A breakthrough of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries – reality or a myth? (On amnesia in ethnicity studies)

Abstract

There is universal agreement in the scholarly community on the crucial position of the book Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (ed. F Barth, 1969) in the modern study of ethnicity. General consensus goes that this work has a status of a founding work that developed a theoretical paradigm and model of ethnic groups, on which the study of ethnicity draws until today. This study critically reviews this reputation. The author, drawing on the works of authors who had published their works before Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, suggests that theoretical positions proposed by Barth and his colleagues in the famous book were not at all new by that time, neither were they considered novel by contemporary readers. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries acquired the status of a ground-breaking work, founding a new era of anthropological study of ethnicity only later, and not because of the results the book really provided, but rather thanks to statements about the contribution of this work to the study of ethnicity made by its editor, F Barth in his famous ‘Introduction’. This conceptualization of the history of ethnicity studies was, thanks to the immense influence of F Barth´s book, gradually accepted and the results of all work that had been previously done in the field of ethnicity studies, was covered by amnesia, continuing until today.