80 THBORIBS OF BTHNICITY
where persons of different culture interact, one would expect these differences
to be reduced, since interaction both requires and generates a congruence
of codes and values-in other words, a similarity or communíty of
culture." Thus the persistence of ethnic groups in contact implies not only
criteria and signals for identification, but also a structuring of interaction
which allows the persistence of cultural differences. The organizational
feature which, I would argue, must be genera! for all inter-ethnic relations
is a systematic set of rules governing inter-ethnic social encounters. In all
organized social life, what can be made relevant to interaction in any
particular social situation is prescríbed." If peopleagree about these prescriptions,
their agreement on codes and values need not extend beyond that
which is relevant to the social situations in which they interact. Stable interethnic
relations presuppose such a structuring of interaction: a set of prescriptions
governing situations of contact, and allowing for articulation in
some sectors ar domains of activity, and a set· of proscriptions on social
situations preventing inter-ethnic interaction in other sectors, and thus insulating
parts of the cultures frorn confrontation and modification.
Poly-ethnic social systems
This of course is what Furnivall" so clearly depicted in his analysis of plural
society: a poly-ethnic society integrated in the market place, under the
control of a state system dominated by one of the groups, but leaving large
areas of cultural diversity in the religious and domestic sectors of activity.
What has not been adequately appreciated by later anthropologists is the
possible variety of sectors of articulation and separation, and the variety of
poly-ethnic systems which this entails. We know of some of the Melanesian
trade systems in objects belonging to the high-prestige sphere of the economy,
and even some of the etiquette and prescriptions governing the
exchange situation and insulating it from other activities. We have information
on various traditional polycentric systems from S.E. Asia integrated both
in the prestige trade sphere and in quasi-feudal politica! structures. Some
regions of S.W Asia show forms based on a more fully monetized market
economy, while politica! integration is polycentric in character. There is also
the ritual and productive cooperation and political integration of the Indian
caste system to be considered, where perhaps only kinship and domestic life
remain as a proscribed sector and a wellspring for cultural diversity. Nothing
can be gained by lumping these various systems under the increasingly vague
label of 'plurál' society, whereas an investigation of the varieties of structure
can shed a great deal of light on social and cultural forms.
What can be referred to as articulation and separation on the macro-level
corresponds to systematic sets of role constraints on the micro-level. Common
to all these systems is the principle that ethnic identity implies a series of
FRBDRIK BARTH 81
constraints on the kinds of roles an individual is allowed to play, and the
partners he may choose for different kinds of transactions. In other words,
regarded as a status, ethnic identity is superordinate to most other statuses,
and defines the permissible constellations of statuses, or social personalities,
which an individual with that identity may assume. In this respect ethnic
identity is similar to sex and rank, in that it constrains the incumbent in
all his activities, not only in some defined social situations. One might
thus also say that it is imperative, in that it cannot be disregarded and
temporarily set aside by other definitions of the situation. The constraints
on a person's behaviour which spring from his ethnic identity thus tend to be
absolute and, in complex poly-ethnic societies, quite comprehensive; and the
component moral and social conventions are made further resistant to
change by being joined in stereotyped clusters as characteristics of one single
identity.
. "
The associations oj identities and value standards
The analysis of interactional and organizational features of interethnic relations
has suffered from a lack of attention to problems of boundary rnaintenance.
This is perhaps because anthropologists have reasoned frorn a
misleading idea of the prototype inter-ethnic situation. One has tended to
think in terms of different peoples, with different histories and cultures,
coming together and accommodating themselves to each other, generally
in a colonial setting. To visualize the basic requirements for the coexistence of
ethnic diversity, I would suggest that we rather ask ourselves what is needed
to make ethnic distinctions emerge in an area. The organizational requirements
are clearly, first, a categorization of population sectors in exclusive and
imperative status categories, and second, an acceptance of the principle that
standards applied to one such category can be different from that applied to
another. Though this alone does not explain why cultural differences emerge,
it does allow us to see how they persist. Each category can then be associated
with a separate range of value standards. The greater the differences between
these value orientations are, the more constraints on inter-ethnic interaction
do they entail: the statuses and situations in the total social system involving
behaviour which is discrepant with a person's value orientations mu st be
avoided, since such behaviour on his part will be negatively sanctioned.
Moreover, because identities are signalled as well as embraced, new forms
of behaviour will tend to be dichotomized: one would expect the role
constraints to operate in such a way that persons would be reluctant to act
in new ways from a fear that such behaviour might be inappropriate for a
person of their identity, and swift to classify forms of activity as associated
with one ar another duster of ethnic characteristics. Just as dichotomizations
of male versus female work seem to proliferate in some societies, so also the