Pastoralism: Making Variability Work (original) (raw)

Pastoralism and Development: Fifty Years of Dynamic Change

IDS Bulletin, 2020

This archive IDS Bulletin reflects on 50 years of research on pastoralism at IDS. Thirteen articles are introduced around six themes that have characterised IDS-linked research over this period. These are: pastoral livelihoods; institutions and common property resource management; climate change and ecological dynamics; food security, early warning, and livelihood vulnerability; pastoral marketing; and conflict and governance. Across these themes, IDS research has challenged mainstream development thinking and practice, highlighting the importance of mobility and living with uncertainty. This introductory article concludes with some reflections on research gaps and new challenges, including: the effects of climate change; new forms of pastoral mobility and livelihood; increasing pattern of commoditisation and social differentiation; and changing conflict dynamics. Although massively changed over 50 years, and despite repeated proclamations of crisis and collapse, pastoralism remains...

Pastoral Development Orientation Framework

2019

The Orientation Framework acknowledges that the scientific understanding of pastoralism has undergone a veritable U-turn from the principles that directed pastoral development for most of its existence. It acknowledges the mistakes of the past. It engages with pastoralists’ sophisticated knowledge, supporting the understanding of mobility as key strategy to increase livestock productivity. The way forward is sketched in an explorative and participatory way. The core principle is to strengthen pastoral systems, building on pastoralists’ own specialisation and expertise. The document is organised in three parts. The first concerns the understanding of pastoral systems in general and the context of pastoral development. The second part focuses on the experience of pastoral development in Ethiopia. The third part combines these lessons in light of MISEREOR’s approach to development in order to define six axes of activity to strengthen pastoral systems: i. recognise and support their specialisation to use environmental variability for food production; ii. increase pastoralists’ options for targeting pasture resources; iii. create appropriate water supplies in strategic locations; iv. improve access to well-adapted services; v. support the understanding and visibility of pastoralism; and vi. promote dialogue in support of people-led pastoral development.

Contemporary Pastoralism: Old Problems, New Challenges

Pastoralism and Conservation: Old Problems, New Challenges, 2012

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Recent results from pastoralism research and development practice

In conventional views, pastoralism was classified as a stage of civilisation that needed to be abolished and transcended in order to reach a higher level of development. At the same time interventions in pastoral spaces secured control over vast territories and unexplored resources. In this context, global approaches to modernize a rural society have been ubiquitous phenomena independent of ideological contexts. The 20th century experienced a variety of concepts to sedentarise nomads and to transfer their lifestyles to modern perceptions. Permanent settlements have been the vivid expression of an ideology-driven approach. Modernisation theory captured all walks of life and sub-sequent development packages and programmes tried to optimize breeding techniques, pasture utilisation, transport and processing concepts. The aspect of input-output-oriented cost-efficiency tended to be neglected when the modernisation of animal husbandry was at stake according to a general purpose of increasing animal production yields. 2 New insights into other aspects of pastoralism such as its role as an adaptive strategy to use marginal resources in remote locations with difficult access could only be understood as a critique of capitalist and communist concepts of modernisation. The rejection of input-dominated theories that triggered enhancement of outputs but neglected ecological considerations regarding sustainability opened up a new field for research combining ecology, economy and society. This perception might gain further in importance when mitigation strategies coping with climate change and societal transformation are debated. 3 Pastoralism can be perceived as a flexible strategy to adapt to changing survival conditions, rather than a transitory stage on the path to modern development only. Pastoralism was adopted by people when opportunities arose, when it was economically sound and when the challenges posed by ecological and socio-political environments could be managed. 4 Central Asia poses a unique arena for understanding the spectrum of mountain pastoralism and rangeland management. In a similar ecological environment of desert-steppe conditions, the cases of different communities can be compared in order to illustrate variegating paths of socio-economic and politico-historical developments that are the result of inner-communal dynamics and external interventions. The societal and political transformations during the 20th century significantly modified the economic frame conditions, possibilities of political participation in decision-making processes, and cross-border exchange relations. Former commonalities among the studied communities have been transformed by inner-societal processes and by external linkages in response to decoupled exchange options. 5 The Tibetan Plateau is a huge ecological arena perfectly predisposed for mountain pastoralism. Debates about pastoral practices, common property regimes and rangeland management have gained pace in recent years since the environmental challenges and economic returns have been discussed in the framework of climate and global change. Initially the remote lifestyles of Tibetan nomads in peripheral regions were highlighted on account of sustenance from their own produce and subsistence economies. Even then mountain pastoralists were embedded in a network of mutual exchange relations that enabled them to survive in remote mountain plateaux and valleys. Their command of yak-breeding, their abilities to adapt to harsh environmental conditions and to cover huge distances between extensive natural pastures and market centres brought admiration from outside observers. Their “traditional lifestyle” seemed to be the perfect adaptation to environmental conditions.

Pastoralism: A Way Forward or Back?

Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research, 2012

Perceptions and experiences differ widely in the world of pastoralism. The case studies presented in this volume provide fi eldwork-based insights and evidence from a widespread area between the Pamirs, Tien Shan, Hindukush, Karakoram, Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. More important than the ecological breadth and spread of environmental properties and changes seem to be the societal embeddedness of pastoralism, the politico-economic framework and the understanding of ‘modernisation’. The debate on the ‘tragedy of the commons’ seems to have developed through a supposed ‘drama of the commons’ to an institutional ‘tragedy of responsibility’ under similar pretexts as in the early stages. Norms and viewpoints govern judgements about actors and victims in relation to their pastoral practices.

Comment 1: Pastoral Localization of Humanitarian Aid: The Need to Re-Qualify the Pastoral Context

2017

While over the last twenty-thirty years the scientific understanding of pastoralism has undergone a U-turn, the world of development and humanitarian intervention is still catching up with this transformation. Therefore, when discussing the localization of aid into the pastoral context it is crucial to first of all come to terms with the fact that a sound and coherent understanding of such a context cannot be taken for granted. This commentary starts by briefly recalling the salient elements of the transformation: the paradigm shift in Ecology in the 1970s, hinged on the way of understanding variability and leading to resilience theory; the way adaptive pastoralism works with environmental variability, rather than against it, by interfacing it with variability in the production system; and the importance, when working with pastoralism, of using a relational approach and focussing on processes, rather than focussing on ‘states’ and linearity of causes and effects. Two implications th...

Strategies in Pastoral Systems: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis

2016

Pastoralists risk losing their livelihood overnight due to drought, disease, and other disasters. They employ different strategies to minimize these risks, including the following: Mobility, herd maximization, diversification, and social strategies. Social strategies are considered critical because they provide not only a safety net during disasters but also contribute to the resilience of pastoral societies by allowing pastoralists to rebuild herds after disasters. There is, however, much variation in social risk-management strategies (SRMS) across pastoral societies. To understand this variation, we conducted a comparative study of 20 pastoral societies from different socioeconomic, historical, and environmental settings. We used Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine which causal configurations explain the variation in SRMS. This analytical approach helped us to identify four clusters of pastoral groups, in Moritz et al. 287 which different causal configurations are associated with exchange networks, patron-client relations, and noninstitutional SRMS. Keywords social risk-management strategies, pastoralists, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, livestock exchanges, patron-client relations. Property, poverty and people: Changing rights in property and problems of pastoral development (pp. 240-251). Manchester, UK: Department of Social Anthropology. Bios Mark Moritz, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Ohio State University. His research examines how mobile pastoralists in the Far North Region of Cameroon adapt to changing ecological and political conditions that affect their lives and livelihoods. Julia Giblin, graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the Ohio State University. Her research explores the dynamics between subsistence strategy, mobility, and social organization in Europe's prehistoric agricultural communities.