Political Process of the Swat Bateen People: An Example of Sociological Research

Author: Fredrik Barth
Translator: Huang Jiansheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Political Process among the Swat Pathans is an analysis of the political organization structure of the Swat people that I observed in the mid-20th century. It is both an ethnographic record of regional political life and a theoretical elaboration of the formation process of political structures. The book analyzes the political organization forms that were widespread in the Swat District at that time but had never been described before. Since its first publication in early 1959, it has been reprinted more than ten times and published in multiple countries including the UK, the US, Canada, etc. Fredrik Barth, the author, is a pioneer in social anthropology. In the 1950s, he conducted thorough field research in the relatively independent and isolated region of Swat (now the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan). The book describes the relationships among various social groups in the region, including kinship, political, and religious ties, as well as their political interactions and the basic political structure. More importantly, the author establishes a theoretical model for analyzing complex everyday phenomena, providing a set of anthropological research methods—observing from the micro-level to uncover connections with the macro-level and studying theoretical issues at the macro-level.