“Who Will Turn Me Away from the Sheep?”: Present State and Development Trends of Transhumant Pastoralism in Eastern Herzegovina in the 21st Century

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a field study of transhumant pastoralism which was carried out in June and July 2022 on the Zelengora, Volujak and Lebršnik mountains, on the Morine plateau, i.e. in the areas of the municipalities of Ljubinje, Nevesinje, Kalinovik and Gacko (Republic of Srpska-Bosnia and Herzegovina). The goal of the research was to determine the present state and development trends of transhumant pastoralism in the areas of eastern Herzegovina at the beginning of the 21st century. The paper gives an overview of the previous (ethnological) studies of transhumant pastoralism, and then presents the methodological procedures used in this research. The ethnographic section summarizes interviews with interviewees and field guides. The observed problems, both those that were talked about by the interviewees and those that were independently observed, were jointly expressed in the separate section as development trends that describe and at the same time shape the current state of transhumant pastoralism in the studied area. The problems in question are: the transformation of pastoralism into an individual economic strategy, and in some cases a form of personal leisure; changes in the directions and manner of livestock routes; the persistence of the basic production technology, along with the modernization of its individual elements; the weakening and dissolution of elements of the traditional cultural idiom; legal changes in property rights and the method of making compensations for rights of use; multiple consequences of war; increasingly pronounced neoliberal economic relations and withdrawal of the state; strengthening of personal motivation to engage in pastoralism; growing interest in zoological, ecological and climate topics. In almost all of the aforementioned trends, it is possible to recognize adaptation to the risks that come with changes in the environment, both natural and social. These are changes in the economy, demography, social relations, climate and ecology. The interviewees found ways to more or less successfully manage the mentioned risks.