Pastoral Way Of Life Research Articles

AN OVERVIEW OF DHOKRA ART (BASTAR) PROGRESSION FROM ART TO DESIGN

Tribal Art and Craft, the pluralism of our nation that results from its diverse cultures. Every region possesses a unique artistic aesthetic. Most regions feature tribal arts and crafts in rural and indigenous areas. Chattisgarh is distinguished among the states due to its distinct folk and tribal cultures. Folk and tribal art and craft are manifestations of the pastoral way of life, religious convictions, and unpretentiousness of the people. Baster as a region of Chhattisgarh is characterized by its diverse communities, cultures, and artistic expressions. An area inhabited by numerous tribes that is remote from the progression of human civilization. Tribal lifestyle, caste system, and social rituals are all distinguishing characteristics that set these communities apart from others. Dhokraas an indigenous art form originated as part of the tribal life, and culture and uniquely reflects their community, rituals, and beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview on original form of craft, changes over time, and how the craft is being used in the design. The craft originated as part of the life of the tribal culture and reflects their community, rituals, and beliefs, and maintains a unique character. Over time the craft had gone through changes because of various influencing factors e.g., new requirements within their community, source of livelihood, artists and designers became interested in the craft, reach to the market, and support received from the Govt. The changes in the craft can be seen from various perspectives, from form, size, material, subject matter, and technique. The intention is to highlight progressive visual imagery, product design, and impact on the art form.

One health insights into pastoralists’ perceptions on zoonotic diseases in Ethiopia: perspectives from South Omo Zone of SNNP Region

Zoonotic diseases negatively impact pastoral communities in Ethiopia. In addition to impacts on human health, the interaction between people, livestock and environment which is so fundamental to the pastoralist way of life, means zoonoses pose additional challenges to social bonds and protection networks. These challenges are compounded by adverse impacts from climate change, poor health care services, market problems and cultural practices that increase pastoralists’ vulnerability to zoonotic diseases. This research adopted a grounded theory approach and attempted to capture the perception of Hamer and Dassenetch pastoralists on zoonotic diseases and rangeland health through focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Involved in the research were human and animal health experts, and woreda (Woreda is a third level of administrative unit in Ethiopia following region and zone) level government officials. Thematic framework analysis was used to analyse the data. Zoonotic diseases are a significant public health concern and have a substantial economic burden on local livelihoods. Poor access to human and livestock health services contributed towards the widespread transmission of zoonotic pathogens. In most cases, pastoralists were aware of the possibility of zoonotic disease transmission from livestock to humans and were cognizant of infections contracted from animals. However, the level of risk perception from zoonotic diseases and the subsequent measures of protection was poor. In almost all cases, despite pastoralists’ awareness of zoonotic diseases, they did not consider zoonoses as harmful to human health as they are to animals. It was evident that the burden of zoonotic diseases was high in livestock camps away from settlements in Hamer while for Dassenetch the resettlement clusters created a conducive environment for transmission. This research underscored the importance of engaging with local communities on the risk implications of zoonotic diseases including those related to their food habits and practices.

A History of the Pastoral Way of Life in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia

The main objective of this seminar paper is to explore pastoral way of life in the Awash Valley. It is well known that pastoralism is a way of life mostly found in Africa that is based on raising livestock and using mobility as a fundamental technique for livelihood development and risk management system. In Ethiopia, there are a total of twenty nine pastoralist group. Yet, this seminar paper focuses on Debne Afar, the Karrayu, Arsi, Ittu, Jile, and Issa-Somali, the six pastoralist groups traditionally inhabiting on the Awash valley. Many research studies are conducted around pastoralism in Ethiopia by depending and explaining on the conflict between pastoralists, economic activities, and those prone to drought. However, the present seminar paper wants to fill a gap in providing a detailed examination with historic narratives available documents on the way of life and interaction of pastoralists in the Awash valley, conflict and traditional resolution mechanisms, government policy towards pastoralists, assess drought and traditional mitigation measures, which are the main focus of this paper. The survey of literature is restricted to the published secondary materials of books, reputable with peer reviewed journals, articles and unpublished materials of report, MA thesis and PhD dissertations that have been available to this writer to date. In conclusion, there are certain aspects of the pastoralist way of life that lessons can be drawn from their practices, unlike other pastoralist groups. Afar was able to found an organized local state of Aussa in 1577 AD under the leadership of Mohammed Jassa around Awash valley, still local clan leaders continued old administrative functions. The Karrayu pastoralists also began to intermingle and intermarry with Ittu pastoralist communities in the study area for a long period of time. There are a number of frequent conflicts in pastoral communities. However, the major conflicts are Afar agains. Karrayu and Afar fight Issa-Somali clan was dominant ones. vis-à-vis of their conflict most pastoralists in the Awash valley in thier long history have been able developed traditional conflict resolution mechanisms such as the Ittu Oromo have had belief systems known as Abarsa and Kakku, the unwritten rangeland pastoral law of the Issa–Somalia clan, also known as Heer Issa, and the Afar pastoralists also have a strong traditional clan leader named Finna.

Phenomenon of Movement in the Life and Culture of Nomadic Kazakhs across the Frontier Zone, Late 19th to Early 20th Century

Introduction. Nomads once maximally incorporated into nature and surrounding landscapes had tended to retain their identity through the pastoral way of life, way of thinking, and mentality. The gradual — though further accelerated — emergence of the new development logic set forth by the Russian Empire made the Kazakhs develop new adaptation mechanisms for survival and self-realization in the suggested circumstances. Goals. The article analyzes a variety of sources, works and studies characterizing existential specifics of nomadic economic patterns — to examine the shaping of new life strategies adopted by Kazakh nomads across the frontier zone in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials and methods. The analyzed materials include those contained in Collection 175 of the State Archive of Orenburg Oblast, Interim Provisions on Governance in Steppe Areas of Orenburg and West Siberian Governorates-General, and Materials on Kirghiz Land Use published between 1896 and 1915. Besides, a number of Kazakh literary works that serve as unique historical sources have been considered. Results. The critical approach to different historical sources makes it possible to compare factual materials and reconstruct the transformation and changes in self-identity and outlooks of ex-nomads. At the turn of the 20th century, Kazakh elites were trying to answer the traditional questions of the intelligentsia: Who is to blame and what is to be done? Then and there it was urgent to decide on further prospects of life — whether to preserve nomadism or to seek for other forms of semi-nomadic life, or gradually get sedentarized at all. Conclusions. The Russian Government did not interfere with the nomads’ land use practices, and tended to solve land matters of exclusively plowmen’s communities. In these conditions, the nomadic Kazakhs were left to themselves. As a result, they had to develop new daily practices. Having lost their traditional lifestyle, the Kazakhs still succeeded in preserving their national distinctness in terms of language, oral folklore, genealogies, rituals, etc. The specificity of the frontier zone manifested itself in that Kazakh nomads were actively involved in daily life transformations and developed a habit of turning to local authorities for support (rather than relying on their own resources only) to defend lands from competing peasant immigrants.

Crafting the voice of God: ceramic waylla kepa shell horn technology in the Andes

This paper addresses the enchainment of skills and interactions for the production of ceramic shell horns, and the meaning of these musical instruments whose sounds have shaped the ritual soundscapes of the central Andes since the boom in public architecture in the second millennium BC (early Formative Period c. 3800–3300 BP). Linguistic and ethnohistoric reviews shed light on performance practices and meanings at the time of conquest. Contextual analysis of thin sections of ceramic shell horns excavated in Keushu (Yungay, Ancash, Peru) and dated to the Early Intermediate Period and early Middle Horizon (c. 2200–1600 BP) suggests the agency of specialist itinerant potters. Crafting processes are reconstructed by bringing together material analysis (petrography, X-ray tomography, X-ray diffraction), bioarchaeology, studies of instrument organology, and ceramic ethnoarchaeology. Informed by experimental reconstruction distinct modeling techniques are distinguished and crossed with available provenience data to suggest three independently arising traditions or hotspots in northern Ecuador, on the central Andean coast, and in the highlands of northern Peru. The ritual sounds and soundscapes of the latter area are discussed. Like earlier conch horns, ceramic shell horns played a pivotal part in ritual performances that accompanied the development of irrigation-dependent agrarian and pastoral lifeways in the Andes. Enduring symbolic linkages between shell horn sounds, the sea and irrigation water may indeed represent a powerful embodiment of the voice of God.

Embodied labors during the state formation of Egypt and Nubia (ca. 4800–1750 BCE): Elucidating transformations in behavioral patterns with entheseal changes

AbstractThroughout Egypt and Nubia's state formation periods (4400–1750 BCE), broad transformations impacted Nile Valley communities, which experienced agricultural consolidation, sedentarization, and more complex social organization. The current study examines the various patterns and levels of physical activity in the skeletal remains of 259 predynastic and early dynastic individuals from Nubia (Northern Dongola Reach) and Egypt (el‐Badari, Naqada, el‐Ballas, and Hu). Using entheseal changes in the upper and lower limbs and non‐parametric tests, we have observed changes in behavior patterns between the fifth and second millennia BCE in the Nile Valley. These transformations include an increased impact on the evolution of physical activity and possibly specialized occupations in the Old Kingdom. In this regard, we discovered differences in activity based on the type of burial and the tasks performed by females compared with males. Furthermore, we found additional evidence to support the hypothesis that the Nubian state of Kerma was based on a highly mobile pastoral way of life.

Pastoral Land Rights and Environmental Resource Governance and Sustainability along Ethiopia–Kenya border

Past studies mainly focused on the effects of the lack of a pastoral land tenure security system. There is scarcity of evidence regarding the effects of pastoral land tenure insecurity in the context of cross-border environmental resource governance and sustainability that the present study attempted to contribute. The main objective of this study is therefore to assess how far the state land tenure system has impacted environmental resource governance and sustainability along the Ethiopia–Kenya border. The study employed a qualitative method in which key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions were utilized as the primary data collection methods; moreover, the legal documents of the two states, journal articles, official reports of governmental, and nongovernmental organizations report and other relevant secondary sources were assessed in the review of the literature. Data were collected from various respondents from the pastoralists, nongovernmental organizations, and government bodies from local, national, regional, and international organization representatives. The findings of the study showed that in both states, the government laws and policies adopted have not taken into account the pastoral way of life. In addition, the lack of tenure security for the pastoralists has endangered cross-border environmental resource governance and sustainability. The pastoral landholding system is communally influenced mainly by states’ interests and human encroachments. It is vital that pastoral policies should accommodate pastoral felt needs and interests in which the voices of pastoralists are heard in the policy-making process; hence, there should be a special representation for the pastoral people in the regional and federal legislature (in Ethiopia) and central government parliament (in Kenya), and there should be a cross-border pastoralists forum to ensure better environmental resource governance in the borderland.

Varying cultivation strategies in eastern Tianshan corresponded to growing pastoral lifeways between 1300 BCE and 300 CE

This study combines plant stable isotope and archaeobotanical analyses to explore how ancient pastoral communities in varying landscapes of eastern Tianshan managed their barley fields. The question is less archaeologically investigated, as recent discussions have focused on pastoral and nomadic activities. Results show that diversified cultivation strategies were employed in barley cultivation at different locations in eastern Tianshan. We also observed a diachronic transition toward less labour-intensive crop management corresponding to a growing pastoral lifeway from the late Bronze Age (1300–800 BCE) to historical periods (400 BCE–300 CE). These results inform us about the mechanism by which southwest Asian originated domesticates were adapted to the Inner Asian environments in the context of the early food globalisation.

Consuming the Pastoral Desire: Li Ziqi, Food Vlogging and the Structure of Feeling in the Era of Microcelebrity

This article studies how the new cultural form of food vlogging intervenes the perennial debate on tradition and modernity by focusing on the case of Li Ziqi, whose cinematic videos celebrating bucolic life won her popularity in China and overseas. A study of the production and reception of Li’s videos not only shows urbanites’ nostalgia for a pastoral way of life, but also reveals the role played by the more structural forces, i.e., the market and the state, in appropriating and managing the desire for and consumption of the pastoral for the construction of “modern identities” – both individually as a consumer and collectively as a nation. The market forces, including the ideology of consumerism, its attendant aesthetics as well as the entire regime of social media marketing, were present throughout Li’s celebrification. Meanwhile, the state got involved after Li’s rise to fame, when it became aware of her value for domestic and international publicity. If the market promotes a narrative that caters to the “aesthetical turn” in everyday life in late modernity, the state’s validation and appropriation of Li evinces “cultural nationalism” that departs from political nationalism and is more commensurate with consumerism. However, the Chinese state also tries to transcend the market discourse whose egalitarian form conceals substantive inequality, by positioning itself as an integrative force that bridges urban-rural gap. In creating Li Ziqi as a social media phenomenon, the market uses the rural as a resource to meet the urban desire for authenticity, while the Chinese state re-appropriates the icon of marketized media in its “rural rejuvenation” design to help the disadvantaged rural “other” regain its agency.

Indo-European roots of the Middle Dnieper variant of thYamnaya cultu

Within the framework of the Indo-European discourse, the key issue is the linguistic status of the carriers of the Corded Ware cultures of the Bronze Age. Were they Indo-Europeans in the Neolithic, or did they become Indo-Europeans at some point in their history? Unfortunately, over the past half century, no new concepts of the origin of these cultures have been proposed, including the version that existed on the Middle Dnieper. At the same time, in the light of new radiocarbon dating and genetic data that have appeared over the past decades, old archaeological sources, long ago introduced into scientific circulation, have made it possible to clarify the specific mechanism for the formation of Corded Ware cultures. The purpose of the research is to determine the origin of the Middle Dnieper variant of the Pit grave culture as ancestral to the Corded Ware culture of the region. The origin of the funeral rite has been analyzed from the point of view of its occurrence in adjacent regions in previous periods. As a result, it has been found that the funeral rite of the future carriers of Corded Ware came to the Middle Dnieper from the area of the Shcherbanev-Penezhkovskaya group of Tripoli. This conclusion turns out to be in a systematic connection with the origin as such of the technological method of cord ornamentation from the same group of the Trypillia culture. This allows us to conclude that the future Slavic-Balto-Germanic tribes during the period when they constituted a single linguistic (Nordic) group were not inhabitants of the steppes, but traditional Trypillia farmers who switched to a pastoral way of life in the Bronze Age.

" To be Fula Is to Be Noble and Proud ": How Pulaaku and Contemporary Social Media Are Shaping Diasporic Fula Identity

ABSTRACT: Individuals claiming Fula ethnicity are indigenous to some twenty African countries. Their diaspora has spread across the globe. Historically, Fula culture has centered on a code of conduct called pulaaku. Pulaaku indicates a way of life aimed in part at preventing shame. Pulaaku reflects shared images of Fula archetypes. Academic literature has presented pulaaku as a fundamental component of being Fula. Yet, contemporary Fula living in modern urban settings, whom Ba Konaré calls "Fulapolitans" (see Selasi 2005) are rarely familiar with a pastoral way of life. This article attempts to delineate the concept of pulaaku in contemporary urban settings, with reference to interviews. The results offer grounds to critique the contemporary understanding and experience of pulaaku among Fulapolitans and to highlight recent situational uses and re-appropriations of the concept.

" To be Fula Is to Be Noble and Proud ": How Pulaaku and Contemporary Social Media Are Shaping Diasporic Fula Identity

ABSTRACT: Individuals claiming Fula ethnicity are indigenous to some twenty African countries. Their diaspora has spread across the globe. Historically, Fula culture has centered on a code of conduct called pulaaku. Pulaaku indicates a way of life aimed in part at preventing shame. Pulaaku reflects shared images of Fula archetypes. Academic literature has presented pulaaku as a fundamental component of being Fula. Yet, contemporary Fula living in modern urban settings, whom Ba Konaré calls "Fulapolitans" (see Selasi 2005) are rarely familiar with a pastoral way of life. This article attempts to delineate the concept of pulaaku in contemporary urban settings, with reference to interviews. The results offer grounds to critique the contemporary understanding and experience of pulaaku among Fulapolitans and to highlight recent situational uses and re-appropriations of the concept.

Nomadic Nobles: Pastoralism and Privilege in the Russian Empire

Probing the manner in which Kazakhs attained noble status in the Russian empire, this article explores a neglected aspect of the country's social history. Recognizing that nobility is typically associated with landowning in a feudal order, we explore how this status also found application in the steppe. Based on diverse sources and comparison with other ethnic elites, we regard Kazakh ennoblement not only as a way of recognizing a traditional nomadic aristocracy, but also as a method of creating a new native elite beneficial to Russia's colonial project. We likewise propose that the distinctive character of nomads’ pastoral lifeways differentiated the Kazakh nobility from their Russian counterparts and prevented them from making full use of noble privileges. The article thus explores the nature of Russia's social order by interrogating its margins and contemplates both the possibilities and limits of social inclusion for Russia's ethnically and culturally diverse population.

Evaluation of the practice and contribution of sheep breeding and camel milk to the income of camel drivers in the peri-urban area of N'Djamena (Tchad)

Camel drivers living in the peri-urban area of Sahelian cities carry out several economic activities. These activities can have an impact on techno-economic practice of livestock. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2018 to assess the practice and contribution of sheep breeding and camel milk to the income of camel drivers in the peri-urban area of N'Djamena. It affected 42 sedentary camel drivers (27.6%). Young camel drivers (31.52 ± 9.3 years old) raise a mixed herd. Arab sheep is exploited for the subsistence. Its productivity is improved by monitoring reproduction, breeding selection (format) and supplementation. A family workforce and salaried shepherds ensure manage and sell. Camels walk during the day under the control of a young camel driver. Camel is milked manually by a woman and/or a man. The demand for sheep on the market is higher than that of goats and camels. The contribution rate of the average annual income of sheep sold (ScoreAISSm) is 51.2 ± 23.6% of the total average annual income from breeding (ScoreTAIBm) (1960187 ± 1028966 CFA francs). This rate is high in Group A households not selling camel milk compared to Group 2 (p<0.01). Average annual income from the sale of camel milk (ScoreCMm) provides the daily expenses of the household in Group B. The correlations between the number of women–ScoreTAIB and the number of women–ScoreCMm are positive (p<0.01). Depending on opportunities offered by the place of sedentarisation, camel drivers develop strategies to better meet the urban market demand while maintaining a pastoral way of life.

Hunting and feasting in the pre-Columbian Andes: Exploring the nature and scale of early ceremonial aggregations in Tulan Ravine (5300 to 2400 yr cal. BP) through the circulation of obsidian artefacts

In the pre-Columbian Andes, ceremonial centres were places for large-scale periodic celebrations that facilitated interaction and the reproduction of social life; however, little is known about their role and emergence in early periods. In order to explore the nature and scale of social aggregations, we study the circulation of obsidian artefacts from two early ceremonial centres: Tulan-52 (5300 to 4200 cal. BP) and Tulan-54 (3200 to 2400 cal. BP). Compositional analyses indicate the exploitation of local obsidian, but with a significant contribution from several extra-local sources in the north of the Salar de Atacama (Chile), the Andes highlands (4000 masl) and the northwest of Argentina. According to technological studies and other complementary data, obsidian was employed mainly for the production of bifacial projectile points used in collective hunts and ritual feasts. Our data supports the existence of wide, decentralised inter-community networks fostered by inclusive access to these periodic congregations. We argue that early ceremonial centres were intended to maintain social cohesion and cooperative labour between trans-egalitarian groups in the face of the profound socio-economic changes introduced by the adoption of a more sedentary, pastoralist way of life.

Glenconkeyne: How Ireland’s Largest Native Woodland Became the Timber Yard of the Plantation of Ulster

Glenconkeyne: How Ireland’s Largest Native Woodland Became the Timber Yard of the Plantation of Ulster Gordon D’Arcy (bio) this essay explores the circumstances, particularly the ecological and cultural impacts, resulting from the disappearance of the forest of Glenconkeyne (Figure 1) in central Ulster in the early seventeenth century.1 Research has shown that this exploitation, occurring during the turbulent transition from the Gaelic to the colonial regimes and serving to satisfy the demands of the English “undertakers,” completely eradicated the forest by the mid-seventeenth century. The disappearance of a great forest is much more than the loss of a dramatic landscape feature or of the economic value of its constituent trees as a self-sustaining capital resource and the promise of prosperity. Greater than the sum of its parts: evaluation of the forest’s loss must also consider its vital life-supporting capacity and its hidden layers of human history. Ecologically, forests act as protectorates for flora and fauna, many of which are now endangered or relegated to isolated reserves. Forest biodiversity, especially that of the rain forests, is among the richest known, supporting many species that have unbroken links to primordial beginnings. Forests are thus irreplaceable repositories of living things. Their importance as “super lungs” on which all organisms, including humans, depend is common knowledge and one of the primary motivations for contemporary forest conservation. The removal of a forest also represents radical visual transformation: a [End Page 89] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Glenconkeyne Woodland, c. 1600 [End Page 90] landscape replete with natural form and texture replaced usually by unadorned modification; a tract of wilderness tamed. Culturally a forest constitutes a discrete arboreal archive. Human history, benign and nefarious, is frequently linked to the “wildwood”: a place of mystery, a place of retreat, a refuge for seekers of inspiration and outlaws—animal and human. Unchronicled narratives, in story and song, in place-names and folklore may survive in tantalizing snippets. However, since most of this archive disappears with the forest, a combination of myth and mystery is the common legacy. In the case of Glenconkeyne sufficient factual reportage survives, though scattered through medieval and early modern documents, to elucidate its former grandeur—and what became of it.2 Analysis of tree pollen from cores and the science of dendrochronology tell us that early forest history in Ireland is much like elsewhere in temperate regions. The process of landnam—clearing trees by “ring-barking” for agriculture, then moving on when the growing potential of the soil is exhausted—affected the Irish landscape from as early as six thousand years ago. The evidence is vividly exposed at Céide Fields in County Mayo, where a system of small fields, created by the first farmers, lies beneath a blanket of bog containing pine stumps, some cleared by ax and fire.3 Though fragmentary and peripheral, landnam was the beginning of a process that reflects Ireland’s uninterrupted preoccupation with the pastoral way of life. Although prolonged episodes of population collapse and natural climate change allowed the forest to return, the steady growth of an essentially rural population resulted in the “opening up” of the country by the end of the Bronze Age, some 2,500 years ago. Some upland regions, formerly afforested, were by this time rendered exposed and treeless by overgrazing: the Burren in County Clare, for instance.4 A climatic change resulting in cooler, wetter conditions subsequently thwarted farming and resulted in widespread forest reinvasion.5 The capacity to manufacture robust agricultural equipment from iron during the Celtic period and the establishment of thousands of ringfort homesteads pushed back the tree cover once again.6 Nevertheless, by the early medieval [End Page 91] period large tracts of primary and secondary forest remained, surrounding uplands, in river valleys, and in the largely inaccessible bogs.7 Abundant Old and Middle Irish references make clear that Gaelic culture included an arboreal sensitivity.8 The early Ogham alphabet, shown to be connected to tree names, may also have been an educational device. The Gaelic brehon law of neighborhood (Bretha Comaithchesa) ranks society in accordance with the usefulness and other attributes of trees.9 While a...

Formation of New Life Strategies of the Nomadic Kazakhs the Imperial Frontier of the 19th — Early 20th Century

The article will analyze the process of the formation of new, different from traditional, life strategies of Kazakh nomads of the imperial frontier zone of the 19th — early 20th centuries based on the analysis of various sources, as well as works and studies devoted to characterizing the specifics of the existence of nomadic forms of management. We studied materials 175 of the Fund of the State Archive of the Orenburg Region, as well as Temporary Provisions on Management in the Steppe Regions of the Orenburg and West Siberian Governor-Generals and Materials on Kyrgyz Land Use published from 1896 to 1915. In addition, certain works of Kazakh literature were drawn, which are unique historical sources. The article is based on the analysis of various historical sources, as well as works and studies devoted to the characteristics of the existence of nomadic forms of management and formation the new types of life strategy. A critical approach to various historical sources allowed us to compare the diverse factual material, reconstruct the transformation, and change in the self-awareness of yesterday's nomads Nomads maximally inscribed in nature and the surrounding landscape retained their identity through the realization of a pastoral way of life and mentality. The gradual, ever more active manifestation of the new logic of development proposed by the Russian Empire, which is alien to nomads, made the Kazakhs develop new mechanisms for survival and self-realization in the proposed circumstances, adapting to them as much as possible. The Kazakh elite of the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries tried to give answers to the classical questions of the intelligentsia: who is to blame and what to do? It was necessary to determine in the further perspective of life: to preserve nomadism, to seek other substitute forms of semi-nomadic forms, or gradually to move to a sedentary life. The specificity of the frontier territory was manifested in the fact that nomadic Kazakhs were actively involved in the process of transforming everyday life and, in order to protect their lands from increasing competition of peasants, learned to rely not only on their own resources, but also to find support in local authorities.

Violence, Insecurity and Marginality in Pastoralist Spaces: The Horn of Africa and the Sahel Regions

The pastoral world is defined by the prevalence of war, various forms of insecurity and lack of development, which constitutes violence in all its forms: direct war violence, structural violence (emanating from economic alienation and marginalisation, political repression, poverty, destitution and climatic vulnerability) and cultural violence (bias towards and the securitisation of pastoralist economic and social system). In effect, in human security parlance, the violation of freedom from fear and freedom from want is prevalent that it appears inherent to the nature of the pastoral way of being. The pastoral way of life is considered as an ephemeral state of encroachment of modern nation-state institutions. Therefore, pastoralist-state relations have always been strained. Their precarious existence on the fringe of every state they form part of is consequently considered as normalcy for pastoralists until their livelihood, socio-economic and political system is transformed into the dominant socio-economic and political systems the states are built on. The pastorialist conception of their livelihood and the entirety of their view of 'good life' is denigrated and their voice silenced. By reflecting on the book entitledS in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, this review article examines violence in pastoral society.

Quantitative description of the pastoral economy of western Tuvan nomads

Nomadic pastoralism persists at a substantial scale in Tuva and neighboring regions of Inner Asia. Tuvan pastoral lifeways reflect adaptations to both local environments and current economic realities. Much of our quantitative understanding of the economics of Tuvan nomads is derived from data collected in the first half of the 20th century. Accordingly, this paper provides an updated picture of the inner workings of nomadic households using data collected in Barun-Khemchik and Bai-Taiga provinces in 2013–2015. It analyzes herd composition and size, and compares the frequency of different animals kept today with values recorded in Tuva in 1916 and 1931. It then quantifies rates of provisioning hay and grain, and the production of meat and dairy products for consumption and sale. Finally, it characterizes typical costs of food, petrol, medicine, clothing, and school supplies faced by present-day herders. We advocate the collection of quantitative ethnographic data that can shed further light on the future of the Tuvan pastoralist niche.

Environmental trends between 2400 and 1200 BP in Barrancas, Argentinean Puna: Impacts on local resource variability and socioeconomic organization

AbstractThis paper presents a multiproxy analysis—geomorphology, organic matter, and carbonate content, diatoms, pollen, and magnetic properties of sediments—of the Barrancas Pueblo profile, located in Barrancas, Jujuy, Argentina (S 23°18′08,7; W 66°05′15,2; 3666 m.a.s.l.) to explore local environmental change over the last few millennia. This study is part of a broader investigation of the environmental conditions that facilitated and/or triggered the development of a mixed herding and hunting economic strategy during the late Holocene. The results suggest ongoing local moisture availability for most of the late Holocene; between 2400 and 1500 BP there was a stable, low energy environment that supported a vegetated floodplain, resulting in high availability of pasture and water. However, throughout most of the studied period, there were punctual arid episodes and erosion of the river catchment. High environmental variability post‐3000 cal BP could have put a premium on strategies to reduce the risk associated with resource unpredictability, such as economic specialization and intensification and storage practices designed to control and mitigate resource variability. This process could have ultimately lead to the consolidation of the Andean pastoralist way of life ca. 3000–2500 BP.