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.

The Second Royal Society Nuffield Lecture: Anthropological Models and Social Reality

Abstract: I wish to emphasize this fundamentally empirical view: we discover and record, we do not comment and evaluate. The fundamental approach is thus that of science and not of moral philosophy. We seek the data not for the insight they may give us in our own 'human' problems of existence, not for answers to ethical dilemmas or the purpose of life. The varieties of human societies is a field of empirical knowledge and inquiry in its own right. It should hardly be necessary to emphasize this, were it not for the prominence of humanist orientation in universities and the utilitarian and 'social problem' justifications used in many social sciences. As well as discovering and recording, we also try to systematize this knowledge about human societies in what may conveniently, if somewhat ambitiously, be called explanatory models?models in the broad sense that they are representations of an interrelated set of assumed factors that determine or 'explain' the phenomena we observe. But there is one circumstance that makes our discipline different from the natural sciences. From our own life, we feel that it is undeniable and true that human behaviour is prominently shaped by consciousness and purpose. Anthro? pologists are therefore prepared to speak about things like beliefs, obligations, and values, not just immediate, overt behaviour. This also means that an explanatory model for behaviour can be different from the models used in natural science. Human behaviour is ' explained' if we show (a) the utility of its consequences in [ 20 ]

On Two Views of the Swat Pushtun [and Comments]

Abstract: languages. The most unexpected finding will be that the language of food offerings uses contrasting combinations with a meaning of totality comparable to antithetical idiomatic expressions, a stylistic feature peculiar to verbal languages and one for which Dravidian tongues have a predilection. Though the ritual of naivedya isonly an imperfect language, it cannot be denied, I think, that it uses linguistic procedures and that some of its symbols have linguistic meaning.

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.