Fredrik Barth was a Norwegian social anthropologist known for his transactionalist approach to social organization and for his influential theory of ethnicity. In his edited volume Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969) he argued that ethnic identity is maintained not primarily by the persistence of shared cultural content but by the social boundaries that groups actively construct and maintain in their ongoing interaction with other groups, so that ethnicity is best understood as a social process of boundary-making rather than a fixed cultural inheritance. Earlier in his career Barth developed a transactionalist analysis of social life, examining how social structures such as caste and political leadership emerge from the accumulated strategic choices and exchanges of individual actors, most fully developed in his study of political leadership among the Swat Pathans of northern Pakistan.
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionDeveloped a transactionalist theory of ethnicity, arguing that ethnic identity is maintained through social boundary-making between groups rather than by shared cultural content alone. 1 Notable WorkEthnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (1969) 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Fredrik Barth (Wikipedia)
Practices Studied
Source Fredrik Barth (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Nationality
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Source Fredrik Barth (Wikipedia)Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 2Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth (22 December 1928 – 24 January 2016) was a Norwegian social anthropologist who published several ethnographic books with a clear formalist view.
Sources
1. Fredrik Barth (Wikipedia)
WikipediaBiography and major works section, opening sentence (birth date)
Barth was born in Leipzig, Germany to Thomas Barth, a professor of geology, and his wife Randi Thomassen.
Biography and major works section, opening sentence (birth year)
Barth was born in Leipzig, Germany to Thomas Barth, a professor of geology, and his wife Randi Thomassen.
Biography and major works section, opening sentence (birthplace)
Barth was born in Leipzig, Germany to Thomas Barth, a professor of geology, and his wife Randi Thomassen.
Personal life section, closing sentence (death date)
Barth died in Norway on 24 January 2016 at the age of 87.
Personal life section, closing sentence (death year)
Barth died in Norway on 24 January 2016 at the age of 87.
Personal life section, closing sentence (death place)
Barth died in Norway on 24 January 2016 at the age of 87.
opening paragraph, first sentence
was a Norwegian social anthropologist who published several ethnographic books with a clear formalist view
Biography and major works section, Bergen period paragraph
the small, edited volume, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (1969)
Ethnicity section, first sentence
Barth outlined an approach to the study of ethnicity that focused on the ongoing negotiations of boundaries between groups of people.
Associated With: Boston University, Article text
He was a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University, and previously held professorships at the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen (where he founded the Department of Social Anthropology), Emory University and Harvard University.
Practices Studied: Ritual, Article text
Barth shifted to studying meaning and ritual as developed in ethnic groups, and conducted research in Papua New Guinea, where he conducted fieldwork with the Baktaman.
View the Source Wikidata: Fredrik Barth
Wikidata Q466998, class allow-list match, case-insensitive label variant (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/resolve_ci.ps1)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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