Fredrik Barth

An Anthropology of Knowledge

Whereas previous Sidney Mintz lectures have celebrated Mintzs work on inequality, racism, and ethnicity, I have chosen to speak to the broadest scope of his research and teaching in anthropology. A comparative perspective on human knowledge allows us to unravel a number of aspects of the cultural worlds which people construct. I argue that knowledge always has three faces: a substantive corpus of assertions, a range of media of representation, and a social organization. Using ethnographic materials from New Guinea and Bali and also from our own universities, I try to show how in different traditions of knowledge these faces will interrelate in particular ways and generate traditionspecific criteria of validity for knowledge about the world. Thus the trajectory of a tradition of knowledge will be to a large extent endogenously determined. This implies not a diffuse relativism of anything goes but a relativism in which we can demonstrate how already established thoughts, representations, and social relations to a considerable extent configure and filter our individual human experience of the world around us and thereby generate culturally diverse worldviews.Whereas previous Sidney Mintz lectures have celebrated Mintzs work on inequality, racism, and ethnicity, I have chosen to speak to the broadest scope of his research and teaching in anthropology. A comparative perspective on human knowledge allows us to unravel a number of aspects of the cultural worlds which people construct. I argue that knowledge always has three faces: a substantive corpus of assertions, a range of media of representation, and a social organization. Using ethnographic materials from New Guinea and Bali and also from our own universities, I try to show how in different traditions of knowledge these faces will interrelate in particular ways and generate traditionspecific criteria of validity for knowledge about the world. Thus the trajectory of a tradition of knowledge will be to a large extent endogenously determined. This implies not a diffuse relativism of anything goes but a relativism in which we can demonstrate how already established thoughts, representations, and social relation...

The Analysis of Culture in Complex Societies

Field materials from North Bali are presented to question conventional anthropological conceptions of culture and common practices in its analysis. The author argues that there is a need for anthropology to reshape Us assumptions, particularly in response to recent resexive and deconstructionist critiques. A revised set of assumptions is presented with regard to cultural meanings, sharing, positioning and function; and its fruitfulness in the analysis of cultural reproduction in Bali is explored.

The Land Use Pattern of Migratory Tribes of South Persia

THE LAND use pattern of nomads appear to vary greatly in different ecologic circumstances, and are generally poorly understood. The present paper describes the pattern developed in Pars province of South Persia, involving the nomad tribes in migrations of considerable distances, and explores the ecologic and demographic implications of this pattern. It also suggests a solution to the incidental cartographic problem of showing the locations of nomadic tribesin the South Persian area. The Basseri tribe, among whom the author spent three months in the spring of 1958, will serve as example in the following treatment.

On Two Views of the Swat Pushtun [and Comments]

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.

Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference

The seven brief essays appearing in this collection were, with a few others, originally written for a symposium held in Bergen in 1967. They bear the marks of a well-prepared and well-managed conference, although they are perhaps not quite so unified in their theoretical character as the editors Preface might lead one to think. Each essay is worth very close study for what it says about a particular case or group of cases; and one ought to recognize, with admiration and gratitude, the remarkable contribution to world ethnography now being made by Scandinavian scholars. Two essays deal with Norwegian situations; the others are concerned with material from Asia, Africa and Central America. How lucky we are that the authors have been willing to go to the trouble of writing in English. But one may be less certain about the book of which the essays are components. What are the ethnic groups between which there can be boundaries to study? Harald Eidheim writes on a mixed

An Anthropology of Knowledge1

Whereas previous Sidney Mintz lectures have celebrated Mintzs work on inequality, racism, and ethnicity, I have chosen to speak to the broadest scope of his research and teaching in anthropology. A comparative perspective on human knowledge allows us to unravel a number of aspects of the cultural worlds which people construct. I argue that knowledge always has three faces: a substantive corpus of assertions, a range of media of representation, and a social organization. Using ethnographic materials from New Guinea and Bali and also from our own universities, I try to show how in different traditions of knowledge these faces will interrelate in particular ways and generate traditionspecific criteria of validity for knowledge about the world. Thus the trajectory of a tradition of knowledge will be to a large extent endogenously determined. This implies not a diffuse relativism of anything goes but a relativism in which we can demonstrate how already established thoughts, representations, and social relations to a considerable extent configure and filter our individual human experience of the world around us and thereby generate culturally diverse worldviews.Whereas previous Sidney Mintz lectures have celebrated Mintzs work on inequality, racism, and ethnicity, I have chosen to speak to the broadest scope of his research and teaching in anthropology. A comparative perspective on human knowledge allows us to unravel a number of aspects of the cultural worlds which people construct. I argue that knowledge always has three faces: a substantive corpus of assertions, a range of media of representation, and a social organization. Using ethnographic materials from New Guinea and Bali and also from our own universities, I try to show how in different traditions of knowledge these faces will interrelate in particular ways and generate traditionspecific criteria of validity for knowledge about the world. Thus the trajectory of a tradition of knowledge will be to a large extent endogenously determined. This implies not a diffuse relativism of anything goes but a relativism in which we can demonstrate how already established thoughts, representations, and social relation...

Objectives and Modalities in South-North University Cooperation

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.

Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea.

Foreword Jack Goody Map 1. The problem 2. An attempt at systematic comparison: descent and ideas of conception 3. The possible interrelations of sub-traditions: reading sequence from distribution 4. The context for events of change 5. The results of process - variations in connotation 6. Secret thoughts and understandings 7. The stepwise articulation of a vision 8. Experience and concept formation 9. The insights pursued by Ok thinkers 10. General and comparative perspectives 11. Some reflections on theory and method Bibliography Index.