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Fredrik Barth | |
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| Born | Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth (1928-12-22)22 December 1928 |
| Died | 24 January 2016(2016-01-24) (aged 87) Norway |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago (MA) Cambridge University (PhD) |
| Spouse | Unni Wikan |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology |
| Institutions | Boston University University of Bergen |
| Doctoral advisor | Edmund Leach |
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| Political and legal anthropology |
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Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth (22 December 1928 – 24 January 2016) was a Norwegiansocial anthropologist who published severalethnographic books with a clear formalist view. He was a professor in the Department of Anthropology atBoston University, and previously held professorships at theUniversity of Oslo, theUniversity of Bergen (where he founded the Department of Social Anthropology),Emory University andHarvard University. He was appointed agovernment scholar in 1985.[1][2][3]
Barth was born inLeipzig, Germany to Thomas Barth, a professor of geology, and his wife Randi Thomassen. They also had a daughter. Barth and his sister grew up in Norway in an academic family. Their uncle wasEdvard Kaurin Barth, a professor of zoology.[1] Fredrik Barth developed an interest inevolution and human origins. When his father was invited to give a lecture at theUniversity of Chicago, the younger man accompanied him and decided to attend the university, enrolling in 1946.[4] He earned an MA in paleoanthropology and archaeology in 1949.[5]
After receiving his MA, Barth returned to Norway, keeping a connection to Chicago faculty. In 1951 he joined anarchaeological expedition to Iraq led byRobert Braidwood. Barth stayed on after the expedition was over, and conducted ethnographic population studies with theKurdish population. He spent a year at theLondon School of Economics (LSE) writing up this data, and in 1953 published his first book,Principles of Social Organization in Southern Kurdistan.[4]: 2–3
Barth had originally planned to submit the manuscript of hisPrinciples of Social Organization as his Ph.D. dissertation, but was unsuccessful in doing so. He continued graduate study, moving toCambridge, England to study withEdmund Leach, whom he had previously worked with at the LSE. For his PhD, Barth conducted fieldwork inSwat, Pakistan; his completed dissertation was published in 1959 asPolitical Leadership among SwatPathan. Shortly afterwards, he was part of a UNESCO study of pastoral nomadism which focused on theBasseri in what is now Iran. From this work, he published the 1961 monographNomads of South Persia.[4]: 3–6
In 1961, Barth was invited to theUniversity of Bergen to create an anthropology department and serve as the chair. This important and prestigious position gave him the opportunity to introduce British-stylesocial anthropology to Norway. The only other existing anthropology program, at theUniversity of Oslo, was older and connected to the university'sethnographic museum (now theMuseum of Cultural History). It was based in Victorian folklore and museum approaches. By founding the department at Bergen, Barth hoped to create a modern, world-class department with an approach similar to those found in England and the United States.[4]: 7
Barth remained at Bergen from 1961 to 1972. During this time his own work developed in two key ways. First, he developed research projects inside Norway (and published a study entitledThe Role of the Entrepreneur in Social Change in Northern Norway in 1963). Second, he began writing more purely theoretical works that secured his international reputation within anthropology. These includedModels of Social Organization (1966) and especially the small, edited volume,Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (1969). Barth's introduction toEthnic Groups and Boundaries became his most well-known essay and "ended up among the top 100 on the social science citation index for a number of years.".[4]: 10
In 1974 Barth moved toOslo, where he became professor of social anthropology and head of the city's Museum of Cultural History. During this period, anthropology was changing.Marxism and interpretive approaches were becoming more central while Barth's focus on strategy and choice was being taken up by economics and related disciplines.[4]: 9 Barth shifted to studying meaning and ritual as developed in ethnic groups, and conducted research inPapua New Guinea, where he conducted fieldwork with theBaktaman. He published several works from these studies, namely theRitual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea (1975). He also continued studies in the Middle East, conducting fieldwork inOman with his wifeUnni Wikan. This resulted in his 1983 volumeSohar: Culture and Society in an Omani Town.
Barth received a state scholarship from the Norwegian government in 1985. He left the country to accept two positions in the United States—atEmory University from 1989 to 1996, andBoston University from 1997 to 2008.[6]: 7 By this time, Barth and his wife "felt we had both done our share of physically strenuous fieldwork" and decided to begin an ethnographic project inBali.[4]: 14 He developed an interest in the anthropology of knowledge at around this time, an interest which he explored in his bookBalinese Worlds (1993). More recently, he has also conducted research inBhutan.
Barth was a member of theNorwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[7] In 1997 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[8]
Barth was married 1949–1972 to Mary ("Molly") Allee (27 April 1926 – December 1998),[9] and he was married again 30 January 1974 toUnni Wikan, professor of social anthropology at theUniversity of Oslo, Norway.[6]: 7 His sister Tone Barth (25 January 1924 – 10 October 1980) was married 1945–1963 toTerkel Rosenqvist (1921–2011), also an academic,[10] and she was married again in 1963 to the Norwegian politician for the Conservative PartyVidkunn Hveding (1921–2001). Barth died in Norway on 24 January 2016 at the age of 87.[11]
He was well known among anthropologists for hisTransactionalism analysis of political processes in theSwat Valley of northern Pakistan, and his study of micro-economic processes and entrepreneurship in the area ofDarfur inSudan. The latter has been regarded as a classical example offormalist analysis ineconomic anthropology. During his long career, Barth has also published acclaimed studies based on field works inBali,New Guinea, and several countries in the Middle East, thematically covering a wide array of subjects.[2]
Barth has been an influential scholar on the subject of ethnicity. Andreas Wimmer wrote in 2008, "The comparative study of ethnicity rests firmly on the ground established by Fredrik Barth in his well-known [1969] introduction to a collection of ethnographic case studies."[12] As the editor ofEthnic Groups and Boundaries (1969), Barth outlined an approach to the study ofethnicity that focused on the ongoing negotiations of boundaries between groups of people. Barth's view was that such groups were not discontinuous cultural isolates, or logicala prioris to which people naturally belong.
Barth parted with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordial bonds. He focused on the interface and interaction between groups that gave rise to identities.[2]
Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, which he edited, concentrates on the interconnections of ethnic identities. Barth writes in his introduction (p. 9):
... categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintaineddespite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories.
He emphasizes the use by groups of categories - i.e. ethnic labels - that usually endure even when individual members move across boundaries or share an identity with people in more than one group.
The inter-dependency ofethnic groups is a pivotal argument throughout both the introduction and the following chapters. As interdependent, ethnic identities are the product of continuous so-called ascription (Cf.Ascriptive inequality) and self-ascription, Barth stresses the interactional perspective of social anthropology on the level of the persons involved instead of on a socio-structural level. Ethnic identitybecomes and is maintained through relational processes of inclusion and exclusion.[2]
