Inner Asian Nomadic Pastoralism

This review identifies the recent substantive and theoretical literature pertaining to nomadic pastoralism in Inner Asia, defined here as a region including China, Mongolia, the Central Asian republics, and neighboring areas of Siberia. The mobile herders of sheep, goats, horses, cattle, and camels inhabiting this region belong generally to a common ethnic-cultural lineage, and have experienced similar experiences under socialist collectivization and subsequent decollectivization. The review begins with an overview of the substantive, English-language literature discussing nomadic pastoralism in the Inner Asian region, then proceeds to a presentation of broader anthropological concepts of nomadic pastoralism as adaptive strategy, which have conventionally focused on mobility and flexible social organization. Mobility is then problematized in light of discussions of the relationship between nomadic and sedentary people, including the relationship between nomads and the state. The review concludes with an overview of current governance and rangeland management policy in China and Mongolia, which has attempted—in the Chinese case particularly—to define widespread rangeland degradation and desertification as the result of overgrazing induced by a "tragedy of the commons" scenario.

Substantive evidence

The English-language literature on Inner Asian nomadism remains fairly limited, but has increased somewhat with the opening up of this region to Western development interventions, tourism, and scientific research in the past two decades. Major anthropological works directly concerning Mongolian and Inner Mongolian nomadic pastoralism include publications by Humphrey on the structure and functioning of cooperatives in Mongolia and the Soviet Union (Humphrey1978a, Humphrey1983, Humphrey1989); Sneath on Inner Mongolian political and social organization (Sneath2000, Sneath2002, Sneath2003); Williams on the impacts of rangeland management policies in Inner Mongolia (Williams1996; Williams2000; Williams2002); and Bruun on Mongolian herders' adaptations to changing market conditions (Bruun2006). Other significant contributions reflect on similar conditions affecting Central Asian pastoralists in the former Soviet Union, including Buryatia, Tuva, and neighbouring Siberian regions (Vainshtein1980; Levin&Others1964), Kazakhstan (Alimaev&Behnke2008; Bedunah&Harris2005; Kerven&Others2008; Robinson&Milner-Gulland2003; Robinson&Others2003; Yessenova2005; Zhdanko1966; Kerven2003), Turkmenistan (Behnke&Others2008; Behnke&Others2005; Kerven2003), Kyrgyzstan (Esengulova&Others2008; Farrington2005; Jacquesson2010; Schoch&Others2010; Shigaeva&Others2007), Tajikistan (Robinson2005), and Uzbekistan (Gintzburger&Others2003; Zanca1999). Studies of Yakut cattle breeders—the northernmost Mongoloid herding people—offer a useful comparative perspective on the adaptability of core pastoral strategies to changing ecological and political environments, particularly with reference to the return to indigenous subsistence production following the disbanding of socialist cooperatives (Crate2006; Crate2007; Takakura2002). Similar experiences have also been reported for Siberian reindeer herders (Golovnev&Osherenko1999; Ingold1980; Ingold1986b; Krupnik2000; Vainshtein1980). Within the PRC, discussions have largely focused on rangeland management (see below) in Inner Mongolia, Tibet (Goldstein&Beall1990; Levine1999; Yeh2003), and Xinjiang (Brown&Others2008; Zukosky2008). Due in part to the relatively limited contemporary role of pastoralism in the Central Asian republics, the English-language literature on nomadism and rangeland policy in these states is far less abundant than that concerning the Mongolian and Chinese pastoral sectors, which are consequently given the most weight in this review. Among the most significant comparative works discussing pastoralism throughout the Inner Asian region are those resulting from an international research project on environmental and cultural conservation directed by Humphrey and Sneath (Humphrey&Sneath1996; Humphrey&Sneath1999; Sneath1996)—although by virtue of their broad nature the resulting works may be found lacking in ethnographic detail, focusing rarely on any unit of analysis smaller than the household.

Ongoing discussion of social and economic development issues has occurred through the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, proceeding from the 1980 Nairobi conference on the Future of Pastoral Peoples (Galaty&Others1981) and publication of the journal Nomadic Peoples. Whereas early discussions of development issues concerning nomadic pastoralists focused almost exclusively on African pastoralists, Inner Asian pastoralism has gained considerably greater attention in recent years. Materials published by the FAO (e.g., Suttie2003) additionally provide a global comparative perspective on human development issues.

A sizeable literature discussing Mongolian pastoralism has also emerged in the area of rangeland management and related fields. This includes substantial work on common-pool resource management and environmental entitlements in Mongolia reported by Robin Mearns (e.g., Mearns1992, Mearns1993a, Mearns1993b, Mearns1994, Mearns1996a, Mearns1996b, Mearns1996c, Mearns1996d, Mearns2004a, Mearns2004b; Mearns et al. 1994), as well as work on rangeland management by Fernández-Giménez and other rangeland ecologists (Fernandez-Gimenez1993, Fernandez-Gimenez1999, Fernandez-Gimenez2000, Fernandez-Gimenez2002; Fernandez-Gimenez&Batbuyan2004; Fernandez-Gimenez&LeFebre2006;Havstad&Others2008; Johnson&Others2006; McAllister&Others2006; Reading&Others2004; Sasaki&Others2009; Scharf&Others2009). These are accompanied by several studies of folklore and culture policy (Marsh2006; Marsh2009; Pegg2001), and relevant works in political science (Rossabi2005; Bruun&Odgaard1996).

The evolution of 20th century state policy regarding the pastoral economy—and in particular the collectivization process—is discussed in several English-language histories, including English translations of the official histories of the MRP (Shirendev&Others1976; Zhukov&Others1973) and texts by Western scholars (Bawden1989; Rupen1964). As nearly all Western scholarship on contemporary Mongolia was, until recently, conducted from the perspective of area studies or political science, very little discussion of cultural issues is available in the English-language literature prior to the 1990s—other than with reference to nationalism and pan-Mongolism (Diener2005; e.g., Rupen1964; Skrynnikova&Amogolonova2006), or in the form of general culture summaries (Cheney1968; Sechin&Hyer1979). Many 20th-century discussions of Inner Asian culture drew heavily on the works of Owen Lattimore (Lattimore1940; Lattimore1941). Significant primary sources offering historical perspectives on the cultural, political, and economic aspects of Inner Asian pastoralism include the Mongol chronicles (Cleaves1982; Rashid-al-Din2002; Onon2001), descriptive accounts by missionaries and other travellers (Campbell2000; Carpini1996; LiZhichang2005; Huc1900; Polo1993; Pozdneyev1971; Rubruck1990), and books of precepts serving as guidelines for herders (Sambuu1945; ToVan1853).

Pastoralism as adaptive strategy

Early anthropological studies of nomadic pastoralism often aimed to produce ecologically-oriented typologies or descriptions of pastoralism (Bacon1954; Krader1955; Myres1941); the ecological focus remains prominent in contemporary discussions. Nomadic pastoralism is functionally considered as a strategy enabling human survival in relatively marginal environments through extensive resource use and flexibile social and economic organization, as enabled by a high degree of mobility (Adriansen1999; Chatty2007; Reid&Others2008; Xie&Li2008; Barnard&Wendrich2008). Extensive resource use is achieved through the maintenance of small, mobile herds over a relatively large territory; flexibility occurs in the evolving composition and size of mixed herds, but more importantly in the segmentation and consolidation of herds and economic units in response to current needs and the evolving availability of human and natural resources. The contemporary importance of flexible kinship and social organization is evident in herding units that subdivide and congregate—in the Mongolian case—into otor (sub-household), o'rx ail (household), and xot ail (multi-household camp) (Bruun2006; Mearns1993a; Xie&Li2008; Cerenxand1987; Bold1996), exploiting contextually-dependent definitions of kin. Beyond discussion of such broad-level resource-use strategies, however, relatively little global scholarly attention has been dedicated to the technical specifics of animal husbandry and rangeland use by nomadic pastoralists (Ying&Others2002). Nonetheless, considerable local knowledge has been documented in government handbooks and local studies (Erdenecogt1998; e.g., in Mongolia, Sambuu1945; To'mo'rzhav1989; To'mo'rzhav&Erdenecogt1999; Dash1966).

Whereas anthropological studies of pastoralism in the 1940s-1960s tended to discuss the nature of mobility—and, by extension, the role of men—within perceivedly self-contained pastoral systems, by the 1970s critical challenges to the notions of "pure pastoralism" and increased attention to women's roles had begun to emerge (Dyson-Hudson&Dyson-Hudson1980), foreshadowing contemporary interests in pastoralism as complex, locally-dependent adaptations within complex societies. The once-popular notion that nomadic societies are inherently egalitarian persists in claims that contemporary economic differentiation is the anomalous result of recent economic changes (Morozova2009; e.g., Sneath2000), yet this concept of social equality has been questioned (Asad1978; Borgerhoff Mulder&Others2010), and indeed is often contradicted by historical evidence of high stratification and dependence on sedentary populations (Khazanov1984). Additionally, recent studies provoke a questioning of masculinist representations of nomads as possessing characteristics of "independence", "self-control", and "bravery" (Bolton&Others1976; e.g., Goldschmidt1971; but cf. Sabloff2010), through focus on gender difference. Thus whereas some scholars have argued that women traditionally enjoyed a high status in Mongolian pastoral households (Lattimore1983), other have suggested that pastoral divisions of labour may in fact undervalue women's work (Dahl1987), or that kinship structures, and the social mechanisms by which they are enforced, are only comprehensible to men (Humphrey1978). As pointed out in the current development literature, changing economic roles have placed increasing pressures on pastoral women (Asian Development Bank&World Bank2005; Fratkin&Smith1995; OECD2010; Robinson&Solongo2000).

Mobility and sedentism

A major area of anthropological discussion concerning Inner Asian pastoralists has considered the relationship between nomadic and sedentary peoples. Following on Khazanov's thesis that pastoral nomads are inherently "non-autarkic", in the sense of being specialized producers who are economically dependent on sedentary peoples (Khazanov1984), recent studies have pointed to a considerable diversity of opportunistic relationships between nomads and sedentary peoples, suggesting a fluidity of boundaries between "nomadic" and "sedentary". As noted by Barth in his study of the Basseri (Barth1961), even within a community of "nomads" shifts between mobile herding and sedentary occupations may be necessary as a means of maintaining sustainable herd and human population sizes, or as a strategy for managing wealth by shifting it between livestock and immobile property. In a more contemporary context, rural-to-urban migration has contributed to blurring the boundaries between nomadic and sedentary populations (Alexander&Others2007; Salzman&Sadala1980; Bruun&Narangoa2006). Conceptions of Eurasian nomads as historically enjoying free-ranging movements have also been challenged with reference to boundaries inherent in territorially-defined governance, both historical and contemporary (Myadar2007; Myadar2009). Likewise, recent ethno-archaeological studies—such as Frachetti's work in Kazakhstan (Frachetti2008)—suggest a considerable diversity in the ways in which Eurasian pastoralists have viewed and interacted with the landscape, challenging the historical conceptions of homogeneous, permanently mobile "hordes" (e.g., Grousset1970) in light of which archaeological findings have often been interpreted. Some archaeologists have indeed suggested that the distinction between mobility and sedentism is rooted in an essentialist typology separating mobile (foraging or pastoral) and sedentary (agricultural) peoples (Kelly1992; Barnard&Wendrich2008). In light of these concerns, some authors have indicated a preference for "mobile" rather than "nomadic" as a descriptor for pastoralists, claiming that "nomadism" may be taken to imply continuous and random movement (Humphrey&Sneath1999); such terminological choices do not entirely solve the problem, however, given that almost everyone is "mobile" to some degree.

From a contemporary human development perspective, key problems are generally tied to the relationship of mobile citizens to the state, notably the difficulties encountered by the state—or by development agencies—in attempting to provide education, health care, and other services to highly dispersed, mobile communities (see FAO2001). Possibly the most common outcome of this dilemma worldwide has been sedentarization, which may be achieved in a planned way through force or incentives such as economic or housing subsidies, or may occur in the form of "natural" economic migration to urban centres (Salzman&Sadala1980). The short-term social effects of sedentarization may in some cases be positive (Fratkin&Smith1995), but data on health and other indicators are generally inconclusive: while some studies have found that nomads enjoy better health and physical development (Fratkin&Others2006; Fratkin&Others2004), others have correlated seasonal mobility to higher incidences of infant mortality, preventable childhood disease, and general morbidity (Foggin&Others2006; Mocellin&Foggin2008). The issue of education provision for mobile populations has also received particular attention (Fratkin&Others1999; Krätli2001; Krätli&Dyer2009; Steiner-Khamsi&Stolpe2005; Dyer2006). While networks of local boarding schools have been relatively effective in Mongolia (Demberel&Penn2006), their success can be viewed as highly contingent on proximity to households; the contrasting experience of Inner Mongolia demonstrates that declining schooling rates can result if smaller local schools are amalgamated into regional ones (Sneath2000). Some interesting development work has been done in the area of mobile schools and distance learning (Malik&Others2005; Perraton2000; Robinson1995; Robinson1999), although such projects have primarily targeted adult learners and have failed to be institutionalized.

Interactions between nomadic pastoralists and protected areas is also a significant issue considered in the broader literature (Bedunah&Schmidt2004; Brockington2001; McCabe&Others1992; Rao2002; Thompson&Homewood2002; West&Others2006). Nonetheless, discussion of these issues in relation to Inner Asia remains very limited, despite evidence of exclusion of Mongolian pastoralists from national parks (Agriteam Canada1997a) and, conversely, of widespread circumvention of conservation laws (Bedunah&Harris2005). Central questions raised in this area reflect the relatively greater potential for mobile people to be excluded from protected areas due to their inability to stake community territorial claims to customary subsistence rights, and to the challenges of engaging mobile households in community-based natural resource management.

Defining ecological issues: desertification and "degradation"

While the negative ecological impacts of excessive grazing are visible and recognized by both biologists and herders, differences emerge over attribution of the proximate causes of pasture degradation (Kakinuma&Others2008). The attempt to implement "scientific" pasture management in Mongolia and the PRC is evidenced by extensive reference to concrete measures of "pasture degradation" and "desertification" in official statistics and environmental policy documents (Batjargal2000; e.g., MNE1997); yet while these figures are presented as undisputed facts, beneath them lies considerable uncertainty over the nature and extent of pasture degradation, and its relationship to grazing levels. Some of these issues are definitional: recent critiques by ecologists have pointed out, for example, the theoretical limitations of the UN-CCD climatological definition of "desertification" (Arnalds2000) and the difficulty in distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic disturbances resulting in rangeland degradation (Archer&Stokes2000). More than 100 competing definitions of desertification have been published in the international literature (Glantz&Orlovsky1983), and indeed a debate persists over whether desertification actually exists as a definable phenomenon (Herrmann&Hutchinson2005); additionally, it has been pointed out that widely used desertification measurement toolkits are inherently subjective as they rely on "informed opinion" rather than formal measures (Verón&Others2006). Overall, the degradation of Inner Asian rangeland must be viewed as resulting from a complex interaction of unsustainable land use practices, demographic pressures, land tenure regimes, governance, market processes, and natural disturbances (Narjisse2000). The high level of scientific uncertainty concerning these processes is further evidenced by debates over the possibility that rangeland systems are governed by non-equilibrium dynamics, stemming from critiques of ranching development projects in Africa of the 1960s and 1970s (Derry&Boone2010; Illius&O'Connor1999; Vetter2005; Behnke&Others1993). The non-equilibrium model is useful as it is consistent with a resilience perspective (Niamir-Fuller2000; Robinson2009; Robinson&Berkes2010), in turn validating the extensive, mobile resource use strategies described above.

One of the most serious factors contributing to rangeland degradation throughout Inner Asia has been the transfer of rangelands from collective management to an open-access regime, through the process of decollectivization. Fratkin thus points to the "tragedy of the commons" as the central issue affecting pastoral governance and development worldwide (Fratkin1997). The difficulty in maintaining common-pool resources in light of competing land uses is a common plight of nomadic pastoralists, with discussion of the issue spanning several decades in the case of African nomads (Ensminger&Rutten1991; Lesorogol2003; Lesorogol2008; Runge1981; Spencer1992), and since the 1990s in the case of Mongolia (Mearns1993a, Mearns2004a; Fernández-Giménez2002; Cooter1999; Sheehy2000). Commonly raised issues in this literature include reduced mobility due to "fragmentation", meaning the enclosure or transection of the landscape by roads, mines, or farms (Galvin&Others2008); the dismantling of socialist rangeland management, which has yet to be replaced by effective governance institutions; and the erosion of traditional land tenure arrangements due to broader economic and cultural changes. Contrary to the recommendations of common property theorists, however, actual policy in China and Mongolia more often reflects a strategy similar to that advocated by Hardin, of land privatization or enclosure.

Rangeland management policy in Mongolia and China

Controversy over the future of Mongolia's pastoral sector and its common property regime has constituted a major obstacle to the implementation of a strong pastoral governance system. While a major 1997 ADB study recommended strategies for supporting extensive pastoralism through the establishment of rangeland co-management institutions, cooperatives, market information schemes, and other forms of governance supporting an extensive livestock system (Agriteam1997a; Agriteam1997b), studies by local scholars have more often considered—or indeed recommended outright—a transition to sedentary, "intensified" forms of pastoralism and rangeland privatization (Enkhamgalan1995; OSF2004). To date, no significant action has been taken on either of these options. The Constitution of Mongolia recognizes rangeland as a public resource that cannot be privatized; yet insofar as no clear regulations exist for land classification—a matter that has until recently been subject to interpretation by local officials—pastoralists have had no means of preventing the designation of customary rangeland resources as leasable for mining or agriculture. A package of comprehensive environmental legislation was introduced in 1995 (Batjargal1997), and updated in 2005-2007 to include provisions for community-based natural resource management, largely on the initiative of an IDRC-sponsored project promoting co-management of pasture and forest resources with local resource-user communities (Ykhanbai2002; Ykhanbai2004; Ykhanbai&Others2006). Given that this initiative is implemented through the Ministry of Nature and Environment, however, outcomes have been limited to the management of special protected areas.

Contemporary pastoralism in Inner Mongolia (PRC) and Tibet constitute a somewhat different case from the experience elsewhere in Inner Asia. Following a brief period of collectivization, China instituted a Rangeland Law in 1985 providing for household land tenure and the enclosure of pasture areas intended for hay production, inspired by fears of a "tragedy of the commons"; this land tenure policy has been accompanied by controls on herd size and composition, intensive applied research on rangeland condition, and afforestation interventions (Sneath2000; Squires&Others2009). Many studies of Inner Mongolian pastoralism describe a marginalized, bare subsistence-level economy limited by structural constraints imposed by the state, however, in which rangeland policies have been ineffective or even counterproductive (Ho2000a; Ho2000b; Jiang2004; Jiang2005; Jiang2006; Sneath2000; Taylor2006; Williams1996; Williams2002); strikingly similar arguments have been made with reference to national rangeland policies as implemented in Western China and in Tibet (Banks2001; Bauer2005; Bauer2006; Brown&Others2008; Levine1999; Yeh2003; Yeh2005; Zukosky2007; Zukosky2008). Such studies reveal that rangeland policies have led to overgrazing on common rangeland, due to households retaining private areas as contingency reserves; increased economic difference and conflict over the location of fences; removal of prime pasture areas from grazing use due to their allocation as research sites; reduced mobility; and the introduction of tree species that present a negative impact on the balance of water in the desert soil. Displacement of pastoralists for environmental management purposes is also a significant consideration in the Chinese case (Dickinson&Webber2007). Such concerns have been noted by Chinese scholars (Jiang&Others2006; Shixiong Cao&Others2010; Yonghuan&Shengyue2006; e.g., Zhaoli&Others2005), although failings of the national rangeland management policy are often attributed to the informal manner in which they are interpreted or circumvented at the local level (Zukosky2008).

The ethnic dimensions of China's rangeland policy—which primarily affects ethnic minorities—are not widely discussed by Chinese authors in the English-language literature, a notable exception being the recent critique of the enclosures policy published in Nomadic Peoples by the Vice Secretary-General of the People's Government of IMAR (Zhizhong&Wen2008). The bearing of indigenous rights discourses on nomadic pastoralists bears mentioning in this context, particularly in light of recent initiatives such as the 2002 Dana Declaration on Mobile Peoples and Conservation (WDC2003; see also Chatty2003), the Worldwide Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism, and the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples. The virtual lack of penetration of such discourses into Inner Asia is notable but perhaps unsurprising, given pastoralists' cultural affiliation, outside China and Siberia, with the national ethnic majority.

Future directions for rangeland policy research in Mongolia

Given the complex interplay of human development, economic, ecological, and ethnic issues in the Inner Asian pastoral sectors, an integrative governance perspective may be more appropriate than existing rangeland management and development frameworks, which attempt to address each of the above issues in isolation. Market issues are arguably at the heart of sustainability concerns, insofar as the collapse (outside China) of Soviet-era supply and distribution infrastructure has provoked unsustainable migration of herders towards urban markets; pastoralists are affected by volatile commodity prices, or in the Chinese case, depressed prices and limits on livestock numbers; there is an absence of organizations supporting pastoralists as commodity producers, such as marketing boards or producer cooperatives; and virtually no investment has been made in forms of processing that are compatible with extensive livestock production strategies (Bruun2006; Kerven2006; Scharf&Others2009; Squires&Others2009; see Kerven2003). Suggestions that the future of the pastoral sector may lie in organic or other niche production, ecotourism, and natural resource co-management (Blench2001) have thus far attracted little tangible support.

A significant issue deserving increased attention is that of risk management in the pastoral sector. Reliance on livestock alone as a form of property is a relatively risky strategy; returns on larger herds diminish due to the need to take on additional labour and to cover greater distances in order to find sufficient vegetation, and the potential for loss due to insufficient grazing resources in unfavourable weather conditions is heightened. Mitigation of these risks may require, as Barth (Barth1961) and others have suggested, a certain degree of crossover between mobile and sedentary communities. In pre-revolutionary Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, such strategies were managed in part through monastic institutions, which absorbed surplus human population and leased livestock to poorer herders, assuming the risk of natural losses (Natsagdorj1967). An entirely new set of risk mitigation strategies accompanied collectivization, based on the principle of reducing uncertainty by managing fodder and other inputs rather than adapting to variations in natural rangeland conditions (Humphrey 1978a). Given the unsustainable resource inputs required, however, most of these strategies have not survived decollectivization; yet there has not been a return to prior adaptive strategies and institutions (Bruun2006; Upton2005; Marin2008). Since the mid-1990s, a new category of non-manageable risk has emerged in the form of the "natural disaster". Successive losses of livestock in the past decade due to dzud (heavy snow cover preventing foraging) and extreme temperatures in Mongolia have thus met with substantial aid responses from the international community, led by the Red Cross (IFRC2004; Sternberg2008; Sternberg&Others2009); the World Bank, meanwhile, has organized a system of livestock insurance (Mahul&Skees2007; WorldBank2008, WorldBank2010), also based on the conception of risk as related to periodic, unmanageable "natural disaster". These developments are especially significant from the perspective of management for resilience: whereas pastoralism prior to collectivization was organized around a general strategy of maintaining diversity of options—in terms of herd composition, social organization, and resource use—so as to maximize the range of potential responses to uncertain environmental changes, current approaches recognize uncertainty but promote unsustainable, non-diverse practices by organizing periodic inputs of outside resources (humanitarian aid or insurance) to compensate for losses. The construction of livestock losses as both inevitable and requiring outside compensation has understandably been criticized by some urban dwellers as a form of subsidy for economically unsustainable "traditional" husbandry, fuelling arguments in favour of a return to intensively managed ranch-style agriculture. In contending with this potentially divisive issue, coherent governance options favouring more sustainable and extensive resource use patterns will need to incorporate human ecological and related perspectives on mobility, resilience, market-based governance, and common property management.

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