in class, the issue of positionality comes into play. The various interpretations of the video are at times conflicting and competing because of the positionality of the interpreters. I think that the documentary itself can be looked at as an interpretation of the whole case, filtered and edited before it gets to our eyes. And to add another turtle to the stack, we are making our own interpretations of the video of the beating and the documentary on the case coming from our own individuals positionalities, as well as a shared one of living in a time where videos similar that of the beating of Rodney King seem to come out every other week.

The question that I am still left with is how to conceptualize the relationship between representation and interpretation. Is it possible to have a representation that isn’t at some level interpretive? And how do each of these affect our view on authenticity? Regardless, I think that it is important to reflect on who is doing the representing and interpreting, and why.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 12:02 pm

What a great question: should we conflate interpretation with representation?

Is the representation the video? And is the framing of it (by the police in their defense) the interpretation? Or, perhaps they are both ways of describing different aspects of webs of meaning? Either way, as we’ve learned, there is no intrinsic or guaranteed meaning to the video (e.g. representations). What we will need to sort out, however, on Tuesday, is whether Mitchell is arguing for turtles all the way down and agrees with Geertz.

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I wanted to reflect more upon what Prof. H brought up quickly at the end of the Rodney King discussion: the frame of justified versus excessive force, and how it seemed that through our arguments, we were really trying to ask for the central question to be modified to treatment as a human being versus not. I think that we, looking at the case, would really like to ask this question (“Was Rodney King treated as a human being and given the respect he deserved?), because to us, the answer is an unequivocal no. The prosecutors would have also agreed with the no. However, this question doesn’t hold up in a court of law, so they were confined to arguing the case through the focus on force, with the hidden question of King’s humanity/deserved respect underneath. Among other mistakes, the defense didn’t emphasize King’s humanity/personal perspective of the beating enough, and by arguing the case through the frame of force, the defense was able to acquit the officers. The acquittal also served to signal to the world that, in the legal context, the answer to the wider question of acknowledgement of King’s humanity was also a “no”.

It reminds me of the saying that “what’s right isn’t always legal, and what’s legal isn’t always right”. The law can simply serve as one lens/frame through which we can look at or impose upon the world and our actions.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 11:54 am

Thanks for making this point, Rei. It seems like the term “reasonable” is doing a lot of work – or damage – when it is used by the state…

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If you’ve ever been in an anthro class with me, you’ll know that I am obsessed with discussing the ever-confusing distinctions and interactions between “reality” and “representation.” I thought this Mitchell reading built nicely on Geertz’s piece, applying this notion of “Winks upon winks” to how we venture into the ethnographic field subconsciously searching for a “picture” or a “pictorial order” of things. It’s so engrained in our methods of observation that we don’t even notice! I mean, this is precisely how I approached my thesis research this summer- hoping to capture a full picture of the filmmaking culture in Hollywood- and Mitchell’s piece has now really allowed me to reflect on how the way in which we organize information or tell stories, even, is marked by a certain line of thinking.

One of my favorite writers, Jorge Luis Borges, has written a lot on the impossibility of truth and on the destructive capacity of words- “writing as an erasing machine,” as anthropologist Michael Taussig would say. (Fun fact, the movie Interstellar is loosely based on Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel”…how could you not love this guy??) Borges wrote a short story- honestly I would say it’s more of a paragraph- called “On Exactitude in Science” about a map of the world so big and so accurate that it was the actually the size of the world itself. I think this speaks really well to Mitchell’s paradox of representations; you want them to be as “real” as possible, but at the same time only “real” to the point that it is still distinguishable as a representation. Borges’ story goes on to describe how as soon as perfect accuracy was achieved, the map was deemed useless by its creators and the discipline of cartography as a whole was abandoned. “What matters about this labyrinth [of exhibition],” Mitchell says, “is not that we never reach the real, never find the promised exit, but that such a notion of the real, such a system of truth, continues to convince us.” Knowing that the absolute best ethnography we can do will always only be a representation at best, I constantly wonder if I should think of myself as more of a creative writer or an artist…it makes me dizzy.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 11:51 am

Ailee – what a great set of connections here. Thanks for pointing out one of my favorite quotes from Mitchell about the rhetorical force of the representation vs reality dichotomy. In his short story Borges is destabilizing this engrained opposition when imagines one imploding into the other. This implosion is what others such as Jean Baudrillard refers to as a “similacrum.” But isn’t this what “culture” already is for Geertz? “Suspended webs of meaning” or “turtles all the way down”?

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First of all, this (Thick Descriptions) was my first time reading anything anthropological/any writings on anthropology, so I found it a little difficult to understand at first without a having a previous foundation or background. However, the in-class discussion and especially the illustrative example through Trump/Kyle Rittenhouse really made some concepts clearer for me, especially the notion of layered meanings and contexts, and the difference between thin and thick descriptions.

The Trump/Kyle Rittenhouse example also brought up a question regarding the way Gertz distinguishes between thin and thick description: can you really ever have a truly thin description? Gertz’s simplest example of the difference is the physical description (an eyelid contraction, which is thin) and the context (a wink, which is thick(er)). What’s interesting to me is that, in the case of the Rittenhouse video, even seemingly ‘thin’ descriptions can be ‘thick’ and that it seems difficult (to me) to produce a physical description of events without attributing at least an additional layer of meaning. For example, Trump describes the events by saying “I guess it looks like he fell, and then they very violently attacked him”. His use of the word violent adds a layer of meaning to the events. Trump surely has his own motivations for describing the video as a ‘violent attack’ on Rittenhouse, but even other attempts to describe what happened are informed by the wider context (the cultural layers) brought by the viewers. Do the other people in the video approach Rittenhouse? Attack him? Attempt to disarm? Surround? Threaten? Every one of these words has a different connotation and meaning associated with them; no matter which are used in an attempt to describe the physical actions (in an attempt to provide a thin description), the describer adds a layer of thickness and meaning. I think that in the in case of events such as this one that are more complex than singular physical movements (ex: an eyelid contraction), it would be quite challenging and maybe impossible to obtain an objective and ‘thin’ description of events for the ethnographer to analyze.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 12, 2020 at 11:44 am

Rei – I agree with you that even a thin description has both meaning and some context. Geertz would agree with you too! This is what Geertz himself means when he says it’s “turtles all the way down” or that culture is a “suspended” web of meaning. In other words, one cannot explain or interpret something outside of culture and context. Even language shapes meaning. Further, keep in mind that he argues that the thicker interpretation is a more convincing if not more valid interpretation because it draws on a rich context to explain behavior.

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In class, I expressed that this is the first anthropology course I’ve taken and that I’m interpreting a lot of the things I’m learning by putting it in context alongside my own discipline in English. This was a particularly interesting exercise when thinking about Geertz’s essay and our discussion around it. Geertz talks about how anthropological writings are fictions in the sense that they are “something made”. He goes on to claim that the important difference between representing events that have happened vs. representing events that have not happened doesn’t lie in that fact that one story is noted and the other created but rather in “the condition of their creation, and the point of it” (16). Verification is called into question–and whether there are correct and incorrect interpretive accounts. 

It might be superfluous, but I want to expand a bit about the differences I see between Geertz’s descriptions of the fictive interpretive anthropology and my own understanding of fictional stories in order to examine the differences between “the condition of their creation”, which I interpreted as how a thing is made. In class, we discussed the thick description of the twitch-wink distinction in Geertz’s essay. Lauren brought up the suggestion that a good anthropological account relies on the anthropologist’s due diligence in providing their thought process for reaching a particular interpretation or conclusion. 

In a work of fiction, an author is most likely not providing this reasoning process for their characters’ actions. This might seem obvious, but there is no written description of the data point “contraction of the eyelids” that the reader must interpret; there is only “his eye twitched involuntarily”, “he winked”, and “he winked mockingly”. This difference in how a work of fiction is made is also indicative of Geertz’s note on the second difference between anthropological accounts and fiction: “the point of it”. The author who pens such a line skips communicating an observation and instead directly communicates its meaning, an interpretation that the reader must assume is accurate because the author wrote it. (A reader will not question the veracity of “his eye twitched involuntarily” unless it appears that they are supposed to do so.) But part of the reader’s suspension of disbelief relies on the notion that the author is not acting as an interpreter-figure, but rather that a created character is–the narrator of the text. And although this fictional figure acts as the first fictional interpreter, there is another external interpreter that exists–the reader of the text. And although it’s unlikely for the narrator’s interpretation of “his eye twitched involuntarily” to be incorrect, it is very possible for the reader’s interpretation of the circumstances around “his eye twitched involuntarily” to be incorrect, including the why, how, or what it means. In his essay, Geertz draws parallels between interpretive anthropology and fiction by proposing that the relationship that anthropologists and authors share is an equivalent role. I think his comparison would be more accurate by drawing parallels between anthropologists who interpret real accounts and the literary analysts who interpret fictional accounts, both of whom must engage with unique data and information and draw conclusions based on evidence in order to provide more accurate and thus more valuable interpretations, even if they might not be exactly “correct”.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 4, 2020 at 4:21 pm

I enjoyed reading this, Cynthia. You make some very helpful distinctions here. At the same time, it was Geertz who surfaced the story-telling aspects of ethnography. (As he describes early in the essay, he wants to cut the big abstractions and generalities “down to size.”) So he is implying that ethnographies ought to be narratives and makes us aware that there is a teller (e.g. author/ethnographer). In addition to cutting down the big abstractions, then, he wants to humanize the writer and their fieldwork, which you typically would not find in scientific writing. His writing advanced and validated what we now all enjoy about written and filmic ethnography – a good story!

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When Professor Himpele asked each of us why we decided to take this class, I was struck by the amount of people who were interested in the data visualization aspect of this course. To be perfectly honest, I was more drawn to the “culture/media” elements of this course, as data visualization was something that I wasn’t exactly familiar with and so I didn’t give much attention to it. When Professor Himpele instructed each of us to go into our breakout rooms to make a simple visualization of the relationship between Culture, Media, and Data, I honestly had no idea what he meant by that/what to expect. Other than making simple venn-diagrams or scientific charts/tables in my early science fair projects, this was something brand new to me.  I found these three terms to be such general qualitative entities, and I could not possibly wrap my head around explaining them and their relation to one and other in such a small visual diagram. 

Yet, as our group began to discuss our thoughts on the relationship between these terms and started to map out these abstract concepts (and the relationship among them), it was like a switch in my brain turned on. Suddenly I was thinking in a much more “big picture” way. I was really asking myself —what do these terms really mean? How does one term fall into the other? how does one term use another term to express something? How does one concept lead to another? What does one term mean in the context of another? 

Actually mapping this all out visually twisted my mind — it was a completely different way of thinking than I was used to, and I felt as if I was using a different part of my brain, entirely. I was so used to using concrete words to communicate ideas, or even as a musician, using sounds to tell stories or communicate/draw out one’s feelings. This type of thinking was something very new to me, however. As a result of this newfound type of thinking, I began to ask myself a few questions such as — is there an optimal way to communicate abstract concepts? Are visualizations a more effective tool in communicating relationships between abstract concepts than could be communicated through writing or auditory communication? What can visualizations of concepts and their relations communicate that other methods of communication cannot? Is there a limit to what can be communicated visually? How much of one’s own life and experiences can affect the way in which they interpret visualizations? To be honest, it is still taking me a while to wrap my head around this way of thinking, but I am looking forward to continuing to think in this way as we move along in this course and really getting to dig into what data visualization can look like within the context of the culture and media of today.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 4, 2020 at 4:28 pm

Maya, I’m glad that you’re intrigued by data vis. and can see its possibilities.
I’m curious, as a musician would you consider a graphic score as a data visualization for a concrete performance/recording of music? Thank you for making the very important point that a data is made and read within the context of “one’s own life and experiences”, too.
Like you, I am looking forward to bringing together media and data vis into the same frame!

Reply

I wanted to take a chance to reflect on our in-class discussion of layers of meaning and thick description, which I found extremely applicable in the context of my senior thesis research/project. Things are starting to click together in my head so I think that this exercise of having to write it out will prove beneficial to me but also show how my understanding of these concepts have grown in the past few months. 

I found myself this summer having an existential crisis, trying to figure out what anthropology and ethnographic research looked like in a pandemic; at times I was googling “what is anthropology” because I felt that I had lost grasp with the meaning of the discipline. I even enrolled in ANT201 this semester as a senior in the department to try to reignite a conversation between myself and my thesis of what exactly culture is and what anthropology seeks to discover. At times, I was even questioning if my topic of interest was even “anthropological” or “ethnographic” because I am not currently in the COVID19 pandemic able to be in my field site, which was supposed to be urban Philadelphia neighborhoods (specifically those in the Riverwards and affected by the opioid epidemic). 

So in a sense, “thick description” in my proposed project would be exposing the connections, in the form of data visualizations and mapping, of how urban Philadelphia residents connect their constructions; a “mind map” in a sense. Building on this, my “data” in referring to Geertz’s statement would be producing counter visualizations from data generated from residents’ constructions of their environment (where, geographic wise, they perceive that toxicity/danger/harmfulness/unhealthy structures are present). This would be juxtaposed with visualizations and constructions generated by the Philadelphia government (for example, the Heart of Kensington Collective Impact Report or just visualizations that can be generated with data that the government collects based on their own categories and values) to see where there are overlaps or discrepancies. This is where I would be understanding and applying the idea of how I view “layers of meaning;” Geertz cites that, “What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to” (9). 

But the layers of meaning continue here, as Geertz argued, because the “ethnographer is in fact faced with…a multiplicity of complex conceptual structures, many of them superimposed upon or knotted into one another” (10). Many of these problems that my visualizations are contesting did not originate from the constructions of current residents, but are rooted in issues of structural violence that have been present in Philadelphia since its creation in the form of health, economic, gender, and racial disparities. Turtles upon turtles.
So I’m at the point where I try to lay out the map of connections of these layers, which would start at an (infinity)-(structural violence)-(resident’s constructions)-(how resident’s constructions might be ignored in data visualization)-(me guessing to viewing my data/vizs as constructions of residents’ constructions)-(me reassessing these guesses)-(me “drawing explanatory conclusions from the better guesses” (20))-(infinity).

I’m hoping that as the semester progresses in this class that I can come back and reassess these “first draft thoughts” like we are going to do with the culture/media/data mapping. I now see that you can add media to these posts so be on the lookout for my visual renditions of the above map^ later on.

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 4, 2020 at 4:12 pm

Lauren, this is a great way to think about your thesis. If visualizing structural violence is about making contexts visible, then you are making clear that even contexts are interpretations too. To me, what makes your notes and your work anthropological, since you were wondering, is (a) your awareness of context-making, or the production of locality, as a social and cultural act, and (b) your interest in bringing your own sense of the context up against those residing in Philadelphia. What a wonderful step forward!

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After yesterday’s class, I wasn’t happy with the way I tried to explain my point about culture and context. First I want to bring up this quote from the text again: “Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity.” (Geertz, 14 I think this is a great definition for culture but it also exposes a little bit more about context. What I mean by that is that the more you study a subject, the more details you notice and the more normal they become while still being unique at the same time. It is also about understanding the subject’s point of view which also impact that context. This is also why I want to relate it to the Wink example. The more you look and study a wink, the more you details you start noticing which directly affects the context and meaning of that wink. 

If we were to rewatch the video of Kyle Rittenhouse, we would be able to point out some information we missed and based on those, we could change our interpretation of the whole situation (like President Trump did). What I am also starting to realize, and I agree with Ailee’s previous post, is that context doesn’t really matter. What I am trying to figure out is that context doesn’t matter because there is always a way to interpret context in a different way and that maybe the real challenge is considering all possibilities while staying unbiased. These are just my thoughts that I am happy to hear what you guys think (agree or disagree and even neutral) 

Comments

Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 4, 2020 at 4:07 pm

Jerome, you’ve found a great moment where Geertz reiterates Ruth Benedict’s idea that what seems strange to us may be normal to them. And vice-versa.

Regarding context. See my comment on Ailee’s post. You seem to stop just short of making a similar point. That is, that perhaps contexts do matter a lot (see Geertz). But that there are competing contexts. How does one of them win out?

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After watching the two videos of Kyle Rittenhouse and the President’s response at the end of class today, I am intrigued interpretive context as a powerful force that can shape one’s perception of events or the version of truth that they subconsciously chose to believe. This idea actually reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad a few weeks ago, just after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. He asked me to tell him what had happened, to which I responded: “A black, unarmed man was shot seven times in the back by a police officer.” Then, he asked Why? To this, I was unable to answer until I had Googled an “actual” account of the circumstances and events that took place. I read aloud an excerpt from some CNN article that said Jacob Blake was just checking on his sons who were in the car after having an argument with his girlfriend, to which my dad abruptly responded: “No, that’s not right. He had the cops called on him, I’m reading it on the WSJ right now.” I threw my hands up in frustration and said, “Okay, but who cares? Does the context really matter right now?”

My dad thought about it for a second. “No.”

As an anthropology major, I was stunned by my own rhetorical question- because in our discipline, context always matters. Context has always been my best friend- helping guide and shape my cultural analyses as I examine concrete “facts” and patterns of behavior or speech in my independent work. Context always gets me to a fuller version of the truth. But in the past few months following the murder of George Floyd, I am now realizing that the privileging of context actually seems to be muddling truths that need to be seen and heard in this country.

The reason why context has recently not mattered to me or to really anyone who lives with basic human values of not harming others when there is no immediate danger or threat present is because even if the cops were called on Jacob Blake to resolve a previous issue, the fact is that he was unarmed and unable- in that very moment- to defend himself, as his back was to these cops. Basically the fact is that he was shot when he didn’t need to be. It’s a bizarre notion to even type these words, because I have always hesitated to label anything as a “fact” or as a “truth” when writing anthropologically. It’s a weird time to be an anthropologist. I guess I’m just now wondering how the privileging of context can be a disadvantage in domains beyond the pressing issues of social and racial justice, and if there is some tangible moral point or line we can identify at which facts begin to matter more than context.

(Side note: I’m going to be very honest and say that I don’t have much experience in racial or political discourse, but I am really committed to learning more given the current circumstances of our country. PLEASE feel free to correct me or to reach out when you see in these posts or in class that is room for me to grow! Thank you I seriously appreciate it.)

Comments

Lauren McGrath says:

September 4, 2020 at 1:06 pm

“It’s a weird time to be an anthropologist.” Agreed, Ailee. Agreed.

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Jeffrey Himpele says:

September 4, 2020 at 4:03 pm

This is very thoughtful discussion of the power of context, Ailee.
If “privileging of context” is getting in the way of truths, however, where does suspending the privilege leave us? With Trump’s claim that the answers are in the tape. If we stick with Geertz that the difference in meanings is “unphotographable,” perhaps the issue is competing contexts….Does an interpretation succeed because it establishes a convincing context?

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