Barth received a state scholarship from the Norwegian government in 1985. He left the country to accept two positions in the United States—at Emory University from 1989 to 1996, and Boston University from 1997 to 2008. By this time, Barth and his wife "felt we had both done our share of physically strenuous fieldwork" and decided to begin an ethnographic project in Bali. He developed an interest in the anthropology of knowledge at around this time, an interest which he explored in his book "Balinese Worlds" (1993). More recently, he has also conducted research in Bhutan.