Barth, Fredrik

Social anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1928) is one of the few Norwegian social scientists who have distinguished themselves internationally, and he has been of great importance to the development of modern Norwegain social science. Barth studied in Chicago and Cambridge, where he wrote his PhD thesis in 1957. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen between 1965 an 1974, before becoming Professor at the University of Oslo and manager of the Ethnographic Museum. Barth has conducted field work in Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Norway, Baluchistan, Sudan, New Guinea, Oman, Bali and Bhutan. He has written numerous books and articles on anthropological ecology, political organisation, non-European economics, comparative religious theory and anthropological theory.