Migrating Notion of Culture. Around Clifford Geertz’s Anthropology

Abstract

The article concerns the problem of the boundary between the disciplines of anthropology and sociology, and changes in the way of understanding the concept of culture. The main thesis of the article the concept of culture. The main thesis of the article is the claim that the socio-economic changes, after the Second War, lead to a redefinition of the concept of culture, and for blurring the boundary between anthropology and sociology. Culture today becomes a social issue. It is no longer a matter of discovering new lands, tropics and orient. Culture has become something ordinary today, something that seems to be among ordinary people, who living in ordinary cities. The subject of the article goes around Clifford Geertz’s theory of culture, because he is an anthropologist who notices this blurring of boundaries. In order to achieve the aim of the article and confirm the thesis put forward in it, the author divided the text into three parts. In the first one she presents – in outline – the turns and changes that took place both in science and in the social sphere. In the second part, she refers to Geertz’s theory and tries to show what his understanding of the concept of culture looks like. In the third point, she tries to grasp this transitioning of culture into the area of sociology. In this context, the name of Talcott Parsons comes in.