words, ethnographic experience is the primary source of‘breaking the
frames’, but only if it is already linked in a thoughtful way with some
existing scheme of analysis.
Barth himself provided a succinct account of this process in multiple
ethnographic contexts of hisfieldwork around the world. We will look at
his discussion in relation to two such contexts: his Swat Pathan study and
his work with the Baktaman of Papua New Guinea. These contexts are
remarkably different in scale, history, and the questions that informed
Barth’sfieldwork. So, our purpose is not to seek any direct comparison,
but rather to see how Barth posed his problems and solved them by
choosing a frame of analysis that enabled him to shift explanatory schemes
from one modality to another.
An important point that Barth makes is that his own marginality and
plurality of background was an intellectual strength for him as well as a
career disadvantage at early stages of his trajectory. Plurality of viewpoint
kept him from being wedded to any one way of theorizing at the expense
of others. Marginality meant that to begin with he could seek to explore
contexts of learning from outside of Norway, for example, Cambridge in
the UK and Chicago in the USA, and subsequently build on these to
establish a strong institutional context in his own country.
A fundamental viewpoint that he traces in his own rendering is one he
derived from the work of Edmund Leach’sPolitical Systems of Highland
Burma,first published in 1954. Leach had demonstrated two things:first
that cousin marriage practices among Kachins varied in step with political
processes; and second that ethnic identities, also, could shift, with Kachin
at the upper end of a socioeconomic scale becoming Shan and consolidat-
ing their wealth within the new identity.
Much in line with Leach’s general ideas, Barth reports that he decided
to avoid an analysis in terms of institutions, rules, and norms among the
Swat Pathans, and instead to concentrate on choices of political affiliations
made by male actors. Such a choice would seem to align him with the kind
of methodological individualism espoused by Jarvie (see previous chapter).
However, it is important to look at the reasons he gives for adopting this
approach. The Swat Pathans had ramifying, segmented descent groups,
with ranked subgroups among these. This is undoubtedly an institutional
framework informed also by certain moral ideas of correct behavior. But in
terms of politics, descent did not simply determine identity. Men made
their own strategic choices in search of what appeared to them in their best
advantage. With some influence of rank and chiefship, leaders needed
24 BREAKING THE FRAMES