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This paper aims to theoretically and empirically test whether the Weather Index Insurance for Mutton Sheep (WIMS) which protects the herders from increased feeding costs resulting from drought and snow disasters promotes the income of herders in China's Inner Mongolia or not. We have applied the OLS, PSM, and quantile regression models using field survey data from 261 herders in Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for our objective. The findings demonstrate that the WIMS significantly increases the overall and high-income herders' income, but has no significant effect on herders' income at other income levels. According to the results, we recommend that as the subsidized agricultural insurance product, the government should expand the pilot region of WIMS to furtherly test its income effect and consider reducing or exempting insurance premiums for low-income herders to reduce their financial pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) is a key set of policy instruments designed to alleviate grassland degradation and increase herdsmen's income. However, considering the various constraints and obstacles that policies often face in actual operation, it may not be able to achieve the expected goals. In order to test the real income effect of GECP and clarify its mechanism, based on the data of 499 counties in Chinese pastoralist provinces from 2000 to 2019, this paper uses the difference-in-differences (DID) model to empirically test the impact of GECP on herdsmen's income from the dual perspective of income growth and income gap. This analysis not only evaluates the impact and mechanism of GECP on income growth in more detail, but also broadens the existing research perspective from the perspective of the income gap. The major study findings are as follows: (1) GECP significantly promotes income for herdsmen, with a marginal effect of 0.078. (2) The mechanism analysis indicates the GECP improves the income of herdsmen through the direct effect of increasing transfer income and the indirect effect of optimizing the allocation of labor, and promoting the livestock scale of barn feeding. (3) With respect to the income gap, this paper finds that areas with relatively high levels of development benefit more from GECP, which will widen the income gap between regions for herdsmen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Agatu "Massacre" is a conflict between pastoralists and farmers in the Agatu area of Benue State, Nigeria. The conflict is significant because of the event's gravity, but no scholarly inquiry that involves thoughtful and reflective methodological and theoretical approaches has been made. This paper investigates how the farmer-herder relations in Agatu became a violent crisis and situates it within relevant literature to fill gaps in farmer-herder conflicts literature in Africa. Existing literature demonstrates the pertinence of moral economies for resource use, spatial pattern, and manifestations of conflicts in developing and developed worlds. However, studies have yet to use the moral economy concept to explore the African farmer-herder conflicts from a political ecology perspective. This paper demonstrates that the Agatu crisis emerged due to reterritorializations in the moral economy of farmers and herders, disrupting their social ties. It further illustrates that the violence in Agatu was caused by the deviation from the traditional approach to addressing the damage done to crops by herding livestock. Nevertheless, the paper argues that this deviation is the consequence of modifications in the moral economy of farmers and herders driven by the aspiration for financial gain rather than the subsistence of agro-pastoral relations. The paper argues that changes in moral economies can disrupt social relations and lead to farmer-herder conflicts, leading to the exclusion of pastoralists from resource access through policy and legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer-herder conflicts have been long standing in Mali's rural areas. It has been shown that it is mostly herders who support and join jihadist groups. By analysing land regimes in farmer-herder contexts and merging studies on different scales of violence, the paper investigates how local dynamics interact with national political violence. It argues that historical precedents and pastoralist grievances related to land governance have created a fertile breeding ground for jihadism to take root and spread. It also contends that local land-related issues can have a considerable impact on state fragility and the eruption and dynamics of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general requirements of China's rural revitalization strategy are industrial prosperity, ecological livability and rich life. However, the traditional livestock breeding model has struggled to balance the dual requirements of production development and ecological protection, and it is urgent to inject new impetus and explore new development paths. At present, e-commerce has become a bridge between pastoral areas and cities, herdsmen and consumers. E-commerce participation is not only an important starting point for herdsmen to increase the added value and profit space of livestock products, but also an effective way to change the original breeding behavior based on the premise of destroying grassland. Therefore, this paper presents an in-depth study on the issue of e-commerce enabling grassland ecological restoration, aiming to provide more scientific and effective guidance for e-commerce to be used to achieve a win–win situation in economy and ecology. Therefore, based on the data of 271 herdsmen in pastoral areas of Inner Mongolia, we used the OLS model and the two-stage least squares (2SLS) method to identify the direct impact of herdsmen's e-commerce participation on grassland utilization pressure. The empirical results show that e-commerce participation can significantly decrease the grassland utilization pressure. The conclusion was still valid after alleviating endogeneity and conducting a robustness test. The results of a mechanism analysis suggest that the reduction effect of e-commerce participation on grassland utilization pressure is mainly due to price incentive, reputation incentive and place identity. Subjective norms can strengthen the inhibitory effect of e-commerce participation on grassland utilization pressure. Furthermore, a heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that e-commerce participation has a better, decreased impact on the grassland utilization pressure on the banners of China's rural e-commerce demonstration county program. Under a counterfactual assumption, if herdsmen who can participate in e-commerce choose not to do this, their grassland utilization pressure will increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic expression and human reason in Herder's Treatise on the Origin of Language. I argue that additive theories of human language, which contend that the linguistic capacity is in principle separable from the other cognitive faculties of the linguistic being, cannot be brought into agreement with Herder's distinctly transformative account of human language and reason. For Herder, the transformation of our sensible faculties through language is required in order to guarantee the unity of human cognition, and hence reason itself is understood as fundamentally linguistic. This positing of a strong unity between language and reason makes Herder an important, if still under-appreciated, precursor of the twentieth-century linguistic turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Improving the operating income of farmers and herdsmen is an important starting point for achieving common prosperity. As a common form of learning and an important source of skills training, informal learning has a certain impact on the economy and income level of farmers and herdsmen. This paper takes 439 herdsmen in three cities of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as the research object and tries to explore the comprehensive influence, subdivision difference, and mechanism of informal learning on the operating income of herdsmen on the theoretical and empirical levels. The results show that the impact of informal learning on the operating income of herdsmen is "inverted U-shaped", and there is an informal learning balance point of 2.9776 h, which maximizes the effect of informal learning on the increased operating income of herdsmen. After using the instrumental variable method to deal with endogeneity and conducting robustness tests through winsorizing, quantile regression, and substitution variables, the research conclusions were still valid. Heterogeneity analysis found that informal learning has a significant impact on the increase in operating income of herdsmen in the low human capital group, reflecting the role of "sending charcoal in the snow". However, it has no significant effect on the increase in operating income of herdsmen in the high human capital group, and the effect of "icing on the cake" is not obvious. In view of this result, government departments should speed up the planning of Internet infrastructure construction in pastoral areas, and accurately push the knowledge and skills needs of herdsmen to help increase the operating income of herdsmen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns itself with the study of changing dynamics of herder-bovine relationships in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. By exploring the affective lives of Tamil-speaking herders of South India in their interaction with native Pulikulam breed bovines and foreign bred milch cows, this paper maps the sensuous ways in which these three beings make and unmake each other. At a more abstract level, this paper intends to improvise dialogue between new materialist and deconstructive techniques by exploring Karen Barad's conception of intra-action, and Derrida's hauntology in the context of human-animal relationships. The central argument this paper exposes is that our nuanced moments of interactions with animals are already mediated by visceral absences which we fail to take into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to address the violent disputes between herders and farmers in Northern Nigeria, this article looked at the establishment of ranches, cattle routes, and grazing reserves. It also looked at how conflict is a social reality that exists in all human social systems, whether they are in cities or rural areas. It observes that disagreements are a common cause of conflict, particularly between the two opposing factions, the "herders," who are primarily Fulani and Muslim migrants seeking better pasture for their livestock, and the crop farmers, who are primarily from agrarian backgrounds. For data gathering, the paper used secondary sources such books, journals, articles, newspapers and other internet sources. The study discovered that there are a number of reasons why farmers and herdsmen in Northern Nigeria clash. Climate change badly executed government policies, illiteracy, a lack of a solid Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism (ADRM), anger and hostility brought on by the loss of life and property, and so forth are a few of these. The report suggested that pasture areas, livestock routes, and ranches be established in order to settle the disputes. The report also suggested that in order to stop the threat, the Federal Government of Nigeria should set up a practical ADRM and make sure that policies are implemented effectively. Additionally, it recommended a broad education campaign to inform the opposing sides of the risks their ceaseless fighting poses to Nigeria's progress as a developing nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer-herder conflicts are widespread in many parts of Africa. Scholars disagree on their causes. One strand associates conflict with absolute scarcities caused by for example population growth and climate change. Other scholars emphasize politically established scarcities: scarcities caused by policies, legislation, and development programs. This paper examines the causes of farmer-herder conflict in the case of Asante Akim North Municipality of Ghana; an area that has suffered from severe conflicts for the past two decades. The study relies on documentary materials and interviews with 53 respondents representing all main agents with a stake in the conflict. The paper argues that absolute scarcity (population growth and climate change) may play a role in conflict, but the key driver of conflict is political. The paper shows how the traditional authorities have allocated land to outside cattle owners without effective institutions to guide cattle herding. This has created conflicts between traditional farming and new herding interests. The paper contributes to the literature on farmer-herder conflict and political scarcity by presenting a case where scarcity is not produced by state-led policies and interventions at large-scale but by local-level traditional authorities and small-scale enclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arabic Sciences & Philosophy is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Disasters is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A review of the article "The Tragedy of the Commons," which appeared in the journal in 1968, is presented.

A central tenet of critical discourse analysis spells that language in discourse meant for mass consumption is often permeated with a reproduction and/or a resistance of certain ideologies, assumptions, and knowledge characteristic of different social groups making up the society. One of such best scenarios is news headlines narrating crisis-driven national discourse in Nigeria, where almost all national discourses are driven by certain inherent ideologies and political power. In this paper, we propose a discourse chain principle uncovering the underlying socio-psychological idiosyncrasies of the participants (inclusive of agents and recipients) and processes in most national discourses in Nigeria. Combining concepts in corpus methods with critical discourse analysis, the paper shows a basic approach to operationalising ideologies in notational form. Applying corpus analytic method to 761 herdsmen news headlines extracted from Nigerian newspapers, the present paper nicely illustrates the extent to which these news headlines move the discourse-at-hand (i.e. herdsmen crisis) to discourse-around. Such movement is performed by reproducing institutionalised ideological patterns revolving around identity politics (ethnicity), religion, question of nationhood, corruption, citizenry distrust, and political power imbalance. The paper argues that this discursive movement is often driven by a chain of discourse that defines the existence of the nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than ever, the contemporary Nigerian social landscape is characterised by civil aggression and violent attacks by many (known and unknown) violent groups. The activities of these groups have created insecurity crises of unparalleled intensity in the country. This paper examined the implication of insecurity (or these violent attacks) for the tourism industry in Nigeria. The study used a desk research approach to generate secondary data following a time series design. It descriptively analysed the information using line graphs, bar charts and simple percentages, using the theory of 'failed state' as a framework for the interpretation and discussion. The study found a relationship between recurrent insecurity and prevailing challenges facing the tourism industry in Nigeria. Since 'all crime is local', it is recommended that the conventional approaches to solving the insecurity problems in Nigeria should be complemented with the help of members of local communities and mass media using state-of-the-art technology to expose criminals and ensure constant checks on local migrants, international emigrants and business people that deal in small arms and light weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dwelling well, for the Dörvöd herders with whom I have interacted over the years, involves getting a few things right about the invisible. On the one hand, they need to navigate spaces that are teeming with 'things' that not everybody can see plainly, and which are best left undisturbed. On the other hand, behaving properly towards spiritual 'land masters' that constitute the places through which herders circulate involves them conforming to a certain regime of marking, i.e. a geography that implicitly values discretion and disappearance. Considering two apparatuses with which the invisible is either taken care of or produced – saddled horses and gravesites –, this paper explores a concern, and a talent, that people in Mongolia exhibit for things that exist by virtue of (dis)appearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines new dimensions of farmer–herder conflicts in the Kwahu Afram Plains South of Ghana and its implication on human security. Based on fieldwork conducted from June 2019 to January 2020, the paper explores the new trends emerging from the operations of nomadic Fulani herdsmen and the risk they present to human security relative to the survival of individuals and communities particularly smallholder farmers. A win–win strategy for both farmers and herders have been proposed to strengthen mutual cooperation and peaceful co-existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reasons for and possible consequences of so-called gender displacement— the outflux of young women from the communities of native northerners leading traditional ways of life, which turns tundra and taiga into a specific “male space”—represent a topic of great concern and interest in modern Arctic anthropology. The fieldwork data on Komi reindeer herders presented in this paper suggests, however, that there is also an opposite process: some girls from settled families choose to marry reindeer herders and join them in their migrations through tundra and taiga. Based on ethnographic interviews, this paper explores the reasons and possible cultural consequences of this process, for which the term “gender replacement” is suggested. The interviews indicate that these girls were attracted by the relative economic stability of the reindeer herding way of life and the relatively low risk of divorce, infidelity, and alcoholism as well as by the romantic image of the nomadic way of life. Although the rate of gender replacement is certainly insufficient to offset the consequences of gender displacement, the influx of “settled wives” to the tundra effects important changes in the life of reindeer herders. It can be supposed that the phenomenon of gender replacement also exists in other regions and ethnic groups, which makes it an important object for anthropological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Journal of African Studies is the property of Institute of African Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Existing studies of the farmer-herder conflicts (FHCs) in Nigeria have not explored the political ecology of the conflict in South-Eastern Nigeria (SEN). Using the political ecology framework (PEF), the paper examines the nature of the FHCs in Nimbo and Awgu areas in SEN. Data were collected through field observations and in-depth interviews. The paper shows that resource scarcity or reduced farming and grazing spaces did not engender violent FHCs in the study area. Instead, actions of the actors that are perceived to be morally wrong are critical. Allegations of moral transgression such as rape, kidnapping by herders and claims that a herder was used as a sacrifice by villagers triggered the violent episode. The pastoralists are discriminated against on the ground of indigenous belonging only after being alleged to have morally transgressed by kidnapping and raping women. However, on the ground that a herder was allegedly used as a sacrifice, they felt also wronged. While the herders are discriminated against based on their non-belonging in the community because they are not indigenous, they have mount resistance by emphasising their citizenship rights and using force to maintain access to grazing spaces, thereby amplifying the farmer-herder tensions. Thus, while identity has contributed to the FHCs violence, moral wrongs enacted and amplified it. The paper contributes to the literature by arguing that while what triggers FHCs may be moral wrongs, moral transgressions can heighten identity constructions that get implicated in practices of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to analyse diverse forms of reindeer pastoralism that exist in the European part of Russia from the viewpoint of landscape approach, that is as unique localized and historically developed interaction between people, reindeer and the natural landscape. The analysis starts with a short overview of the history of reindeer herding in the two reindeer herding regions of European Russia: the Archangelsk tundras and the Kola Peninsula. The developments of the last 300 years related to the transition from pre-pastoralist reindeer herding to reindeer pastoralism and the development of reindeer pastoralism during the late Imperial and Soviet periods are shown as particularly important. During this period, the particular form of reindeer-animal interaction developed in the Archangelsk tundras and characterized by intensive control over the herds and long linear interzonal migrations became dominant throughout European Russia before disintegrating again into a set of more localized forms by the late Soviet to early Post-Soviet periods. The discussion proceeds by analysing interactions between herders, reindeer and environment in the two main forms of reindeer pastoralism present in European Russia now in the most part of the Kola Peninsula and the most part of the Archangelsk tundras respectively. It is demonstrated that these two forms essentially depend on the interactions between reindeer, people and environment that existed in previous periods and have left traces in the physical landscape as well as in reindeer behaviour. The current modes of interaction between the elements of reindeer landscape build on them in different ways. Besides the two main forms, there are three small localities in European Russia where other forms of landscape interactions can be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines the politics of socio-political exclusions, with particular reference to the recurrent surges of herdsmen/farmers' skirmishes that are currently ravaging many states in Nigeria. Owing to their occupation and prejudiced history, the Fulani herdsmen have not enjoyed full assimilation into mainstream cohesion, and the enactment of laws proscribing 'open grazing' by some states, in a bid to protect farmers and farmlands, appears to have further entrenched this supposed exclusion. Consequently, the group, through its Miyetti Allah Cattle Associations, has urged state governments to refrain from enforcing these laws. The implementation of the laws by Benue and Taraba States has caused herdsmen to react angrily by killing hundreds of people in the states. To what extent are these states justified in prohibiting open grazing? Can a group justifiably warn a sovereign, federating, state against implementing a law duly passed by its State Assembly? Using critical analysis, the paper proffers answers to these questions by drawing insights from philosophical arguments of social justice, particularly Nozickian justice as entitlement. Given that what is at stake is the economic livelihoods of both farmers and cattle herders, the paper also provides an objective analysis of the conflict by pointing out the central claims of both parties in the dispute. It concludes that solution to these skirmishes inheres in an approach that emphasizes social justice and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigerian media reports on herdsmen's violence present dehumanised images of a slaughterhouse in which farmers are represented as animals being slaughtered by herders. Using a critical discourse analysis and appraisal framework, with a focus on the systems of attitude and graduation, this paper critically examines media representation of herdsmen's violence as "butchering" in the form of carnism. Analysis reveals that carnist representation is reinforced through death-dealing socio-cognitive labelling, attitudinal lexicalisation and strands of carnism. Also, using attitude and graduation resources, a one-directional and horrific image is painted. The study concludes that the creation as well as consumption of such scary news cultivates cognitive prejudices and stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether descriptive social norms affect one's intention to participate in voluntary social insurance in Mongolia. It reports the results of a survey experiment conducted in September 2020 among herders, whose rate of participation in voluntary social insurance is low and who presumably lack information about others' behaviours with respect to social insurance enrollment. Building upon prior research on descriptive social norms, we hypothesise that herders would be more willing to participate in voluntary social insurance when given information that many others are participating. The respondents were randomly assigned to two groups: one group received information that many others were participating in social insurance, and the other received information that the participation rate was low. We find that those who were given information on the high participation rate expressed a greater willingness to participate in social insurance in the future than the other group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to study the age structure of the stock breeders of the Nâama region located in the west of Algeria, and to interpret the dynamics of the classes of these ages according to breeding techniques, to know the trend of this activity that characterizes the region of Nâama recognized for its pastoral vocation. Like the other Algerian steppes, the herders of the western regions suffer from a real upheaval that has strongly impacted their lifestyle and consequently their livestock systems, under the combined effect of a number of natural and anthropogenic factors in a political, economic and social context. In order to gather the information necessary for this work, we selected a representative sample of 364 livestock holders randomly distributed across the study area, from a total number of the targeted population estimated at 6.700 breeders, setting a margin of error of 5% and a confidence rate of 95%. It emerges that the mobility of herds is in clear decline, especially transhumance, giving way to practices which present interdependence between livestock breeding and land appropriation, where sedentarization, the intensification of livestock farming and its association with some agricultural practices follow a growing trend. In addition, the mixed profile, which includes those who are both breeder and fattener, seems preferable to young breeders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, Nigerians have been grappling with the problem of insecurity, ranging from the marauding criminal herdsmen maiming, killing and kidnapping of harmless and innocent citizens to cult clashes destroying lives and properties. In the midst of all these, there has been a seeming negligence on the side of the government to provide the needed security which ordinarily constitutes the primary aim of forming a government; thus, the calls from different quarters for people to defend themselves. The paper seeks to ethically investigate and establish the justifiability of such calls for self-defence and its possible implications. The research exposes the concept of self-defence, its call in Nigeria, addresses the ethical concerns with self-defence vis-à-vis its accompanying legal provisions; it then, raises concerns with the tenability of such calls considering the level of poverty in the country and other factors that may impede the call for selfdefence in Nigeria such as the possibility of slippery-slope and concludes that, in the light of obvious negligence of the government to tackle the menace of insecurity and in accordance to the principle of self-preservation, it is indeed behooves of Nigerians to resolve to self-defence as a last resort but this must be well planned and coordinated considering the legal bottlenecks such as the bureaucratic and tedious nature of obtaining license to own firearm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transhumance is a traditional farming system present in Greece for many centuries including the seasonal migration of people and their livestock that follows predetermined area-specific practices. Purpose of this paper was to record the practices performed during movement to uplands and of the strategies applied during reproduction in order to reveal differences among the studied areas as well as to record the degree the system has evolved. Non-parametric statistical methods in a sample of 551 herders were applied to depict management practices while the regions were separated into four groups according to climate and geographical features. The results revealed differences among the studied areas revealing separation of males and females, uncontrolled mating for the majority of the herds, early weaning and adoption of strategies such as oestrus synchronization, reflecting the effort of the producers to correspond to the seasonal needs of the market for lambs/kids as well as to improve the performance of their animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of mobile pastoralist livelihoods have shown that a variety of socio-technical practices have been developed to achieve reliable outputs from livestock in variable arid and semi-arid environments. This paper builds upon the concept of pastoralists as high-reliability seekers rather than risk-averse and makes a case for understanding Mongolian herders as well adapted to livestock production in highly variable climatic conditions within a certain threshold of risk and uncertainty. This system fails, however, during instances of high uncertainty and covariate risk such as in cases of the natural hazard dzud, which requires individual households to make significant cash investments in risk management. It forwards the idea that investing in local government—soum and bag level—administrative capacity and infrastructure is needed to build system resilience to covariate risk. Based on ethnographic research in rural Bayankhongor, this paper interrogates how dzud interfaces with socio-economic factors amongst pastoralists in central west Mongolia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nomadism as a spatial concept denoting uncharted movements has opened up non-static ways of theorizing the subject in feminist theory and beyond. But it seems that the nomads of the real world and their torturing wanderings today have irrevocably challenged the romance of unregulated movement and force us to radically rethink the very concept of nomadism itself. In this paper I address the aporias that women's entanglement in current mobility assemblages has raised in the ways we understand and imagine the subject of feminism. In doing so, I experiment with the concept of the non-nomad as an emergent figuration that retains the radicalism of nomadic theories, while pointing to their margins, shadows and exclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the implementation of herding in the Neolithic period, specialized areas for livestock activities have emerged in the Western Mediterranean region, such as some caves and shelters, which were systematically used for the stabling of herds. By definition, this type of sites has a great potential for the study of the beginning of livestock practices and offer high-resolution information on the exploitation and management of herds. Different disciplines analyze these activities through the analysis of faunal, archaeobotanical or sedimentological remains from these sites. In this paper, we offer a state of the art on the contribution to the study of early husbandry practices of zooarchaeological studies of faunal assemblages from sheepfold caves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental necessity of every society is the security of her citizens against internal and external aggression. A secured society promotes development and attracts investors thereby promoting socio -economic wellbeing of the citizen and building responsible and responsive citizens. The high rate of insecurity has denied Nigeria government and citizens of peaceful atmosphere and socio-economic prosperity is at the low ebb. The intermittent conflicts such as ethno religious, communal, insurgency, farmers – herdsmen conflict has weakened Nigeria security architecture. The emergence of ethnic militias and non-state actors contributed immensely to the insecurity in Nigeria. The complex security situation in Nigeria ranging from insurgency, ethno religious, oil theft, farmers- herdsmen, kidnapping, drug, and human trafficking coupled with the porous borders and associated criminal activities among others were critically examined and posed that socio-economic development and livelihood of Nigeria are at risk, except proactive measure designing to incorporate bottom- top approach, Nigeria will soon slide into failed or collapsed state. This paper, therefore, recommends promotion of socio–economic, collaborative intelligence approach as well as empowerment will contribute in no measure to degrade insecurity and ensure peaceful coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a collaboration between two anthropologists specialising in China and Siberia, an Evenki reindeer herder and co-researcher from Russia and Evenki reindeer herders from China, as well as on fieldwork data gathered separately from the 1990s and collectively in 2014, this paper examines the cross-views of the Evenki from both sides of the Sino-Russian border. Using what we call a 'cross-view methodology', we explore what emerged when this transborder people gather for the first in China after decades of separation. After our methodology, we present the Chinese and Russian Evenki's recent ethnohistory, their specificities, and common features. We then analyse the intellectuals' meetings of the 2000s and the reindeer herders' mutual interests. We explore some cross-views allowed by the pan-Evenki encounters we organised in 2014: the role of Evenki language, human-nature relationships, hunting and reindeer herding, identities, and a real or symbolic 'porosity' of a border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the significant contextual differences between semi-nomadic herders in Kyrgyzstan and sedentary peasants in Mexico, a comparative study, based on ethnographic fieldwork, of the impact of patrimonialization on the two groups reveals similar processes of heritage marking. However, within this similarity this cross-analysis identifies two contrasting modes of domination that occur as a result of this analogous heritage process. By examining the local application of the heritage concept, as well as the connections that exist between the type of society, its history and the ethno-cultural management at work, this paper demonstrates how patrimonialization can stimulate divergent political mechanisms in the relationship between the State and the social groups concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predation is a powerful selective pressure and probably a driver of why many animal species live in groups. One key explanation for the evolution of sociality is the 'selfish herd' model, which describes how individuals who stay close to others effectively put neighbours between themselves and a predator to survive incoming attacks. This model is often illustrated with reference to herds of ungulates, schools of fish or flocks of birds. Yet in nature, when a predator strikes, herds are often found fleeing cohesively in the same direction, not jostling for position in the centre of the group. This paper highlights a critical assumption of the original model, namely that prey do not move in response to position of their predator. In this model, I relax this assumption and find that individuals who adopt 'selfish herd' behaviour are often more likely to be captured, because they end up at the back of a fleeing herd. By contrast, individuals that adopt a rule of 'neighbour to neighbour alignment' are able to avoid rearmost positions in a moving herd. Alignment is more successful than selfish herding across much of the parameter space, which may explain why highly aligned fleeing behaviour is commonly observed in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassland degradation has become one of the most important ecological and environmental problems in the world, affecting the ecological balance of grassland and the welfare of residents. To reveal the impact mechanism of herders' livelihood constraints on grassland degradation, and to explore the comprehensive management methods to ensure herders' livelihoods and grassland ecological restoration, this paper constructed an evolutionary game model considering local governments and herders. It is found that the ideal stable equilibrium game can be achieved when certain conditions are met, that is, when the local governments actively regulate and herders moderate grazing, the grassland degradation caused by overgrazing can be reduced. The livelihood differentiation of herders significantly affects the stable equilibrium state of the evolutionary game. The local government's regulation is the key to promoting moderate grazing of herders. The effect of incentive measures on the moderate grazing of herders is limited, while punishment measures can significantly restrict the excessive grazing behavior of herders. Policy support for household livelihood differentiation can effectively motivate herders to moderate grazing and achieve their survival and development needs to a greater extent through a non-grazing livelihood. The research results help decision-makers to formulate policies to combat grassland degradation, and promote the improvement of herders' lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Top-down grassland conservation policies are widely used to protect grassland ecosystems from degradation in developing counties. However, an inability to meet local herders' preferences when implementing such ecological policies may weaken their outcomes. Using a choice experiment design, this paper evaluated herders' willingness to accept (WTA) different possible implementations of a grazing ban policy, which is an ongoing but inflexible grassland protection policy in China. The results showed that herders were more likely to accept a grazing ban policy that targets private benefits rather than public benefits. In particular, herder's WTA decreased when the policy objective changed from improving private grassland productivity to protecting grassland wildlife (or preventing sandstorms). Additionally, broader coverage and a longer duration also increased herders' WTA a grazing ban policy; i.e., herders preferred a grazing ban policy with less coverage and a shorter duration. Our heterogeneity analysis showed that herder's WTA is not only associated with their socioeconomic characteristics, but also with their altruism. Herders with higher altruistic tendencies were more willing to engage in a gazing ban policy targeting public benefits. These findings offer valuable insight into potential methods of redesigning top-down grassland protection policies and incentivizing small herders to adapt to environmentally friendly practices in China or other countries with similar backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is often taken as a primary differentiating factor between people as it functions as a vehicle of cultural expression, thus becoming one of the primary markers of identity. In the history of nationalism, language has always enjoyed a privileged position. Not only had the German Romantics such as Herder and Fichte held language as the fundamental characteristic of a nation, but modernist scholars such as Anderson, too, have given language a central place in their respective assessments of nationalism. In Anderson's analysis, 'languages of power' enable an imagined community to become real. However, are all nationalisms glotto‐centric? If not, why not? This article takes the case of Kashmiri nationalism, or the Tehreek, to demonstrate that language and nationalism are not necessarily codependent. The paper will first explain why Kashmiri never came to become a language of power in the region and how the disadvantaged position of the Kashmiri language precludes/d it from having any significant role in Kashmiri nationalism. Second, the paper argues that the multilingualism of Kashmiris has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Tehreek and allowed Kashmiri nationalism to assert its civic character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Discourses on herding have focussed on the "exact" representations of the social actions of itinerant herders who clash with farmers while grazing on supposed cattle routes. Media coverage on the herdsmenfarmers conflict has deployed ideologically laden terms to represent herding as trespassing on farmlands and herders as foreigners and trespassers. Using van Leeuwen's Representation of Social Actions and Actors model and Martin and White's Appraisal Framework, this paper examines how different trespassing-related terms (i.e. invade, attack and destroy) were deployed in the Nigerian newspaper headlines to represent herders and their activities with a view to discussing the kinds of representations that were constructed of the nomads through the texts. Findings revealed that using transactive role allocations, nominalization, descriptivation, identification, aggregation and attitudinal lexicalization, these social actors were evaluated negatively as intruders, raiders, and destroyers. The negative othering underscores the general perception and suspicious treatment of nomads in their host farming communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Ferenczi's deviations from Freudian thinking have caused enormous controversy. This paper re-examines Ferenczi's theoretical and technical innovations through the lens of Orpha—one of his most characteristic and valuable contributions, the culmination point of his thought, and the leitmotif of his work. So far research on Ferenczi's Orpha concept has been relatively sparse and there is still much obscurity about this term that he adopted from or co-created with his "evil genius" Elizabeth Severn. The following paper will attempt to shed more light on the origin, evolution, functions, and the philosophical foundations of the Orpha concept. Along with the theoretical, therapeutic and philosophical aspects, this point of view will enable a better understanding of the poetic value and the lyricism of Ferenczi's work. Orphic harmony—the fusion of Dionysian ecstasy and Apollonian clarity into the "principal instinct of tranquility" proclaimed by Ferenczi in 1930 and into the "primordial chant of cosmic unity" (Herder), emerges as the essence of the Ferenczian work and worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current scientific evidence shows that human activities are causing interference at different levels in the global climate and availability of natural resources, and many authors already relate water scarcity to the increased risk of violent conflict, particularly in rural societies on the African continent. Climate disruptions caused by climate change are reflected on a regional and local scale, and the greatest impacts are already being felt in the poorest areas of the planet. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been facing environmental problems in its territory that can be associated with climate change, such as rising temperatures, reduced rainfall and advancing desertification. Considering that all these phenomena have been worsening since the early twentieth century in Nigeria and, due to the escalating of violent conflicts since the beginning of the current century, the objective of this paper is to analyse how climate change can interfere in the conflict between herdsmen and farmers, as well as the possible impact of seasonal variation in rainfall on the dynamics of these communal conflicts. The study focused on literature review and the case study took place in four Nigerian states (Plateau, Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa) for the period 2010-2017, focusing on the communal conflict involving the Fulani ethnic group. The approach adopted was the inductive method in which the behaviour of rainfall in the study area was compared with the number of deaths resulting from the conflict, in addition to using geo-processing software to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of casualties. The theoretical framework used was that proposed by Thomas Homer-Dixon (1994) and the information was collected from primary sources, with consultation of qualitative and quantitative data, and from secondary sources through book reviews, publications and papers in scientific journals. While it is not yet possible to establish a direct and linear relationship between climate change and violent conflict, the revised literature indicates that competition for water and other natural resources in certain parts of Nigeria is increasing, and that the violent conflicts between Fulani herdsmen and farmers are increasing due to the dispute over access to water sources and grazing lands. Data analysis shows that in the study area there are 46.4% more deaths in the dry season (November to April) than in the rainy season (May to October). While there are still not enough elements to conclude that climate change is the primary cause of the conflict, the analysis reinforces the need, in certain contexts, particularly in developing countries with populations highly dependent on the primary sector of the economy, for the impacts of climate change to be seriously considered as a risk to human security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a plethora of development economics literatures shedding causal insight into why nations fail. But in Nigeria, there are little or no works explaining how state failure impedes development economics. This includes the formulation of plans, policies and strategies aimed at pushing back underdevelopment and resolving conflicts. This is because economic development needs industrial and social harmony to thrive. Nigeria’s farmersherders conflict is a classic example of how intra-sectoral and social conflict can impede development. Hence, this paper explored this problem in the context of state failure. It problematized Nigeria’s plan to import grass from Brazil as a farmer-herder conflict remedial impossibility and economic development illusion caused by state failure. The objectives of the paper are to demonstrate that sustainable agricultural development in Nigeria can only take place in an atmosphere of peace between herders and farmers; and to investigate the fingerprints of state failure on the public disaffection and distrust that undermined Nigeria’s plan to import grass from Brazil. The paper adopts the historical research methodology. Using the qualitative method of data analysis, it interpreted secondary materials. The findings of the study are: Nigeria’s neglect of its agricultural sector because of crude oil has a hand in its farmers-herders conflict; there was nothing economically wrong with Nigeria’s plan to import grass from Brazil as a farmer-herder conflict resolution strategy. The policy had the possibility of ending the conflict and improving Nigeria’s economy. But Nigeria’s failed political economy was the cog in the wheel that made it a development economics mistake.

This paper estimates the impact of grassland transfer on the technical efficiency of livestock production, using the cross-sectional data collected from herders in Northern China. The propensity score matching approach and selectivity-corrected stochastic production frontier model are employed to address the selection bias issues. The empirical results show that, on average, the average technical efficiency score of herders with grassland transfer is significantly higher than that of herders without grassland transfer, which are 0.56 and 0.41, respectively, after addressing both observed and unobserved selection biases. The livestock revenue is positively and significantly affected by forage grass use, machinery use, stocking rate, family and hired labours use, and veterinary investment. Our findings highlight the importance of facilitating grassland transfer to increase livestock production efficiency and boost farm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]