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Philosophies of Interpretation CECA i Zagreb 2011 "Interpretation" has long been a major concept in the North American heritage field, but until recently has been little used in other areas of the world. The Collins English Dictionary defines interpretation as 1. the act or process of interpreting or explaining; elucidation 2. the result of interpreting; an explanation 3. a particular view of an artistic work, esp as expressed by stylistic individuality in its performance 4. explanation, as of the environment, a historical site, etc., provided by the use of original objects, personal experience, visual display material, etc. 5. (Philosophy / Logic) an allocation of significance to the terms of a purely formal system, by specifying ranges for the variables, denotations for the individual constants, etc.; a function from the formal language to such elements of a possible world In his book Museum exhibition, Dean explains that “Interpretation is the act or process of explaining or clarifying, translating or presenting a personal understanding about a subject or object.” (Dean 1994:6) Other authors consider interpretation and education to be synonyms for each other, however. For example, Alexander & Alexander write that “In a sense, museum interpretation (or education) is the multilayered process of museums issuing messages – intended and inadvertent – to the public” (Alexander & Alexander 2007:258). In the early 1950’s the United States National Park Service adopted the motto: "through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection”. Historian Freeman Tilden was engaged by the Park Service to study how this new focus on interpretation was implemented, and to write a text about the subject. The result was the publication of "Interpreting Our Heritage" in 1957. In his book, Tilden offers two definitions of interpretation. He considers the first concept for personal use. He says that "Interpretation is the revelation of a larger truth that lies behind any statement of fact”. The second concept concerned contact between an educator and the public. Tilden writes that "Interpretation should capitalize mere curiosity for the enrichment of the human mind and spirit”. Tilden insists that interpretation is not information, and not education. It is provocation. He claims that interpretation could be a tool to provoke the public to think for themselves, to be "active" learners. This provocation must first inspire the visitor “to want to discover things for himself, and second, to see and understand the things at which he looks..." (Tilden 1967:33). The result is, according to Tilden, that "the interpreter who creates a whole, pares away all the obfuscating minor detail and drives straight toward the perfection of his story will find that his hearers are walking along with him - are companions on the march. At some certain point, it becomes their story as much as his." (Tilden 1967:31) According to Tilden, one way the interpreter encourages understanding is through holistic description. In this way, the interpreter helps uncover relationships between phenomena. The aim is to give visitors “whole” pictures, rather than collections of facts and figures. He stresses “a” whole, not “the” whole, as there might be many different stories that could be constructed about any single object, site or event. "It is far better that the visitor [...] should leave with on or more whole pictures in his mind, than with a mélange of information that leaves him in doubt as to the essence of the place, and even in doubt as to why the area has been preserved at all." (Tilden 1967:41) Subtle hints often function better than explicit statements to provoke visitors towards engaging with subject matter. Tilden uses the example of a waiter at a rural hotel restaurant, which instead of directly suggesting dishes to customers, comes with phrases such as ‘I could smell that the cook has a wonderful stew on the stove. I'm looking forward to tasting it, when I get the chance’. And just as the restaurant visitor might come upon the idea to order this delicious stew, so might museum visitors be led to embrace the ideas that the interpreter presents. For Tilden, then, interpretation is a form of cultural action. Interpretation should aim at changing how visitors both think and act. Interpreting culture The second author I will discuss is Clifford Geertz, who published a number of works that have had profound influence on academic life, among them “The Interpretation of Cultures”. In these works, Geertz focuses on how groups of people learn and express themselves, instead of how “we” as educators, researchers or interpreters can communicate with them. He says that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” (Geertz 1973:5) One of Geertz’ best known examples concerns “winking”. For Geertz (and for Robert Ryle, who he borrowed the example from), winking can have various meanings depending on the situation. It might be that you have a piece of dust in your eye, and blink in automatic reflex. But then someone sees you, and winks in secret sympathy. And yet another observer feels that this is a hilarious situation with people winking all around him, and responds with an exaggerated clown wink. All three winks share the same physical movement, but carry three different symbolic messages. How can we interpret which message is connected to which wink? Geertz claims that cultural interpretation is tied to symbolic systems that people learn through culturalization – through the process of growing up in certain contexts and situations. People learn how to appreciate jokes, art or other communicative forms through experience in active contexts. Geertz writes that “The artist works with his audience's capacities--capacities to see, or hear, or touch, sometimes even to taste and smell, with understanding. And though elements of these capacities are indeed innate…they are brought into actual existence by the experience of living in the midst of certain sorts of things to look at, listen to, handle, think about, cope with, and react to” (Geertz 1983:118) But as “outsiders”, are we able to interpret messages tied to specific cultural expressions? Geertz says that “Our double task is to uncover the conceptual structures that inform our subjects' acts, the "said" of social discourse, and to construct a system of analysis in whose terms what is generic to those structures […] will stand out against the other determinants of human behavior.” (Geertz 1973:27) Geertz believes that culture is shared between groups of people in the same way that language is. The expression of culture is public, and can be observed by those who acquire the appropriate cultural tools. If something – such as ‘Art’ - is considered important, people find ways to discuss it among themselves: “Something that meaningful to us cannot be left just to sit there bathed in pure significance, and so we describe, analyse, compare, judge, classify; we erect theories about creativity, form, perception; we characterize art as a language, a structure, a system, an act, a symbol, a pattern of feeling…” (Geertz 1983:95) Symbolic systems are like maps – or perhaps like the rules for playing a game. They can be “models of” something, providing description of what we see in front of us. They can also be “models for” what we do and how we do it. According to Geertz, symbolic systems of this kind are involved in structuring everyone’s lives. Religion, art, politics and even “common sense” can evoke ways of being that both provide people with understanding of the universe, and provide models for action within cultural spheres. We go in and out of these systems in the same way that we take notice of the “winks” around us. Some of these winks are important, others not. Geertz considers that the task of the researcher is to use “thick description” to interpret the flow of social discourse in order to communicate what is actually being said in a wink, a joke or an art situation. Thick description illustrates the contexts that cultural expressions occur in – including differences of opinion. |
 Illustration: The blind men and the elephant (Stebbins & Coolidge 1909:89). |
| The story of story of the blind men and the elephant could act as a good illustration.
In the story, the blind men each use the senses available to them in examining this strange beast. Their reports variously say that the elephant is similar to a rope, a wall, a
tree, a leaf, a spear or a snake. They argue about what the elephant is, and can’t agree. As outsiders, we see that each is correct, to a degree. But then they are each wrong in
claiming that the single aspect that they have focused on is what the elephant is. There is a problem in the narrow parameters of each of their studies, and that the examination
tools limit what data they perceive. This is both a physical issue, and a social issue. The blind men lack of sight gives limitations in the physical world, but their lack of
collaboration limits also the world of ideas. How could we use thick description to clarify how such situations come about? Geertz says: “It is, after all, not just statues (or paintings, or poems) that we have to do with but the factors that cause these things to seem important […] to those who make or possess them, and these are as various as life itself” (Geertz 1983:119). The result is “not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others […] have given, and thus to include them in the consultable record of what man has said” (Geertz 1973:30) Conclusion Both Geertz and Tilden believe that people construct meaning through shared cultural idioms. Experts and institutions are involved in this process – wholeheartedly in Tilden’s case, less so in Geertz’s. These two authors share many traits with “constructivist” educational philosophies of more recent decades, in that they focus on subjective meaning tied to communities and individuals, rather than absolute truth or knowledge on a grand scale. This puts them right in the center of what museum education and informal learning circles have promoted. However, both Geertz and Tilden were publishing long before Jean Piaget’s work on constructivism was known among educators. Hence, their thoughts on “interpretation” run parallel, but not always together with learning theory authors. Geertz and Tilden also have much in common with historian Zygmunt Bauman, who in 1987 wrote a book called “Legislators and Interpreters”. According to Bauman, legislators are those who define the rules which decide who can participate in discourse, how controversy will be settled, how the social world in general shall be ordered. Bauman compares the role of the legislator to that of the interpreter, which "consists of translating statements made within one communally based tradition, so that they can be understood within the system of knowledge based on another tradition" (Bauman 1987:5). The interpreter makes his descriptions not from a basis in rules, but rather out from the situation, allowing the public to decide for themselves what is true and false, right and wrong. I’m sure that Geertz and Tilden would agree wholeheartedly that museums should be centered more on interpretation than legislation, which puts into relief the title of this conference – on which side of the legislative/interpretive division does “quality criteria” belong? Revising our thoughts on interpretation in museums can be important for defining the role of museums in modern society. If we are to find “new answers” to “old questions”, it might be useful that we do deeper studies of authors of the past – and see how many of the old questions remain relevant to our work in the present. Literature Alexander, M., & Alexander, E. P. (2007). Museums In Motion: An Introduction To The History And Functions Of Museums. Rowman Altamira. Bauman, Zygmunt (1987). Legislators and interpreters. Cambridge: Polity Press. Collins English Dictionary (2003). Harper Collins Publishers Dean, D. (1996). Museum exhibition: theory and practice. Routledge. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. Basic Books. Geertz, C. (1983). Local knowledge: further essays in interpretive anthropology. Basic Books. Stebbins, C. M., & Coolidge, M. H. (1909). Golden Treasury Readers: Primer. American Book Co. Tilden, F. (1967). Interpreting our heritage. Second edition. University of North Carolina Press. |
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