The Nomad and the State This is the third time in one decade that Nomadic Peoples is publishing a special issue on the relationship between nomads and the state. In 1990, Mohamed Salih guest-edited the first such issue (`Perspectives on Pastoralists and the African States') and six years later, Georg Klute guest-edited the issue `Nomads and the State'. Apparently, the topic elicits enough interest among scholars of nomadism to warrant a third issue. However, the present issue differs from its predecessors in some respects. The cases referred to in the 1990 and 1996 issues were, with two exceptions, restricted to the African context, dealt exclusively with pastoralists, and had a more general focus on the nomad-state relationship. The 1990 issue highlighted the relationship between pastoralists and the representatives of contemporary African states. The position of pastoralists within the socio-economic structure of these states and their responses to state policies were examined in relation to their social and cultural systems. It was argued that most African pastoralists are economically and politically marginalised. The pastoralists' perception of the state and the state's perception of pastoralists had proved to be `a hindrance to any meaningful communication between the two' and explained the prevailing failure of attempts to integrate pastoralists into the mainstream: `In essence, the contradiction between state and civil society, and pastoralists as a special sector of that society, is a contradiction between societal perceptions of production, consumption and distribution mechanisms and the forces behind the state apparatus' (Mohamed Salih 1990:3-4). The contributions to the 1996 issue had a more a historical perspective. The general argument was that pastoral groups in Africa have by no means always been marginalised victims of states and their administrators, but also active agents in the nomad-state relationship, and had even taken an active role in state formation. The case studies demonstrated that `nomadic groups in different parts of the world and at different epochs were in some cases conquered by and in other cases conquerors of states; in some cases they were incorporated into and in other cases marginalised by states' (Klute 1996: 5, referring to Azarya 1996; cf. also Ingold 1986: 167). While conceding that many nomads of the state-forming or state-incorporated type sedentarised a long time ago and that `groups of the marginal type are still pastoralists' (Klute 1996: 5), it concluded that the nomad-state relationship must be understood `as a dynamic process in which each side ... affects the other', and suggested that before drawing general conclusions, such relationships must be studied in their specific historical contexts, in order to distinguish the variety of relationships possible--those of conflict, of co-operation, of incorporation of a group into the state, and of mutual distance (Klute 1996: 5, 8). The present issue focuses more specifically on resource management among nomadic peoples and on state policies concerning nomadic communities and their natural environments in the context of economic modernisation, globalisation and nation-building. Relations of power and dominance that determine access to the resources on which nomads depend are at the centre of the studies presented here. We subscribe to a broad definition of nomadism, as given, for instance, by Rao (1982: 124-25, 1987; see also Salzman 1971), and do not restrict ourselves to pastoralists, but focus instead on a people's spatial mobility primarily for economic reasons, such as foraging, herding, shifting cultivation and the provision of services. Hence, the case studies included in this issue do not deal only with itinerant herding communities, but also with other nomads. Our regional perspective also transcends the borders of the `classic' sites of research on pastoral nomadism--Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia--to include Central, South and Southeast Asia as well. …