ABSTRACT
Many credit The Interpretation of Cultures with popularizing an interpretive school of thought. While many scholars remained unconvinced by Clifford Geertz's exclusive emphasis on symbols as codes for cultural meaning, the ideas he put forward in The Interpretation of Cultures proved very popular. In fact, scholars credit them with popularizing an interpretive school of thought. Drawing on the aims and methods of several disciplines, Geertz took an interdisciplinary approach to his work. To many of these scholars Geertz's method remains less important than his cultural pluralism—is way of considering different cultures on their own terms, a notion central to his relativist approach. It also informs his interpretation of alternative moral universes. Interpretive anthropology turned scholars' attention toward issues of culture and interpretation. Many modern ethnographers continue to study the distinct ways in which people in different localities experience their lives.
