ABSTRACT
In the late 1970s, Anglophone anthropology saw a growing interest in theoretical stances that emerged in reaction to structuralist social thought; termed 'practice theory' by Sherry Ortner. The most influential of these theorists was Pierre Bourdieu, whose Outline of a Theory of Practice was published in English translation in 1977. Fredrik Barth's transactionalist anthropology was an earlier alternative to structuralism that focused on actors and their choices. In each case, these 'actor-oriented' perspectives emerged in reaction to, and in conversation with, theoretical paradigms that emphasized notions of 'structure' in explaining social life. Structural-functionalism inherited Durkheimian conceptions of social structure as patterns of social relations that somehow reproduce themselves and/or the wider social order. While Raymond Firth was content for his notion of choice-driven 'social organization' to complement structural analysis, Barth developed a more axiomatic alternative to structural-functionalism. At the time of Barth's fieldwork in 1954, Swat was former princely state that had retained considerable autonomy within the newly independent Pakistan.
