Fredrik Barth

Bio: Fredrik Barth is an academic researcher from University of Oslo. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social organization & Tribe. The author has an hindex of 35, co-authored 58 publications receiving 9472 citations. Previous affiliations of Fredrik Barth include University of Chicago & Boston University.

Objectives and Modalities in South-North University Cooperation

Abstract: Summary Fredrik Barth, ‘Objectives and Modalities in South-North University Cooperation’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1, 1992, pp. 127–133. The article suggests some policy guidelines for a program of research cooperation between African and Norwegian Universities. An active research engagement in a broad range of disciplines is required to achieve the self-reliant development called for in the Report of the South Commission. The need for equality in the partnership between scholars, and for a free debate between teacher and trainee, is emphasized.

On the Study of Social Change

Abstract: Social anthropologists study the cultures and customs of different societies, examining the operation of social systems. However, social change also plays a significant role in understanding the operations of a social system, especially the patterns of change within a social system. As a means of better understanding societal change patterns, a society's entrepreneurial presence is explored as a possible agent of social change within cultures. To gain greater insight into the impact of entrepreneurial activity upon a culture's social system, an examination is conducted regarding the beer industry of the Fur people of the Darfur region of Sudan. The economic make-up of the Fur society is discussed, including the system of allocation common among both men and women within the society. While the norm within the society is a system of allocation, some members of the society acquired a more nomadic lifestyle, resulting in acculturation to the differing norms and customs of their new surroundings. Thus, both innovation and institutionalization are significant considerations when examining change patterns. The study illustrates the influence of a society's ecological and social systems upon their ability to change, and stresses that change is primarily social and interactional. (AKP)

Could We Be Friends? When a Wish to Be Friends Becomes Part of a Therapeutic Relational Dynamic

Abstract: Abstract Psychoanalytic theory and practice have moved toward privileging relational and attachment dynamics as both cause and cure of many of the issues that bring individuals into psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, highlighting the significance of each therapeutic relationship as a key part of the work. But, what is that relationship? We are not parent/child, nor are we friends, but a deep, mutual bond often develops and enhances the process. Fantasies of being friends, emanating from either and/or both participants, can represent important, often unformulated, aspects of this relationship. Psychoanalytic theory has not fully explored meanings of this wish to be friends, but it is my experience that finding ways to reflect on a wish or fantasy to be friends can lead to deeper and more complex understanding of adult attachment. In this article, theory and clinical examples will be utilized to examine resistances as well as contradictions, conflicts, and hopes and fears that come into play when thoughts, fantasies, and wishes to be friends to enter the therapeutic space.

Culture in action: symbols and strategies*

Abstract: Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand culture's effects on action is fundamentally misleading. It assumes that culture shapes action by supplying ultimate ends or values toward which action is directed, thus making values the central causal element of culture. This paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into which this traditional view of culture leads and offers an alternative model. Among sociologists and anthropologists, debate has raged for several academic generations over defining the term "culture." Since the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), the older definition of culture as the entire way of life of a people, including their technology and material artifacts, or that (associated with the name of Ward Goodenough) as everything one would need to know to become a functioning member of a society, have been displaced in favor of defining culture as the publicly available symbolic forms through which people experience and express meaning (see Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal cultural practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life. These symbolic forms are the means through which "social processes of sharing modes of behavior and outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, 1969:184) take place.

Super-diversity and its implications

Abstract: Diversity in Britain is not what it used to be. Some thirty years of government policies, social service practices and public perceptions have been framed by a particular understanding of immigration and multicultural diversity. That is, Britain's immigrant and ethnic minority population has conventionally been characterized by large, well-organized African-Caribbean and South Asian communities of citizens originally from Commonwealth countries or formerly colonial territories. Policy frameworks and public understanding – and, indeed, many areas of social science – have not caught up with recently emergent demographic and social patterns. Britain can now be characterized by ‘super-diversity,’ a notion intended to underline a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything the country has previously experienced. Such a condition is distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically...

The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences

Abstract: In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.

The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences

Abstract: ▪ Abstract In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.