What do you think?
Rate this book
Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans: Volume 19
A classic and highly influential ethnography, which explores political leadership among Swat Pathans - and which emphasizes the importance of individual decision-making for wider social processes.
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
6 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 19, 2012
Social Frameworks: Transactionalism
Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans by Fredrik Barth (1959)
The main purpose of Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans is to provide a “descriptive analysis of the political systems of Swat, with special reference to the sources of political authority, and the form of organization within which the authority is exercised.” (Barth 1959: 1) After stating this purpose (Chapter 1), and reviewing the general ecology and ethnology of Swat, Pakistan (Chapter 2), Barth presents the basic/fixed social organizational frameworks by which individuals in Swat are ordered: territorial, hereditary castes, and patrilineal descent groups (Chapter 3). Relations within these social organization frameworks are defined by neighborhood and association, marriage, and kinship; these relationships are solidified during rite of passage celebrations and through marriage (Chapter 4). Activities related to production, recreation, and religion also define relations within these social organization frameworks; inequality exists in these activity groups, as do internal authority systems (Chapter 5). Political dynamics in Swat are based on these organizational frameworks and systems of relations; land tenure interconnects these frameworks and is a direct source of political influence (Chapter 6). By controlling land, “satisfied men” (Pakhtun caste landowners) gain control over “hungry men” (house and land tenants and other dependents); “Saints” gain political influence and authority based on their reputation for holiness and their actions as mediators, as well as through control of land. Secular chiefs/Pakhtun caste landowners and saints occupy complementary roles as political leaders; saints act as mediators between feuding Pakhtun factions, reducing the threat of anarchy (Chapters 7 and 8). Corporate political followings group around these leaders; the combination (alliances) and opposition (political blocs) of these smaller groups create and maintain the acephalous political organization found in Swat (Chapter 9). Blocs represent regularities in choices and actions made by individual leaders; the Swat political system “does not define a set of formal structural positions – it emerges as a result of individual choices.” (Barth 1959: 2)
Barth’s analysis of Swat Pathans reflects the influence of Gluckman’s Manchester School, which he was exposed to via Edmund Leach at the London School of Economics; however, while most the case studies associated with the Manchester School analyze relations between colonial governments and local rulers, Barth’s study in the remote area of Swat allowed for a focus on the internal factors that influenced political development. Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans laid the foundation for Barth’s transactional model. Relationships between leaders and followers in Swat society, according to Barth, are transactions reflecting individual agency. Developed in response to the inadequacies he found in functionalist and structural-functionalist frameworks, Barth’s transactional model moves past placing a primary emphasis on social structures and takes the individual into account as an active agent that interacts and makes choices within boundaries specified by a society’s organizational frameworks. In Swat, the social organizational frameworks in place afford a range of choices for individuals in the establishing of allegiances; the Swat political system is the result of choices made by individuals.
Key in Barth’s analysis is recognizing that while some social organizations frameworks (territorial, hereditary castes, and patrilineal descent groups) are fixed, relationship based social organizational frameworks (neighborhood and association, marriage, and kinship) are changeable. Much like Gluckman, Barth’s action oriented analysis ethnographically captures the essence of dynamic social process by focusing on the individual.
A major criticism I have with Barth’s work is that he views the decision making process of individuals in Swat through a Western lens; his assumption is that Pathans share a similar economic perspective with Westerners, whereby making decisions about whom to form alliances with based on how they can get the best value out of relationships. This fails to take into account the social nature of human beings, and makes the assumption that individuals are always rational and practical in their decision making processes.
It is important to understand the social organizational frameworks in which individuals make decisions, and Barth’s work clearly illustrated this perspective.
Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans by Fredrik Barth (1959)
The main purpose of Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans is to provide a “descriptive analysis of the political systems of Swat, with special reference to the sources of political authority, and the form of organization within which the authority is exercised.” (Barth 1959: 1) After stating this purpose (Chapter 1), and reviewing the general ecology and ethnology of Swat, Pakistan (Chapter 2), Barth presents the basic/fixed social organizational frameworks by which individuals in Swat are ordered: territorial, hereditary castes, and patrilineal descent groups (Chapter 3). Relations within these social organization frameworks are defined by neighborhood and association, marriage, and kinship; these relationships are solidified during rite of passage celebrations and through marriage (Chapter 4). Activities related to production, recreation, and religion also define relations within these social organization frameworks; inequality exists in these activity groups, as do internal authority systems (Chapter 5). Political dynamics in Swat are based on these organizational frameworks and systems of relations; land tenure interconnects these frameworks and is a direct source of political influence (Chapter 6). By controlling land, “satisfied men” (Pakhtun caste landowners) gain control over “hungry men” (house and land tenants and other dependents); “Saints” gain political influence and authority based on their reputation for holiness and their actions as mediators, as well as through control of land. Secular chiefs/Pakhtun caste landowners and saints occupy complementary roles as political leaders; saints act as mediators between feuding Pakhtun factions, reducing the threat of anarchy (Chapters 7 and 8). Corporate political followings group around these leaders; the combination (alliances) and opposition (political blocs) of these smaller groups create and maintain the acephalous political organization found in Swat (Chapter 9). Blocs represent regularities in choices and actions made by individual leaders; the Swat political system “does not define a set of formal structural positions – it emerges as a result of individual choices.” (Barth 1959: 2)
Barth’s analysis of Swat Pathans reflects the influence of Gluckman’s Manchester School, which he was exposed to via Edmund Leach at the London School of Economics; however, while most the case studies associated with the Manchester School analyze relations between colonial governments and local rulers, Barth’s study in the remote area of Swat allowed for a focus on the internal factors that influenced political development. Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans laid the foundation for Barth’s transactional model. Relationships between leaders and followers in Swat society, according to Barth, are transactions reflecting individual agency. Developed in response to the inadequacies he found in functionalist and structural-functionalist frameworks, Barth’s transactional model moves past placing a primary emphasis on social structures and takes the individual into account as an active agent that interacts and makes choices within boundaries specified by a society’s organizational frameworks. In Swat, the social organizational frameworks in place afford a range of choices for individuals in the establishing of allegiances; the Swat political system is the result of choices made by individuals.
Key in Barth’s analysis is recognizing that while some social organizations frameworks (territorial, hereditary castes, and patrilineal descent groups) are fixed, relationship based social organizational frameworks (neighborhood and association, marriage, and kinship) are changeable. Much like Gluckman, Barth’s action oriented analysis ethnographically captures the essence of dynamic social process by focusing on the individual.
A major criticism I have with Barth’s work is that he views the decision making process of individuals in Swat through a Western lens; his assumption is that Pathans share a similar economic perspective with Westerners, whereby making decisions about whom to form alliances with based on how they can get the best value out of relationships. This fails to take into account the social nature of human beings, and makes the assumption that individuals are always rational and practical in their decision making processes.
It is important to understand the social organizational frameworks in which individuals make decisions, and Barth’s work clearly illustrated this perspective.
June 16, 2023
Interesting book about a group of people you see in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan in the khyber pakhtunkhwa region as they call it nowadays. Very strong race of people with very specific behaviours and customs. Very tribal and with very specific ways of acting and with lots of deference for the elderly. Here are the best Bits from the book:
Relevant to Yet the hospitality of the chief is much more than the mere giving away of his excess wealth.Under the pressure of strong competition, Pathan chiefs intensify their spending far beyond what they have gained from their land, till they have either consolidated their positions by a temporary reduction in their property, or else lost their position and wasted all their property in the process. Many observers have noticed how precious is political status among Pathans and Afghans.' This striking hospitality and reckless spending only seems intelligible if we recognize that the underlying motives are political rather than economic. It is a development in some ways analogous to the 'potlatch' institutions of many primitive, non-monetary societies.
A unilineal descent system is based on the recognition, for culturally defined purposes, of unilineal succession and the equivalence of siblings.
These two elements are present among Swat Pathans in the form of an ideology of respect for father and father's father, and solidarity between brothers. Respect for one's father is indicated by name avoidance. A man is ashamed to mention the personal names of his close agnatic ascendants; to do so would be disrespectful to them.
Birth itself is not much emphasized. The infant emerges as a social person only on the occasion of the haircutting ceremony (hagiga), on the seventh or fortieth day, when he performs his first religious act: the giving of gold-dust, equivalent in weight to his shaved-off hair, as alms to the poor. This event is celebrated by the slaughter' of a sheep or goat, providing meat for a feast to which thirty to forty men are invited, most of them as members of the local association. Circumcision (sun' nat-'that which is correct')
Anyone in Swat who receives an agreed remuneration has renounced his autonomy; he is acting at the command of another person, and is therefore inferior to that person. On the other hand, this frees him from full responsibility for his actions it is the person who commands who has the responsibility. Thus, for example, if a chief hires a thug to commit a murder, the thug is in danger only while executing the murder. When it is done, all responsibility falls on the chief who paid the thug, and the honour for bravery goes to him as well. Similarly, the recipient of a bribe has renounced his autonomy, and the responsibility for his perjury or deception falls on the giver of the bribe. The occupation of servant is the only one in Swat that is not associated with a single caste or a limited number of castes; it is regarded as appropriate for all but Pakhtuns. A person who employs servants is invariably the owner of considerable land. Servants are of various kinds. The highest rank is that of the estate overseer (näxer|kotwal), who, unless there are several servants under him, usually has more general household duties as well. The servant is expected to be continuously at the disposal of his master, fetching, delivering, carrying messages, cooking if the master's wives do not, carrying the meal to the men's house, massaging his master when tired, accompanying him everywhere and acting as his bodyguard. The tie between master and servant is usually an extremely close and intimate one much more so than between brothers, friends, or even father and son - apparently far the closest emotional tie between males that Pathans ever experience. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship: they are unequal and complementary, and the fate and career of the one depends to a very great extent on the actions of the other.
The objects of strife among Pathans are, according to a Pakhto proverb,
zin, zer, zamin- women, gold, land'.
The birth rate is fairly high, but so is the child mortality rate. Pathan parents are aware that the high mortality among their children is due to insufficient or inappropriate food, and to the poverty that prevents them from procuring sufficient clothes, medicines and protective amulets. Wealthy families do not suffer these hardships, and the sibling groups among the wealthy are larger, This picture is based on my own impressions and the statements of informants. In poor families one frequently sees small sibling groups spanning an age differential of twenty years. Where I was able to obtain the information. I found that in such cases there had been numerous conceptions and births, but a high rate of infant and child mortality. The larger sibling groups of wealthy people are in part the result of polygamy, but informants agreed that full sibling groups are also larger, mainly owing to their better diet.In the idiom of Swat Pashto, the world is divided into two kinds of people: mor sari, 'satisfied men" and zige sart, "hungry men.
Honour, in this sense, is thus a matter of major concern to political pretenders--as indeed to every self-respecting man-and conflicts in defence of honour become tests of a man's qualifications to leadership. As a source of conflict a threat to a man's honour is thus as important as a threat to his possession of land.
The point which deserves emphasis is that the tactical requirements of coordination in battle can be satisfied, even in the case of very large forces, without the development of any formal organization of command and hierarchy among the leaders.
Relevant to Yet the hospitality of the chief is much more than the mere giving away of his excess wealth.Under the pressure of strong competition, Pathan chiefs intensify their spending far beyond what they have gained from their land, till they have either consolidated their positions by a temporary reduction in their property, or else lost their position and wasted all their property in the process. Many observers have noticed how precious is political status among Pathans and Afghans.' This striking hospitality and reckless spending only seems intelligible if we recognize that the underlying motives are political rather than economic. It is a development in some ways analogous to the 'potlatch' institutions of many primitive, non-monetary societies.
A unilineal descent system is based on the recognition, for culturally defined purposes, of unilineal succession and the equivalence of siblings.
These two elements are present among Swat Pathans in the form of an ideology of respect for father and father's father, and solidarity between brothers. Respect for one's father is indicated by name avoidance. A man is ashamed to mention the personal names of his close agnatic ascendants; to do so would be disrespectful to them.
Birth itself is not much emphasized. The infant emerges as a social person only on the occasion of the haircutting ceremony (hagiga), on the seventh or fortieth day, when he performs his first religious act: the giving of gold-dust, equivalent in weight to his shaved-off hair, as alms to the poor. This event is celebrated by the slaughter' of a sheep or goat, providing meat for a feast to which thirty to forty men are invited, most of them as members of the local association. Circumcision (sun' nat-'that which is correct')
Anyone in Swat who receives an agreed remuneration has renounced his autonomy; he is acting at the command of another person, and is therefore inferior to that person. On the other hand, this frees him from full responsibility for his actions it is the person who commands who has the responsibility. Thus, for example, if a chief hires a thug to commit a murder, the thug is in danger only while executing the murder. When it is done, all responsibility falls on the chief who paid the thug, and the honour for bravery goes to him as well. Similarly, the recipient of a bribe has renounced his autonomy, and the responsibility for his perjury or deception falls on the giver of the bribe. The occupation of servant is the only one in Swat that is not associated with a single caste or a limited number of castes; it is regarded as appropriate for all but Pakhtuns. A person who employs servants is invariably the owner of considerable land. Servants are of various kinds. The highest rank is that of the estate overseer (näxer|kotwal), who, unless there are several servants under him, usually has more general household duties as well. The servant is expected to be continuously at the disposal of his master, fetching, delivering, carrying messages, cooking if the master's wives do not, carrying the meal to the men's house, massaging his master when tired, accompanying him everywhere and acting as his bodyguard. The tie between master and servant is usually an extremely close and intimate one much more so than between brothers, friends, or even father and son - apparently far the closest emotional tie between males that Pathans ever experience. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship: they are unequal and complementary, and the fate and career of the one depends to a very great extent on the actions of the other.
The objects of strife among Pathans are, according to a Pakhto proverb,
zin, zer, zamin- women, gold, land'.
The birth rate is fairly high, but so is the child mortality rate. Pathan parents are aware that the high mortality among their children is due to insufficient or inappropriate food, and to the poverty that prevents them from procuring sufficient clothes, medicines and protective amulets. Wealthy families do not suffer these hardships, and the sibling groups among the wealthy are larger, This picture is based on my own impressions and the statements of informants. In poor families one frequently sees small sibling groups spanning an age differential of twenty years. Where I was able to obtain the information. I found that in such cases there had been numerous conceptions and births, but a high rate of infant and child mortality. The larger sibling groups of wealthy people are in part the result of polygamy, but informants agreed that full sibling groups are also larger, mainly owing to their better diet.In the idiom of Swat Pashto, the world is divided into two kinds of people: mor sari, 'satisfied men" and zige sart, "hungry men.
Honour, in this sense, is thus a matter of major concern to political pretenders--as indeed to every self-respecting man-and conflicts in defence of honour become tests of a man's qualifications to leadership. As a source of conflict a threat to a man's honour is thus as important as a threat to his possession of land.
The point which deserves emphasis is that the tactical requirements of coordination in battle can be satisfied, even in the case of very large forces, without the development of any formal organization of command and hierarchy among the leaders.
October 8, 2010
Written after his 1954 field assignment in the Swat Valley, Barth's work on the Pathans is thorough and--dare I say--fascinating.
April 14, 2024
Bedre en eeep men også litt rotete imo. Også, koffor kalle han muslima for «moslems»??
January 6, 2011
Not without its epistemological issues, but worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews