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Research Sites
The trajectories of individual mobile pastoralists are always unique and extensive, involving circulation within social and ecological environments that extend from urban to rural, and from desert to steppe. Given this continuous movement between sites, coupled with the high flexibility of social groupings, conventional anthropological units of "community", "village", or even "kin group" are problematic in research involving Mongolian pastoralists. As such, this project adopts a multi-sited approach involving intensive fieldwork a small, maximum variation sample of key participants (N=50) positioned within multilocal social, economic, and governance networks, supplemented by a larger sample of related individuals who will be interviewed at each site. This project incorporates a comparative analytical strategy, in common with other multi-sited ethnographic research focusing on "mobile and multiply situated" objects of study (Marcus 1995:102). The project takes two geographic locales as its point of departure, exploring the practices of a select number of pastoralists registered administratively in Sainshand and in Yero'o', representing xangai (forested steppe) and gobi (semi-desert) respectively. Pastoralists in both sites share linkages to governance and market structures based centrally in Ulaanbaatar, and migrate through overlapping physical spaces and social networks, but experience these interactions differently through their distinct positionings and specific adaptations of core pastoral technologies. The selection of these two sites allows the research to encompass strong variation on a number of key dimensions significant to development and rangelands management policy (see table below and AcMn/RecruitmentProcedures); factors common to the two sites include core extensive livestock production and processing technologies, a common (centralized) rangelands policy and governance framework, and railway access.
Variable |
Dornogobi (Gobi) |
Yero'o' (Xangai) |
Mobility |
Herders move up to 200 km a year, over great distances; mobility is extreme during drought or zud (heavy snowfall) conditions. Movement is guided by access to water. |
Herders are more sedentary, sometimes moving only twice a year or not at all. Mobility is constrained by high population density, which is increasing due to inbound migration, and competition with non-pastoral resource users (farms, mines). |
Livestock |
Mainly goats, sheep, and camels. |
Cattle, sheep, goats, and horses. |
Social organization |
Herding is organized in xot ail kin groups of 2-3 households. |
Herding is organized in xot ail kin groups of up to 7 households. |
Production strategy |
Material production is often limited to subsistence needs, due to poor market access. Herders and others practice symbolic (spiritual) forms of production--such as the construction of sacred monuments and temples--reinforcing the intangible value of the pastoral landscape. A large proportion of exchange occurs through kin networks. |
Material production is often surplus-oriented, and interactions with merchants are relatively frequent. Herders often engage in a variety of non-pastoral extractive activities (e.g., artisanal mining). |
Research sites: Yero'o' sum (Selenge aimag) and Sainshand (Dornogobi aimag). The Gobi aimags are shaded in brown, while the xangai (forested steppe) aimags are shaded in green.
Sainshand is the administrative centre of Dornogobi aimag (http://gate1.pmis.gov.mn/dornogobi/), located 463 km to the south of Ulaanbaatar within the Gobi (desert/semi-desert) ecoregion. The municipal area has an overall population of 21000, including nearly 300 registered pastoral households. The overall population density in this aimag is 0.49 persons/km² (0.3 persons/km² outside the aimag centre). The region of Sainshand has become a major domestic pilgrimage and tourism centre in the past two decades, in large part attributable to local residents' ad hoc construction of sacred monuments and engagement in other ritual practices situating the pastoral landscape as naturally and culturally "pure".
Yero'o' sum is located in Selenge aimag (http://www.selenge.mn/) in Northern Mongolia, 520 km to the North of Ulaanbaatar within the xangai (forested steppe) ecoregion. Selenge is little more than a third the size of Dornogobi, but has close to double the population; its population density is 2.19 persons/km². Yero'o' was formerly a state farm in which fine-wool sheep were specially bred to produce luxury grade wool in the 1970s and 1980s; since its privatization herders have experienced increasing transection of grazing areas by large-scale agriculture and mining operations. Despite local authorities' efforts to limit pastoralism in this sum, the district experiences continuing inbound migration of pastoralists from the Gobi and Altai regions.