THE STATE OF RESEARCH ON
NOMADISM AND PASTORALISM

DEFINITION:
Pastoralism refers to raising livestock on natural pasture
and
nomadism refers to moving from place to place.

Salzman confirms this definition of nomadism: ‘To recapitulate, I would define nomadism as the regular and frequent movement of the home base and household.’(6) This definition focuses on the ‘mobility’ aspect of nomadism research.

In the English literature in particularly, the current convention is the combination of ‘nomadic pastoralist’.(7) In this way the economic component of pastoralism is included, thus separating the term from ‘nomadic hunters’ or ‘nomadic traders’. In the German literature the term is used exclusively to refer to mobile pastoralists’ economic system.(8)

According to Khazanov,(9) the main characteristics of nomadism are:

• Pastoralism is the predominant form of economic activity.
• Its extensive character is connected with the maintenance of herds all year round on a system of free-range grazing without stables.
• Periodic mobility in accordance with the demands of pastoral economy within the boundaries of specific grazing territories, or between these territories (as opposed to migrations).
• The participation in pastoral mobility of all or the majority of the population.
• The orientation of production towards the requirements of subsistence.  



There is a clear preference in the nomadism debate for a geographic and economic characterization. The economic system is put before the way of life. Even Salzman(10) warns of oversimplification by characterizing people’s complex lives and culture by just one feature.

‘DECLINE THEORIES’ ON NOMADS:
Statements to the effect that nomadism as a pattern of life and economy is declining everywhere or has already disappeared, fit in with the ‘decline theories’ (Niedergangsthesen) (11) prevailing in nomadism discourse, suggesting that if there is a change in basic conditions, nomadism can only decline or nomads assimilate, but never develop or transform further. Furthermore, Scholz (12) thought that we should potentially act on the assumption that nomadism would definitely disappear.
These theories were mostly the result of the isolated way in which nomadic groups have been viewed, often without taking the context of surrounding societies into consideration.(13)

MODERN RESEARCH:
Recent studies (14) on the vitality and flexibility in the economy of nomads and a high adaptation potential in nomadic life, now contradict the apocalyptic sentiment at the forefront of nomadism discourses in recent decades. It seems to be precisely their willingness to embrace change and their flexibility that typify today’s nomadic groups and that will enable them to survive in the future.(15)
 
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE:
Suda belongs to the Kel Ahaggar (Imuhar/Tuareg), a group of nomads in the Algerian Sahara who do not correspond to the ‘decline theory’. Suda does profitable stockbreeding. She has been married for five years and her younger brother and younger sister were married this year. The bridegrooms are familiar with life in cities like Tamanrasset and In Salah, but they deliberately chose to live as nomads in the Sahara. They are aware of the threat of unemployment in urban environments and of the assured profitability of stockbreeding; in fact, five new tent units have been built in the last six years, joining the small kingroup of about 200 nomads.
Over the same period, one tent unit was abandoned because the family moved to the city, but this year the same family returned to the Sahara to resume its nomadic life. Jeremy Keenan(17) also sees an increasing willingness to return to mobile stockbreeding in the Algerian Sahara. Some women who have become sedentary and who have been divorced return to their familiar work in the desert. The nomads’ vitality and great potential to adapt are being recognized more and more.

NEW DEFINITION:
Relationships with sedentary people are also more and more being taken into consideration, so that nomadism is presently defined by Leder (18) as:

• mobility that is permanent, cyclical and realized in groups (such as families), so therefore shapes their way of life;
• the development of a livelihood through extensive pasture management or other means of living gained by mobility; and  
• interaction with sedentary people.

With the mobility characteristics mentioned above, a distinction is made between other similar forms of livelihood in which there is also mobility, such as migrants or itinerant workers. The exclusiveness of pasture management is no longer central, and not only mobile stock-breeders are called nomads, even though that does not correspond to the origin of the term ‘nomad’. That pasture management is organized within a fixed territory is omitted and, now, interaction with sedentary people serves as a characteristic. No specification of the interaction is indicated. Whether the interaction is economic or political, for example, is left open.

The main emphasis in the definition of nomadism, however, continues to be on its geographical (mobility) and economic (pasture management) components, thus excluding urban (metaphoric) nomads.

- 1) Modern Nomads / Rural and urban Nomads
- 3) Postmodern Nomadology
- 4) Nomads and Globalization in the Sahara
- 5) Nomadology - New Approach in the Anthropology of the Nomads

 
Chapters from the article:
Research and Nomads in the Age of Globalization
Anja Fischer
in:
Anja Fischer / Ines Kohl (eds.)
Tuareg Society within a Globalized World