One explanation of thick description…Clifford Geertz –from Interpretations of Culture

….is a quote borrowed liberally and literally from Clifford Geertz (The Interpretations of Culture 1973).  The quote, of course, is a layer among many in a very thick description. As an ethnographer, I have never strayed far from Geertz’s foundation that storytelling, that interpretation or explanation of one’s world–the search for meaning–creates a public document of a public act. In a multimediated world, that quest for meaning and the subsequent creation of a public document takes on exponentially more expressions and meanings. Regardless of form, a story cannot exist in a vacuum; an audience is a fundamental component which, by tacit or expressed agreement, perpetuates the process of interpretation and retelling. Seeking the process is not necessarily the same path as seeking the truth.