Pastoral Groups Research Articles

A pastoralist manifesto: breaking stereotypes and re-conceptualizing pastoralism in the Near Eastern Neolithic

Ever since early forms of pastoralist activity emerged some ten thousand years ago during the Neolithic, pastoralism has played a critical role in shaping the economic, social and political context of the Near East in rural and urban settings alike. However, despite increasing evidence detailing the significant impact pastoralists had on the structure of later proto-urban and urban societies, the significance of nascent pastoralist activities for Neolithic households and communities has so far been largely dismissed. This paper suggests some of the underlying reasons for the disciplinary myopia regarding the contribution of pastoralist activity to broader shifts in Neolithic social and economic organization in the southern Levantine Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Late PPNB), a period during which dramatic changes in settlement patterns and social organization coincided with the emergence of intensive domestic livestock herding and animal production. In particular, I suggest that the persistent and pernicious stereotype of pastoralism as an unchanging socio-economic mode perched on the edge of subsistence and society has coloured interpretations of pastoralism in the PPNB, in spite of the centrality of pastoral production in these societies. Informed by historical travelogues, archaeological research focused on agricultural production and animal domestication and the dominance of pastoral ecological models that minimize pastoral productive potential, wealth accumulation and social currencies, these stereotypes are uniformly projected onto various pastoralist groups in the region, regardless of their place in time or local cultural context.

The Early Bronze Age funerary archaeological landscape of western Ja'alan: results of three seasons of investigation

This paper presents the results of three seasons of investigations in the western part of Ja’alan in the southern al-Sharqyiah Governorate in the Sultanate of Oman. The results highlight the importance of this part of Ja’alan during the Early Bronze Age (EBA), particularly the Hafit period and provide us with important information about the funerary archaeological landscape during this period. The results also reveal important aspects of landscape utilisation and occupation during this time and add to our knowledge of the cultural and economic facets of the earliest Bronze Age societies.The distribution of tombs in the landscape suggests that they were constructed by nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoral groups that shifted from one location to another in search of grazing for their livestock. The availability and seasonality of natural resources such as water, pasture and game made it necessary for them to mark their tribal territory with their funerary structures.

Exploring Taiwanese Female Pastors' Intimate Relationships: Using the Story of the Levite's Concubine

The authors investigated intimate relationships and violence toward women, using group discussions and focus group techniques from a feminist group counseling perspective, with Taiwanese Presbyterian female pastors. The story of the Levite's concubine and the feminist commentary were provided to a group of Taiwanese female pastors to read at the beginning of the focus group session. The women's perspectives of their intimate relationship experiences in light of the biblical story were explored. The 6 themes related to participants' intimate relationships were generated and are discussed.

Population Size and Cultural Evolution in Nonindustrial Food-Producing Societies

Modeling work suggests that population size affects cultural evolution such that larger populations can be expected to have richer and more complex cultural repertoires than smaller populations. Empirical tests of this hypothesis, however, have yielded conflicting results. Here, we report a study in which we investigated whether the subsistence toolkits of small-scale food-producers are influenced by population size in the manner the hypothesis predicts. We applied simple linear and standard multiple regression analysis to data from 40 nonindustrial farming and pastoralist groups to test the hypothesis. Results were consistent with predictions of the hypothesis: both the richness and the complexity of the toolkits of the food-producers were positively and significantly influenced by population size in the simple linear regression analyses. The multiple regression analyses demonstrated that these relationships are independent of the effects of risk of resource failure, which is the other main factor that has been found to influence toolkit richness and complexity in nonindustrial groups. Thus, our study strongly suggests that population size influences cultural evolution in nonindustrial food-producing populations.

O novo significado da "opção pelos pobres" na Teologia da Libertação

The article presents an interpretation of the changes that have occurred within the Catholic movement linked to Liberation Theology. A comparison is made of the decades of 1970-1980 and 1990-2000, using the theories of A. Gramsci and M. Lowy, and the theological approaches found primarily in the works of L. Boff and P. Richard. Empirically the text focuses the Catholic youth pastoral groups and the literature produced for training and evangelizing young people. Significant changes can be observed in the works of liberation theologians and in the practices of young people linked to the pastoral groups with a relation of mutual influence identifiable between these two complementary universes among the new practices of the progressive sectors of the Catholic Church in Brazil.

Pastoralists and livelihoods: A case study from northern Afar, Ethiopia

The changing contexts in the drylands of Africa in which pastoralists operate pose potential negative effects for the livelihood sustenance of pastoralists. We examined present livelihood adaptations among Afar pastoralists in north eastern Ethiopia through a household survey. With an average per capita income of 1.20 USD a day (PPP-adjusted in 2006), all households surveyed in the study area fall below the international 2 USD a day poverty line. Most Afar pastoralists have become increasingly involved in farming and non-farming/non-pastoral activities, but do not display a total detachment from traditional mobile herding. Pastoral households are still less likely to diversify their livelihoods, while semi-pastoral and agro-pastoral households keep livestock more as an additional insurance against failure in other livelihood activities such as farming. This indicates combining livestock production and farming has improved or at least constrained declines in livelihood outcomes. Our quantitative findings are congruent with the general patterns of pastoral livelihood contraction occurring in the region even if a substantial group of pastoralists continue to engage in keeping livestock. These findings are highly relevant in a management context, suggesting more encompassing, and locally adapted policy and development strategy rather than a wholesale abandonment of support to pastoral livelihood styles.

The roles of livestock in developing countries

Livestock play a significant role in rural livelihoods and the economies of developing countries. They are providers of income and employment for producers and others working in, sometimes complex, value chains. They are a crucial asset and safety net for the poor, especially for women and pastoralist groups, and they provide an important source of nourishment for billions of rural and urban households. These socio-economic roles and others are increasing in importance as the sector grows because of increasing human populations, incomes and urbanisation rates. To provide these benefits, the sector uses a significant amount of land, water, biomass and other resources and emits a considerable quantity of greenhouse gases. There is concern on how to manage the sector's growth, so that these benefits can be attained at a lower environmental cost. Livestock and environment interactions in developing countries can be both positive and negative. On the one hand, manures from ruminant systems can be a valuable source of nutrients for smallholder crops, whereas in more industrial systems, or where there are large concentrations of animals, they can pollute water sources. On the other hand, ruminant systems in developing countries can be considered relatively resource-use inefficient. Because of the high yield gaps in most of these production systems, increasing the efficiency of the livestock sector through sustainable intensification practices presents a real opportunity where research and development can contribute to provide more sustainable solutions. In order to achieve this, it is necessary that production systems become market-orientated, better regulated in cases, and socially acceptable so that the right mix of incentives exists for the systems to intensify. Managing the required intensification and the shifts to new value chains is also essential to avoid a potential increase in zoonotic, food-borne and other diseases. New diversification options and improved safety nets will also be essential when intensification is not the primary avenue for developing the livestock sector. These processes will need to be supported by agile and effective public and private institutions.

People to people diplomacy in a pastoral system: A case from Sudan and South Sudan

Bahr Alarab river, a tributary from the White Nile, forms a natural as well as the political boundary between the two states - Sudan (north) and South Sudan (south) - of the river system. It also represents the natural boundary between the Nilotic tribes of Dinka Malual and Nuer in the south and the Messeriya and Rezaighat Baggara Arab pastoralists (cattle owners) north of the river. This naturally endowed river system, which lies between latitudes 9° and 10° N and 22° and 32° E, provided the basis for a symbiotic and peaceful co-existence between these diverse ethnic pastoral groups for more than three decades. The pastoralists, through a well-articulated seasonal migration cycle, managed to successfully share grazing, hunting and fishing areas, in addition to trading and bartering consumer commodities inside what they called ‘peace markets’. All these pastoral practices were governed by customary laws enforced by their tribal leaders, through joint tribal courts. With the separation of the Sudan into two sovereign states - Sudan and South Sudan - in June 2010, new political and security realities emerged, adversely impacting the lives of these pastoral groups. Due to the continuous hostility between the two neighbouring states, the traditional administration which used to monitor the common border was changed into a semi-military structure on both sides. To circumvent this drastic change of governance and to continue with their mutual relationships, the two communities, the Malual Dinka on one side and Messeriya and Rizaighat on the other, managed to conduct a series of tribal conferences during 2011, culminating in the signing of a joint protocol, stipulating in detail how they should share the natural resources over the river system, regardless of the political changes and hostilities between their two nations. I call this ingenious and pragmatic initiative ‘people to people diplomacy in a pastoral system’.

The beginnings of dairying as practised by pastoralists in ‘green’ Saharan Africa in the 5th millennium BC

Previous research has identified the antiquity and chronology of dairying practices as beginning in the Near East and its subsequent spread across Europe. In the Libyan Sahara, archaeological evidence, confirmed by the remarkable rock art depicting cattle herding, together with faunal evidence, also suggests an early inception of dairying practices in North Africa and the formation of an independent ‘secondary products’ economy by mobile pastoral groups. In this paper, we elaborate on the first unequivocal chemical evidence, based on the δ13C and Δ13C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat, for the adoption of dairying practices by prehistoric Saharan African people in the fifth millennium BC.

Multiple tournaments and sustained defection: Why do negotiations fail to secure resource access between pastoral and agropastoral groups in Ethiopia?

This article uses analytic narratives to explore the reasons why negotiations over rights to grazing resources repeatedly fail between neighboring pastoral and agropastoral communities. While many writers link resource scarcity, the resulting competition and state institutional failure as common drivers for conflict among multiple resource users in the semi-arid pastoral areas, the causes for violent conflict and the failure of local level negotiations between groups need to be explained in the framework of geopolitical context and the rent earned from perpetrating violence. This study reveals how economic incentives from livestock raids and the unrestricted access to conflict technology reinforce each other and jointly undermine the success of negotiations in producing favorable outcomes. The undesirable outcomes from negotiation failure can be expressed in terms of rent dissipation, rangeland resource degradation, increased instability and the potential for increased vulnerability and deterioration of agropastoral welfare.

Picturing Ladakhi Nomads over the Span of a Generation

Sharing photographs and stories with a pastoral group in Jammu and Kashmir State, India, we consider questions about repatriation. Images from the early 1980s were shared from 2009 to 2010,, by which point many of the pastoralists had moved to the main town, Leh, in the province of Ladakh where they work primarily as laborers. The literature on repatriation of images and objects focuses largely on historical collections and their political implications, but this article explores the process of working within living memory. We suggest that visual and textual narratives are so closely interwoven that they should be given equal weight and approached as a single entity.

Livelihood Diversification among the Pastoral and Agropastoral Groups in the Upper Awash Valley, Ethiopia

This study explores variations in livelihood diversification among three pastoral or agropastoral groups in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia. The data were derived from a survey of 596 households randoml...

Grazing Practices and Pasture Tenure in the Eastern Pamirs

This paper deals with the relations between grazing practices, pasture potential, and property rights in the Eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan 10 years after the privatization of 1999. It provides an overview of the spatiotemporal variability of current pasture use and livestock numbers. Assumptions about pasture potential are reconsidered in relation to animals' forage needs in order to draw field-based conclusions regarding over- or underuse in particular areas. Data are derived from interdisciplinary research on post-Soviet pastoralism and associated human–environment interactions. We show that pastoralists in the Eastern Pamirs face several problems: As the land cover resources are meager and variable and hay meadows for winter fodder are rare, herd mobility or external forage inputs are necessary to compensate for weather-related shortages. The current multiseasonal pasture use—a change from the mono-seasonal use of Soviet state farms—discourages plant regeneration. Competition between pastoralist groups is exacerbated by unresolved questions about formal user rights. Conflicts seem inevitable, limiting the sustainable use of natural resources. Based on 2 telling examples, we show that pastures close to villages are used year round, particularly in winter, and are heavily overgrazed. There is less grazing pressure on summer pastures, but some distant and hardly accessible summer pastures show high livestock numbers in summer, contradicting former opinions about their underuse.

No Meal without Ugali? Social Significance of Food and Consumption in a Tanzanian Village

AbstractEmploying diet and cuisine as analytical concepts, this article focuses on cultural categories and social meanings of food in Malinzanga village in southern Tanzania. Through analyses of access to foodstuffs, sequence of meals, and methods of preparation, the article shows how key elements in a basic meal structure are used locally to characterize and classify people—both in terms of ethnic group membership and in terms of respectable social status versus “disgraceful” poverty as perceived locally. The population in Malinzanga includes four ethnic groups: two pastoralist groups, Mang'ati and Masai, and two agriculturalist groups, Hehe and Bena. It is argued that patterns of food consumption among the people in Malinzanga cannot be attributed to access to resources and purchasing power alone. Food consumption can also be seen as a means of expression of what Malinzanga villagers think about own identities, status, and social distinctions.

First dairying in green Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium bc

In the prehistoric green Sahara of Holocene North Africa-in contrast to the Neolithic of Europe and Eurasia-a reliance on cattle, sheep and goats emerged as a stable and widespread way of life, long before the first evidence for domesticated plants or settled village farming communities. The remarkable rock art found widely across the region depicts cattle herding among early Saharan pastoral groups, and includes rare scenes of milking; however, these images can rarely be reliably dated. Although the faunal evidence provides further confirmation of the importance of cattle and other domesticates, the scarcity of cattle bones makes it impossible to ascertain herd structures via kill-off patterns, thereby precluding interpretations of whether dairying was practiced. Because pottery production begins early in northern Africa the potential exists to investigate diet and subsistence practices using molecular and isotopic analyses of absorbed food residues. This approach has been successful in determining the chronology of dairying beginning in the 'Fertile Crescent' of the Near East and its spread across Europe. Here we report the first unequivocal chemical evidence, based on the δ(13)C and Δ(13)C values of the major alkanoic acids of milk fat, for the adoption of dairying practices by prehistoric Saharan African people in the fifth millennium bc. Interpretations are supported by a new database of modern ruminant animal fats collected from Africa. These findings confirm the importance of 'lifetime products', such as milk, in early Saharan pastoralism, and provide an evolutionary context for the emergence of lactase persistence in Africa.

Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE by Gideon Shelach (review)

Reviewed by: Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE by Gideon Shelach Rowan Flad Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE. Gideon Shelach. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2009. ix + 203 pp. This new book builds on more than 15 years of Gideon Shelach’s archaeological field research in the Chifeng area of Eastern Inner Mongolia. He previously investigated social and political changes during the Late Prehistoric and early historic periods of this area (Shelach 1999). Here, however, Shelach expands his geographical scope to cover the entire steppe region across China’s northern frontier, the so-called “Northern Zone.” He focuses on explaining the process by which an apparent dichotomy emerged from the [End Page 134] second to first millennia b.c.e. between pastoral groups in the steppe regions and agricultural societies to the south. He first argues that there was a great deal more diversity in economic practices among groups in the steppe areas than this dichotomy suggests. In fact, Shelach argues, the transition to pastoralism in the steppe was gradual and sometimes incomplete. Shelach then proposes that the distinctions that developed between these broad regions were “ethnic-like” in the sense that they were the result of emergent social identities rather than economic activities. The emergent steppe identity was based on the conscious use of symbols at a local scale, which both emphasized long-distance interactions and explicitly distinguished steppe societies from the Chinese states to the south. Shelach constructs his argument over the course of four chapters. He begins with an overview of changes that occurred across the Northern Zone between 1100 and 600 b.c.e. (chapter 2). He then considers evidence for change in economic and political processes (chapter 3), the use of symbols related to identity (chapter 4), and interaction at various local, regional, and global scales (chapter 5). Throughout these chapters he provides an excellent summary of archaeological evidence from across his region of interest. This summary will be a useful resource for other scholars interested in this area. This book is written for a relatively specialist audience and assumes some familiarity with East Asian history and geography. For example, although Shelach often uses names of Chinese provinces for geographical orientation, the map provided does not include provincial boundaries nor do other figures in the book. Shelach may have deliberately left off these borders to make the point that modern political boundaries often obscure ancient patterns of similarity or difference (Falkenhausen 1995), but consequently the maps are less useful as a reference tool for those not already familiar with the locations of Chinese provinces. In general, the figures in the book are disappointing, particularly when compared to the excellent quality of the text. For example, the book’s first figure (the aforementioned map, Figure 2.1) is included in a color plate section in the middle of the book, which makes it a little difficult to find. This line map of Northern East Asia includes the national borders of Russia, Mongolia, and China; across the middle it has a color-scale Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to show the topography of the Northern Zone. The map is unprojected so it exaggerates east–west distances in the northern latitudes relative to those in the southern part of the map. This makes the scale bar on the map misleading. It is not clear why the topography provided by the DEM is necessary, since it is mostly not referred to in the text and many of the sites and other geographical referents used in the text (such as province locations or the position of the Great Wall) are not included on the map. These factors, as well as somewhat sloppy placement of river names and unnecessarily thick national borders result in a figure that is not very helpful in orienting the reader. One of only two other maps in the book — Figure 4.9 — is also not ideal since the (again unnecessary) topography is too dark and obscures the site locations, a problem because the site locations are the...

African range wars: Climate, conflict, and property rights

This article examines the effect of climate change on a type of armed conflict that pits pastoralists (cattle herders) against each other (range wars). Such conflicts are typically fought over water rights and/or grazing rights to unfenced/unowned land. The state is rarely involved directly. The rangeland of East Africa is a region particularly vulnerable to drought and livestock diseases associated with climate change. To analyze the possible effects of climate change on pastoral conflict, we focus our analysis on changes in resource availability, contrasting cases of abundance and scarcity. The role of resources is further contextualized by competing notions of property rights, and the role of the state in defining property and associated rights. We employ a contest success function (CSF) game-theoretic model to analyze the logic of range wars. This CSF approach emphasizes the low-level, non-binary nature of raiding behavior between pastoralist groups over limited natural resources. A central contribution of this approach is that the logic of raiding behavior implies a positive relationship between resources and conflict. This positive relationship is supported by several studies of the rangeland of East Africa, but is generally dismissed by the literature on the ‘resource curse’. This relationship is contingent on other factors examined in the model, producing the following results. First, the level of property rights protection provided by the state generally reduces conflict between pastoralist groups. Second, if property rights protection is provided in a biased manner, then conflict between pastoralist groups increases. Third, severe resource asymmetries between two pastoralist groups will induce the poorer group to become bandits (focusing their efforts on raiding and not producing), while the richer group raids in retaliation.

Environmental Migration as Planned Livelihood Among the Rebaris of Western Rajasthan, India

Abstract The Rebaris are a traditional pastoral community in the semi-arid zone of western Rajasthan. Historically, the Rebaris have adapted to local scarcity through migration. These “environmental migrants” cover hundreds and even thousands of miles each year to feed their sheep, goats, and camels. They migrate in large groups, with each camp consisting of adults, children, and hundreds of animals. Unlike other pastoral groups throughout the world who have gradually become more sedentary, the Rebaris continue to migrate with their flocks of sheep in order to adapt to harsh climatic conditions. Despite the arid conditions and unpredictable grazing resources in western Rajasthan, herd populations have increased. In recent years, the Rebaris have expanded their range, migrating to more distant regions such as Haryana, the Punjab, and even Andhra Pradesh, almost 1,000 miles from Rajasthan. On occasion they have remained away from their homes for the entire year. This paper argues that a broader view of environmental migration is needed in order to understand the relationship between increasing herd sizes and shrinking grazing resources. My research suggests that environmental migration in western Rajasthan, once viewed as a response to drought and famine, has also developed into a planned livelihood strategy.

The Dynamics of Land Transaction Practices among the Karrayu Pastoralists in the Upper Awash Valley of Ethiopia: The Cases of Abadir and Merti Communities

The pastoral mode of adaptation in the Awash Valley region of Ethiopia has long been under increasing pressure and stress as a result of manmade and ecological factors. The expansion of large-scale irrigation agriculture and conservation schemes has over the years led to the expropriation of vast portions of prime grazing land. Like other neighbouring pastoral groups in the area, pastoral Karrayu have borne the brunt of the resulting consequences. Unable to a large extent to practice their transhumant pastoral way of life in the customary way, the Karrayu have become compelled to resort to alternative livelihood strategies. Irrigated farming in the well-watered neighbourhoods is a major activity that they have embarked upon. In the wake of this shift have come about transformations in the patterns of settlement and land use and tenure arrangements. Concomitantly, horticultural communities have evolved, accompanied by different land access institutions and emerging land transaction practices. This study was conducted with a view to examining the dynamics of the evolving land use and access strategies, and generating fresh evidence in the context of a community under transformation from pastoral to agro-pastoral form of livelihood. The study was undertaken in an agro-pastoral setting, unlike most others that were conducted predominantly in smallholder agricultural communities of the highlands. Therefore, it is expected that the study will impart fresh insights of academic relevance as well as policy implications, thereby helping to fill the existing gap in knowledge on the subject of land use and tenural research.

Female Mobility and Postmarital Kin Access in a Patrilocal Society

Across a wide variety of cultural settings, kin have been shown to play an important role in promoting women's reproductive success. Patrilocal postmarital residence is a potential hindrance to maintaining these support networks, raising the question: how do women preserve and foster relationships with their natal kin when propinquity is disrupted? Using census and interview data from the Himba, a group of semi-nomadic African pastoralists, I first show that although women have reduced kin propinquity after marriage, more than half of married women are visiting with their kin at a given time. Mobility recall data further show that married women travel more than unmarried women, and that women consistently return to stay with kin around the time of giving birth. Divorce and death of a spouse also trigger a return to living with kin, leading to a cumulative pattern of kin coresidence across the lifespan. These data suggest that patrilocality may be less of a constraint on female kin support than has been previously assumed.