Definitive geertz

Abstract
Geertz declares that commitment to an interpretive approach to the study of culture entails a commitment to a view of ethnographic assertion as “essentially contestable” nevertheless, the text of one of his most celebrated essays, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”, is realist (i.e., it presupposes a reality which obtains independently of his description of it) and the object of realist writing is to elicit from the reader a single, unproblematic reading.