The End of Nomadism?: Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia (review) (original) (raw)

T his volume is a bold synthesis of original field material and theoretical reflections as applied to six political districts in a region known as Inner Asia. The central argument of the book is that the mobile use of pastoral resources should not be considered an outdated or threatened economic form. Instead the authors demonstrate the robustness of "mobile pastoralism" historically and in specific state socialist jurisdictions within Russia, China, and Mongolia. The authors use their data on the sustainable nature of mobile pastoralism to critique of a wide variety of anthropological and government literature that, they contend, affirms stereotypes of nomadic production as an unfocussed or undisciplined form of existence. Instead, they argue that if there is an "end to nomadism" in the region it will come from the irrational pressure of privatisation which forces rural producers to migrate to cities in search of other forms of work. The material for this volume was generated by an ambitious five year project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, which was based at the University of Cambridge from 1991 to 1995. The Project on Environmental and Cultural Conservation in Inner Asia recruited a team of local researchers from Siberian Russia, Northern China, and Mongolia, trained them in participatory research techniques, and then had them conduct extensive survey work in ten case