Final answer:
Clifford Geertz is the anthropologist known for his analysis of the cultural meanings in Balinese cockfights. His work illustrates the use of thick description to explore cultural significance.
Step-by-step explanation:
The anthropologist especially known for the analysis of the cultural meanings found in cockfights in Bali is Clifford Geertz. Geertz's seminal work, Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, delves into the symbolic structures and deep meanings that Balinese people attribute to the practice of cockfighting. It is through his detailed description and interpretation of the cockfights that Geertz exemplifies his concept of thick description, illustrating the intricate web of significance a culture weaves.
Although early cultural anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski and Margaret Mead have significantly contributed to the field in various ways — Malinowski's in-depth study of the Trobrianders and their kula ring and Mead's pioneering use of visual media — it was Clifford Geertz's ethnographic analysis of the Balinese cockfight that particularly stands out in the anthropological understanding of the complex interplay between culture and public events such as the cockfight.