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The author offers an opinion about the article "Cattle Breeding, Complexity and Mobility in a Structurally Unpredictable Environment: The WoDaaBe Herders of Niger," by Saverio Krätli that appears in the current issue of the journal. Various aspects of pastoral societies, herders, and Bororo zebu cattle are mentioned.

The availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as cell phones, WIFI connections, and social media has broadly changed communication norms amongst mobile pastoralists. Scholars and development organisations have reported on the end results of digital tools, for example by examining the ability of governments and development organisations to send early-warning weather reports through enhanced cellular access; the use of SMS to engage in deliberative polling; and the use of WIFI connections to provide banking services. However, researchers have not yet fully addressed how these tools are changing the communicative norms and ethnographic research methods used between researchers and mobile pastoralists. These changing communicative norms embed relations that inform academic understanding of the opportunities that arise from the interplay of complex forms of social and economic variability as experienced by herders. This paper draws from the fields of Communication and Anthropology to understand how these same ICTs have changed the complex communication between herders and researchers through the establishment of new communicative networks. I ask how new communicative networks impact on both existing and emerging ethnographic research practices and how the emergent 'digital field' of research might open space for new communicative networks and research projects. Then, I propose that digital ethnography may be one way in which both herders and researchers can respond to variability while establishing research projects wherein herders are recognised both as participants in a research project and as co-producers of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakh herders of the Mongolian Altai practice a form of nomadism characterised by high altitudinal amplitude and more frequent movements than in other regions of Mongolia. This paper proposes a local scale study of nomadic practices using an original multidisciplinary methodological approach combining anthropological surveys and several years' GPS data tracking of five herder families' herds. The dialogue between geo-localised and qualitative data over several consecutive years makes it possible to better understand the environmental, economic, social and individual factors that determine nomadic routes and calendars. It also highlights the ways in which herders cope with interannual variations. In particular, this new methodology reveals the importance of temporary herd separations and re-evaluates the frequency of nomadic movements, which might have been underestimated by the classical anthropological approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including settlement of Mongolian herders in China, sociological and geographical perspectives of ecological settlement and livelihood problem of nomadic minorities.

Otor is a traditional mobility strategy developed by Mongolian herders to cope with their highly variable and uncertain environment. The Livestock and Rangeland Double-Contract Responsibility System (LRDCRS) implemented in pastoral Inner Mongolia (People's Republic of China during the mid-1980s) has encouraged a settled mode of livestock husbandry within a delimited household rangeland area, depending primarily on fenced pastures. Practical results from the past 20 years indicate that this settled pattern can not completely replace the traditional herd mobility strategy that was anticipated by LRDCRS. A case study from a village in Xilingol Prefecture in Inner Mongolia explores the reasons why herders insist on otor. The paper evaluates the impact of changes in rangeland tenure and social relationships brought by LRDCRS on the herders' ability to access key resources in adverse weather. It is found that otor movement provides herders with the means to maintain livestock husbandry in highly variable and uncertain arid and semi-arid environments. Rangeland semi-privatization results in a loss of de facto guarantee of access to key resources. Faced with barriers to accessing resources, reciprocal bonds are weakened for conducting otor. As a result both sustainable pastoral livelihoods and sustainable use of rangelands are doomed to suffer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature on the economic contribution of pastoralism to the national economies of seven countries, two in the Horn of Africa and five in southern Africa. For all the countries covered here, it is difficult to disaggregate at the national level the economic outputs of pastoral livestock from livestock more generally. Research studies have nonetheless identified the distinctive contributions of pastoralism and occasionally quantified these contributions for selected localities and regions. This work demonstrates that the economic role of pastoralism can be quite different even for national economies in the same region. There also exist broad regional differences between the Horn, where pastoralists are heavily involved in producing live animals for export, and southern Africa, where smaller herds are kept primarily for purposes other than commercial sales. At least three methodological shortcomings limit our ability to quantify the contributions made by pastoralists to national economies: aggregated national statistics, the selective recording of data on pastoral production, and analytical confusion about how to impute realistic cash values to the products that herders obtain from their own herds for their own consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can herders directly participate in national policy debates and deliberations? In this article I assess two episodes of the Mongolian Open Society Institute's TV Forum which was nationally televised between 2005 and 2006. Focusing on two episodes which debate mining policy, I ask how herder participation was modelled through topical framing, speaking roles and decision-making criteria. Then, from this analysis, I examine the ways in which contemporary ICTs (Internet and Communication Technologies) could be used to encourage herder participation in future deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideas of resilience are not new; they have travelled across several disciplines, stretching their original meanings to a considerable degree, turning into a 'key political category of our time' (Neocleous 2013). For the case of pastoralist groups, discussions about resilience predominantly concern the state of pastoralism as a unitary and fixed entity and its prospects for survival in a world in turmoil (climate change, diseases and epidemics, conflicts, socio-economic transformations). In this context, references to resilience generally allude to local vulnerability, purporting the need for external support. These accounts tend to ignore local voices and perceptions and neglect the role of identity, culture and change in self-presentation and everyday life. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork in the northern Kenyan drylands, this article flips dominant perspectives on pastoralism and resilience, following the herders' self-definition, their construction of a shared identity and their, at times contradictory, positioning as part of a broader society. It argues that part of their resilience rests in the feeling of belonging and solidarity around a collective identity, built in opposition to urbanities along symbolic boundaries. The article however shows how such identity remains nonetheless flexible and responsive to change, disrupting dichotomies and weaving different social worlds, such as rural and urban, together. Such flexibility is also an important element of resilience for the capacity to change, stay attentive, and mobile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nomadic technologies of reindeer herders from Yamal Peninsula, in their multidimensional complexity - from the space-time continuity of mobile camps on the open tundra to multi-functionality of material things - enable and facilitate mobility in the extreme environment of the Arctic. The nomadic tradition contains a whole array of concepts (or principles), which, on the one hand, are ultimately practical and, on the other, deserve a theoretical projection. These include: nomadic transformer, mobile module, movement effect, techno-animation, material austerity, spacetime continuity, arctic aesthetics. A study of nomadic design implies the usage of new methods of movement recording - MTA (mapping-tracking- acting), including visual data such as UAV mapping, GPS-tracking and 3D-modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on ethnographic research in a Gobi district in Mongolia, focuses on herders 'wintering away' from customary winter campsites to access better pasture elsewhere. Because of the drawbacks associated with wintering at non-customary as opposed to 'home' pastures, many herders consider 'wintering away' to be a last resort. In the 2009-10 dzud (winter disaster), in Bayanlig soum, most households that wintered away were hit by unusually heavy snowfall and suffered higher livestock losses than those households that stayed at their customary campsites. While herders' migration decisions are guided by expert knowledge of the environment, complicating factors and high uncertainty can contribute to livestock losses despite their best efforts. Mobility is essential to herders' success in a variable environment, but not all forms and instances of migration are equally beneficial. This article draws on herders' accounts to explore a migration dilemma in the Gobi that may become more common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the political, economic and socio-ecological processes that have led to the gradual disappearance of mobile herding in the Palestinian village of Wādī Fūkīn (West Bank). Along with Israel's land legislation, urban development policies and redefinition of territorial borders, water centralisation and commoditisation, as well as agricultural modernisation, have brought radical changes to access to and rights over water and land. New socio-ecological conditions and marginalisation, both as a result of the policies of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and within the global economy, have led to the abandonment of mobile productive activities and affect villagers' claims for their identity as 'sedentary farmers' in opposition to 'nomadic pastoralists'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied herder practices in a pastoral system of the Mongolian Gobi, to assess its degree of integration in commercial networks and reliance on monetised resources (purchased inputs, machinery and salaried workers). Little infrastructure is present, few inputs are bought, herders primarily rely on standing grass and natural water sources, and labour is primarily provided by household members. As a result, the monetised items only account for five per cent of the production costs. Conversely, the monetary value of the products sold (live animals and fibre), and those consumed for subsistence (meat and milk products), are almost similar (sold: 59 per cent/subsistence: 41 per cent). Herders are therefore well connected with markets in terms of outputs produced, despite a small amount of integration in terms of inputs, which is made possible by the family workforce and the ecosystem services of provision of grass and water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the post-socialist period in Mongolia, the future of the herding sector has received significant attention. We draw on nationally representative survey data from 2007-2008 to examine the extent and type of herders' engagement with markets for livestock and livestock products, and factors associated with higher earnings from livestock. We show that nearly all Mongolian herding households participate in markets for livestock and livestock products. Some herding households earn limited amounts. Others are highly market-oriented, although most produce a diverse set of products from different types of animals. Regression analysis provides evidence that better access to water, information and transportation is associated with more income from livestock sales. The needed assets remain beyond the reach of many herding households, however. We note ways in which the work of Russian agronomist Alexander Chayanov may inform policies by international funding organisations to improve herder access to the necessary assets, promoting rural prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some authors have linked the question of inequalities among pastoralists to rights of access to pastureland, but their analyses of pastoralists' rights of access generally focused on the privatisation of pastureland. We reveal that a wider range of power relations between farmers and herders, local and national institutions affects pastoralists' rights of access to pastureland. We demonstrate that socio-economic inequalities among the Fulbe people are linked to the unequal capacity of pastoralists to manage territorialisation processes to their own advantage. Reciprocally, the entrenchment of the territories that results from these processes reifies inequalities between pastoralists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two pairs of herding communities with and without formal community-based rangeland management experience were studied to understand how the resilience of pastoral communities is influenced by their ability to combine different knowledge types for learning. The two types of communities differed in number, use and integration of existing knowledge types. Challenges in knowledge integration for learning occur when outside knowledge carriers present their information to herders without relating it to prior knowledge systems. When they establish trusted relationships and meaningful communication with herders, one-way knowledge exchanges are avoided, stimulating equitable, inclusive and durable integration of various knowledge systems essential for social-ecological resilience building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological resettlement (shengtai yimin in Chinese) has been initiated by the Chinese government on a large scale and aims to help degraded landscapes to recover and to improve the living standards of local people in western China. Since 2003, the government has invested RMB 7.5 billion (Chinese yuan, over U.S.$1 billion) in Qinghai Province to establish the world's second-largest nature reserve around the headwaters of the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Mekong rivers (Sanjiangyuan). The resettlement of Tibetan herders from the Sanjiangyuan grasslands to urban areas is one of the project activities. Resettlement and the grazing ban policy are understood to have profound implications for those being resettled, as well as for their home and host areas. In particular, its rationale and consequences need rethinking, from both an ecological and socio-economic perspective. This article draws on field research and a case study in Madoi County to argue the logic for resettlement, to examine its socio-economic consequences and environmental effects, and to explore possible solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on archaeological data, we discuss the various ways in which herding and herders articulated with other activities and actors in the South Andes during the last few centuries before the Spanish conquest of America. This relationship took different forms, including pastoral specialization and inter-ethnic trade, political/ethnic integration and redistribution, and economic diversification at a household level. This variability cannot be entirely accounted by environmental diversity, but was also a consequence of changing historical conditions, such as those related to endemic warfare during the fourteenth century or the integration of the area into the Inka state. In each of these scenarios, pastoralists found different ways of integrating with the non-pastoral world, both in practice and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In arid and semi-arid environments, pastoralists use herd mobility to manage resource variability. We investigated temporal mobility patterns of livestock keepers on the spatially confined commons of Namaqualand, South Africa, between 1997 and 2006. We conducted semi-structured interviews with about 300 livestock keepers from ten villages in the Leliefontein communal area. Herd mobility varies significantly amongst the herds in the different villages. Mobility in Leliefontein is complex and is influenced by environmental, agricultural, social and personal factors. We conclude that even with a high degree of variability in herd movements, the mobility patterns of livestock keepers over the last ten years have remained relatively stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses postcollective herding practices of Kyrgyzstan's seminomadic pastoralists illustrated by case studies of herders in the highland areas of eastern Kyrgyzstan in 2004. After independence in 1991, the privatisation of all livestock meant the burden of risk devolved onto individuals rather than networks, such as collectives or clan units, for the first time in the history of these pastoralists. The ongoing process of social reorganisation which followed livestock privatisation has resulted in a wide variety of coping strategies being employed by herders, including both short- and long-distance migration as partnerships, individual families, extended families or reorganised herding cooperatives. At the same time, reduced livestock numbers since independence have left vast areas of grazing lands vacant. In spite of the many dramatic changes of the last 150 years, migration patterns and cultural identity among Kyrgyz herders have persisted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide observations regarding changes in pastoral use within two Kazak areas in the People's Republic of China to illustrate how very different pastoral use can be in similar areas within the same cultural group. The first area is Jianshe Township of Aksai Kazak Autonomous County, in western Gansu Province. The second area is Kurti Township in Fuyun County, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. In both townships, livestock production from extensive rangelands was the primary economic activity. Our main reason for examining rangeland issues arose from a general view among county officials that overgrazing was threatening rangeland sustainability. Kazak pastoralists were traditional users in the study areas, at least for most of the twentieth century. By the time of our study, the largely Kazak-owned herds in Jianshe had given way to a Han majority, and traditional pastoral practices had been largely replaced by inexperienced contract herders who originated from other regions of China. The change to contract herders with little livestock experience may be a serious threat to sustainable grazing management as traditional ecological knowledge has been lost. In Kurti Township, Kazaks have maintained more traditional movement of livestock, with some herders moving 400 km between winter and summer pastures. However, even in this area the traditional Kazak pastoral culture is threatened from both within (Kazaks themselves) and from outside (policies from Beijing) by attempts to settle herders. In this township, agriculture has become important along rivers, herders are securing rights over irrigated lands to produce hay crops, and many complain of the long distances between pastures and want to become settled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the upheavals of collectivisation and reform, the nomadic pastoralists of Amdo, in the north-eastern part of the Tibetan plateau, maintain that they substantially retain historic forms of tribal organisation. The governmental structures of the modem Chinese state have replaced the hereditary rulers, kings and monastic leaders who formerly exercised leadership over the nomads' tribes. However, ideologies of revenge and practices of feuding still characterise relations between tribal groups. Moreover, the nomads continue to turn to senior Buddhist lamas as mediators, despite the criminal sanctions imposed by the police. It is suggested that these elements represent a continuity in tribal forms within the framework of control now exercised by the nation state. An uneasy relationship between tribes and state has long characterised this region and continues to do so in the modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research projects which focused on sheep and goat herders and their relationship to agricultural production and the rural economy in Rajasthan, India. The author investigates an odd disparity in economic development whereby the expansion of the agricultural economy has itself been enabled by the growth of the livestock economy. This contradictory state of affairs, whereby pastoralism continues to grow 'inwards' towards the centre of the regional economy, even while it is increasingly pushed 'outwards' to its margins, is a direct result of government development efforts.

Interviews anthropologist Robert Paine regarding Saami ethno-politics. Efforts of the Norwegian reindeer administration against Saami competition among herders; Views on Swedish Saami policies; Competition between family herds.

Focuses on the period of adaptation from pastoral nomadism of the Mamassani of southwestern Iran. Reason for sedentarisation; Relationship among pastoral nomads of Iran; Factors that help the pastoral nomads to establish themselves with various degrees of success in urban areas; Highest positions the Mamassani hold in Tehran, Iran.

Addresses the development of sedentary and nomadic pastoralism in the Middle East. Studies by anthropologists that document systems of herd management and territorial organisations among nomadic groups in Iran; Definition of pastoral nomadism; Important capital of nomads; Role of isotopic analysis of animal and human bone or tooth in the dietary and paleo-environmental study.

Interviews Jafar Alipour, director of the Tribal Affairs Organisation. Function of the Tribal Affairs Organisation; Cost of herding; Communal facilities for herders; Activities of the promotion centres of the Tribal Affairs Organisation.

Focuses on the reindeer herders in the West Siberian Yamal-Nenetskii Autonomous Okrug (YNAO), one of the most important regions of the Russian Federation. Background of the YNAO; Details on reindeer herding; Interaction between reindeer herders and oil companies.

Describes and analyzes environmental knowledge among Woodabe cattle raisers of West Africa with respect to their organization of herd management. Modes and logic of pastoral migration; Relation between soil quality and plant growth; Significance of studying the environmental knowledge of nomads.

Presents a study on nomadic duck herders in Southern India. Background on duck herding and multidimensional agro-ecosystems; Social relations of nomadic egg production; Opportunities and constraints of nomadic duck herding.