In cultural anthropology thick description is the analysis not just of a particular statement or gesture, but the background and context needed to understand the full meaning of that statement or gesture. The concept was conceived by English analytic philosopher Gilbert Ryle, but its influence in anthropology is due to its uptake by Geertz, Clifford in the programme essay âThick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Cultureâ which introduces his widely read book, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (1973). Geertz extrapolates from Ryleâs rather forced example of the complexity of determining the meaning of a wink---is it a wink? a twitch? is it intended as a wink? or was it meant to be the burlesque version of a wink?---the general hypothesis that culture itself is a form of ongoing interpretive practice. So, he argues, to understand another culture what one has to first of all grasp is the manifold array of codes and rules for making and interpreting meaning in that culture. His implication is that one cannot understand another culture through remote observation alone; one has to find the means of seeing it from the perspective of those who belong to that culture. Only then will one be in a position to know when an eye twitch is a wink and whether that wink implies collusion.