The Intensification of Social Forms: Economy and Culture in the Thought of Clifford Geertz

It is often suggested that the career of Clifford Geertz falls into two parts: a youthful dalliance with modernization theory followed by a turn toward questions of interpretation and symbolic action. Attempts to reconcile these two phases of Geertz’s career usually posit a change of heart or a drift away from the preoccupations of youth. In this article, I argue that Geertz’s mature engagement with hermeneutic methodology did not mark a break in his thought but instead provided a means for him to continue his long-standing efforts to make sense of economic development in the new nations of Asia and Africa. We see this most clearly in Geertz’s rich but overlooked writings on the suq of Sefrou, Morocco. Seen from this perspective, Geertz’s economic anthropology offers a worthy alternative to existing approaches to the study of economic institutions.