76 THEORIES OF ETHNICITY
FREDRIK BARTH n
prevents us from understanding the phenomenon of ethnic groups and their
place in human society and culture. This is because it begs all the critieal
questions: while purporting to give an ídeal type model of a recurring
empirical form, it implies a preconceived view of what are the significant
factors in the genesis, structure, and function of such groups.
Most critiealJy, it allows us to assume that boundary maintenance is
unproblematieal and follows from the isolation whieh the itemized characteristies
imply: racial difference, cultural difference, social separation and language
barriers, spontaneous and organized enmity. This also limits the range
of factors that we use to explain cultural diversity: we are led to imagine each
group developing its cultural and social form in relative isolation, mainly in
response to local ecologie factors, through a history of adaptation by invention
and selective borrowing. This history has produced a world of separate
peoples, each with their culture and each organized in a society whieh can
legitimately be isolated for description as an island to itself
However, what is the unit who se continuity in tirne is depícted in such
studies? Paradoxically, it must include cultures in the past which would clearly
be excluded in the present because of differences in form-differences of
precisely the kind that are diagnostie in synchronie differentiation of ethnic
units. The interconnection between 'ethnic group' and 'culrure' is certainly
not clarified through this confusion.
2. The overt culrural forms whieh can be iternized as traits exhibit the
effects of ecology. By this I do not mean to refer to the fact that they reflect a
history of adaptation to environment; in a more immediate way they also
reflect the external circumstances to whieh actors must accommodate thernselves.
The same group of people, with unchanged values and ideas, would
surely pursue different pattems of life and instirutionalize different forms of
behaviour when faced with the different opportunities offered in different
environments? Likewise, we must expect to find that one ethnic group,
spread over a territory with varying ecologie circumstances, will exhibit
regional diversities of overt institutionalized behaviour whieh do not
reflect differences in cultural orientation. How should they then be
classified if overt institutional forms are diagnostie? A case in point is the
distributions and diversity of Pathan local social systems. By basie Pathan
values, a Southern Pathan from the homogeneous, lineage-organized mountain
areas, can only find the behaviour of Pathans in Swat so different from,
and reprehensible in terms of, their own values that they declare their northern
brothers 'no longer Pathan'. Indeed, by 'objectíve' criteria, their overt
panem of organization seems much closer to that of Panjabis. But I found it
possible, by explaining the circumstances in the north, to make Southern
Pathans agree that these were indeed Pathans too, and grudgingly to admit
that under those circumstances they might indeed themselves act in the same
way. It is thus inadequate to regard overt institutional forms as constituting
the cultural features whieh at any time distinguish an ethnie group-these
overt forms are determined by ecology as well as by transrnitted culture. Nor
can it be claimed that every such diversification within a group represents a
first step in the direction of subdivision and multiplication of units. We have
well-known documented cases of one ethnic group, also at a relatively simple
level of economie organization, occupying several different ~co).ogic niehes
and yet retaining basic cultu~al and.ethníc unity over long pm~s (cf., e.g.,
inland and coastal Chuckchee'" ar reíndeer, river, and coast L.S3).
ln one of the following essays, 810m (pp. 74 ff.) argues c~ntly on this
point with reference to centrál Norwegian mountain farmers.He shows how
their participation and self-evaluation in terms of generál Norwegian values
secures them continued membership in the larger ethnic group. despite the
highly characteristic and deviant pattems of aetivity whieh the loeal eeology
imposes on thern. To analyse such cases, we need a viewpoint that does not
eonfuse the effects of ecologie circumstanees on behaviour with those of
Ethnic groups a.s culture-bearing units
Rather than diseussing the adequacy of this version of culture history for
other than pelagie islands, let us look at some of the logieal flaws in the
viewpoint. Among the characteristics listed above, the sharing of a common
culture is generally given centra I importance. In my view, much can be
gained by regarding this very important feature as an implication or result,
rather than a prim ary and definitional characteristic cf ethnic group organization.
Ifone ehooses to regard the eulture-bearing aspect of ethnic groups as
their primary characteristie, this has far-reaehing implications. One is led 'to
identify and distinguish ethnic groups by the morphologieal eharaeteristies of
the cultures of which they are the bearers. This entails a prejudged viewpoint
both on (I) the nature of continuity in time of such units, and (2) the locus of
the facrors which determine the form of the units.
I. Given the emphasis on the culture-bearing aspect, the classification of
persons and local groups as members of an ethnic group must depend on
their exhibiting the particular traits of the culture. This is something that can
be judged objectively by the ethnographic observer, in the culture-area
tradition, regardless of the categories and prejudices of the actors. Differences
between groups become differences in trait inventories; the attention is
drawn to the analysis of culrures, not of ethnic organization. The dynamie
relationship between groups wil1then be depicted in acculturation studies of
the kind that have been attracting decreasing interest in anthropology,
though their theoretieal inadequacies have never been seriously discussed.
Since the historical provenance of any assemblage of culture traits is diverse,
the viewpoint also gives scope for an 'ethnohístory' whieh chronicles cultural
accretion and change, and seeks to explain why certain iterns were borrowed.
~
.1
'1