Pastoralist Livelihoods in Asian Drylands

Pastoralist Livelihoods in Asian Drylands brings together the work of scholars from across Asia to discuss the transforming boundaries, agencies and risks involved in pastoralist livelihoods. The authors, whose research sites range from Oman to Mongolia, Syria to Pakistan, share methodological commitment to long-term field research, participant observation and engagement with local communities. There is a focus on pastoralist engagements with governance institutions and the essays collectively argue that risk, which is often imagined in environmental terms for pastoralist peoples, often stems from government policies and political circumstances. The authors challenge common ecological approaches to understanding social change amongst pastoralist groups by focusing on the politics of resource distribution and control. Papers in the volume support an indigenous perspective on pastoralists and present academic perceptions and assessments of key issues in their local context.

Ariell Ahearn is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the School for Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She holds an M.P.A. from Cornell University and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. She has worked with rural pastoralists in Mongolia since 2004 with research focusing on land tenure, local governance, gendered divisions of labour and social organisation. Troy Sternberg is a researcher at the School for Geography and the Enviornment at the Univeristy of Oxford, where he works on pastoral environments in the Gobi Desert. His focus is on natural hazards,environmental processes, the effectiveness of traditional nomadic strategies and the comparative ecological impact of livelihoods across the Asian steppe.