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The Journal of Peasant Studies
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjps20
COVID-19 and pastoralism: reflections from three
continents
Tahira Shariff Mohamed , Masresha Taye , Natasha Maru , Palden Tsering ,
Tsering Bum , Giulia Simula & Domenica Farinella
To cite this article: Tahira Shariff Mohamed , Masresha Taye , Natasha Maru , Palden Tsering ,
Tsering Bum , Giulia Simula & Domenica Farinella (2020): COVID-19 and pastoralism: reflections
from three continents, The Journal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1808969
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1808969
Published online: 21 Oct 2020.
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GRASSROOTS VOICES
COVID-19 and pastoralism: reflections from three continents
Tahira ShariffMohamed, Masresha Taye, Natasha Maru, Palden Tsering, Tsering Bum,
Giulia Simula and Domenica Farinella
PASTRES Programme, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
ABSTRACT
Focusing on pastoralism, this article reflects on five diverse cases
across Africa, Asia and Europe and asks: how have COVID-19
disease control measures affected mobility and production
practices, marketing opportunities, land control, labour relations,
local community support and socio-political relations with the
state and other settled agrarian or urban populations? In response
to the lockdown measures, we explore what innovations have
emerged to secure livelihoods, through new forms of social
solidarity and ‘moral economy’. The cases examine how impacts
and responses have been differentiated by class, age, wealth and
ethnicity, and explore the implications for socio-economic
processes and political change in pastoral settings.
KEYWORDS
Uncertainty; COVID-19;
mobility; pastoralism;
political economy
1. Introduction
COVID-19 has brutally exposed deep structural inequalities in societies across the world,
whether through axes of wealth, age, gender health condition, ethnicity, race or knowl-
edge (e.g. Liu et al. 2020; Fischer-Mackey et al. 2020; Mendes and Carvalho 2020;
Wenham, Smith, and Morgan 2020). Much analysis to date has focused on the macro-con-
sequences of the pandemic on national economies and the impacts on poverty (e.g.
Sumner, Hoy, and Ortiz-Juarez 2020; Wright et al. 2020) or wider questions of the pan-
demic’s impact on development (Oldekop et al. 2020; Peeri et al. 2020) and social
justice (Roape 2020). However, the pandemic has had highly varied impacts, and it is
only through focused studies of particular settings that a more comprehensive picture
can emerge. In particular, commentary on the virus’impacts has rarely focused on
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Giulia Simula g.simula@ids.ac.uk
Editorial Note: The Journal of Peasant Studies is launching a rolling forum with experiences from the frontlines of the current
crisis: ‘Grassroots Voices: pandemics and critical agrarian studies’–in collaboration with the Transnational Institute (TNI –
www.tni.org). As the pandemic unfolds, many of the fatal flaws of capitalism are being laid bare. It is a moment when
new alliances are being formed and new militant organising is springing up, as are new forms of authoritarianism and
repression. This is a moment of potentially great rupture –but in what direction and for who is up for grabs. The Grass-
roots Voices section seeks to document what is happening from the grassroots perspective. Migrant workers, domestic
laborers, peasant farmers, pastoralists small-scale fishers, informal food vendors and rural-urban migrants all have had
their lives upended. We expect this conjuncture to affect potentially radical changes in long-term trends towards author-
itarian governance, industry consolidation, marginalisation of migrant workers, land grabs and financialisation, as well as
creating a surge of left organising, food worker strikes, mutual aid networks and new grassroots alliances. What is the
experience on the ground? These experiences of course are conditioned by the historical changes that came before, by
rising populism, and the history of movement organising. We hope to put these new experiences in historical context,
track them longitudinally and highlight emerging strategies.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1808969
populations who are dependent on mobility for their livelihoods in marginal and remote
rural areas. For lockdowns, as the core public health measure to prevent the spread of
COVID-19, have especially dramatic consequences for already-marginal populations
where mobility is essential for livelihoods. Such groups include artists, travellers, refugees
(Kluge et al. 2020), migrant workers (Liem et al. 2020) and pastoralists.
This JPS Grassroots Voices paper focuses on pastoralists in five countries across the
world, documenting the experience of the pandemic on a particular type of agrarian liveli-
hood. Pastoralism is an important livestock production system adapted to harsh, non-equi-
librium environments, and is highly dependent on mobility, so herds and flocks can
harvest nutrients across diverse landscapes (Scoones et al. 2020; Nori 2019). Pastoralists
make use of rangelands in a variety of settings from deserts to savannas to high
montane grasslands, where crop cultivation may be difficult. Rangelands make up
around a quarter of the world’s surface, and there may be around 200 million pastoralists
globally (IFAD 2018; FAO 2001). Pastoralists are livestock keepers who are specialised in
taking advantage of variability and managing grazing itineraries at a variety of scales
(Krätli 2019). Flexible mobility, in vastly different forms and modes, is always central to pas-
toralism (Turner and Schlecht 2019).
The paper focuses on five very diverse cases across three continents: Africa (Isiolo in
northern Kenya, Borana in southern Ethiopia), Asia (Amdo Tibet in China; Kacchch in
Gujarat, India) and Europe (Sardinia in Italy). From February onwards, as researchers
who take part in the PASTRES research programme and are based in these countries,
we started to collect data on the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic in these
different sites. First in China, then spreading to Europe and on to Africa and other parts
of Asia. The documentation was informal, based on interviews and complemented by
the sharing of photos through a cross-country photovoice project.
1
As lockdowns were
imposed, researchers were often separated from their field sites, but kept in touch by
phone, WhatsApp and other means.
In the sections that follow, a short reflection from each site is offered, based on these
interviews. This is followed by an attempt to draw out key themes across sites. The
PASTRES project focuses on how pastoralists respond to uncertainties of different sorts
(Nori and Scoones 2019; Scoones 2019).
2
Through the research we have been investi-
gating uncertainties provoked by droughts, floods or heavy snowfalls; by market con-
ditions and price volatility; by political instability, conflict and insecurity; by land tenure
and management regimes, and the intersections between these. And then COVID-19
arrived, or at least the threat emerged. It was initially in far-away capital cities and
across borders, but soon impinged on everyday life as public health measures were
imposed. Here was a totally new form of uncertainty that the world was grappling with.
How did pastoralists in different places respond?
As the case studies illustrate, the disease was initially perceived as distant, the problem
of others. Pastoralists are well connected by phones and got the news from around the
world, and the threat felt increasingly real, even if not yet experienced. Various rumours
and conspiracy theories spread: this was biological warfare, a plot to kill offpoorer
1
Photovoice involves pastoralists taking photos of their own environment and developing narratives explaining their pic-
tures together. This has continued during lockdown through WhatsApp and other exchanges.
2
PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty, Resilience: Global Lessons from The Margins) www.pastres.org
2T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
people, a revenge from God. However, it was only when the lockdown measures were
introduced that impacts were really felt in pastoral areas. To date, only a few cases have
been observed in our study areas, and most pastoral areas remain isolated from the pan-
demic. However, the public health measures that have restricted movements, closed
markets and required people to stay at home have been harshly felt in all sites, but
with varying consequences and with important implications for livelihoods in rural areas.
Across the studies, we asked, how has the period of the COVID-19 pandemic restruc-
tured agrarian relations in pastoral areas? To look at how this happened we asked ques-
tions such as: how have pandemic control measures affected production practices,
marketing opportunities, land control, as well as wider social and political relations,
both with the state and other settled agrarian populations or urban consumers? In
response to the lockdown measures what innovations have emerged to secure livelihoods,
and what forms of social solidarity and ‘moral economy’have become important in the
face of the pandemic and its unequal impacts on society? And how have both the
impacts and the responses been differentiated by class, age, wealth, ethnicity and other
dimensions of difference, with what implications for processes of social, economic and pol-
itical change in these pastoral settings? The pandemic, both through the direct impacts of
the diseases, but more particularly through the imposition of disease control measures,
has had far-reaching effects on pastoral livelihoods and agrarian relations. These are
different to settled urban or rural populations, as agrarian dynamics and relations –includ-
ing patterns of production, accumulation and politics (cf. Bernstein 1996)–are fundamen-
tally influenced by the ability to move (Scoones forthcoming). With restrictions on
mobility, the consequences for land, markets and social networks are significant, as the
cases discussed below show.
Of course, these questions cannot be answered in full whilst still in a midst of the pan-
demic. As we compiled this paper, all countries had some form of restrictive measures in
place in response to the crisis, while the wider economic consequences of extended lock-
downs had yet to be fully felt. However, each case offers a window onto an emerging
dynamic with major consequences, and together they suggest some themes relating to
how COVID-19 is reconfiguring agrarian relations, to which we return at the end of the
paper.
2. Grassroots voices: five COVID-19 stories from pastoral areas
2.1. Moral economies and local solidarities during the COVID-19 pandemic: the
case of Isiolo, Kenya (by Tahira ShariffMohamed)
It’s abnormal but we feel normal! It’s raining and we have plenty milk …the only fear is the
outbreak of the disease in our region because it will be just you and your God. Even the stron-
gest nations are struggling and what about us who have to walk for about 20 km to get to
Merti hospital? (Q.D., Lakole, Isiolo, April 2020)
Pastoral areas are frequently detached from central state provision of health, infrastruc-
ture and social security services revealing a deep structural inequality. Qubaata Dadacha
from Lakole referred to the lack of a nearby healthcare facility as the only fear they have
from the virus. His village in Merti sub-county does not have even a dispensary so they
travel to Merti town to get services. Although the virus has not yet spread in most of
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 3
the rangelands, the measures taken by the authorities have had major impacts on pastoral
livelihoods. As argued by Eriksen and Lind (2009), adaptation to variability is a political
process with uneven outcomes as people have different opportunities and capacities.
The effect of the pandemic is percieved differently by pastoralists in different regions of
Isiolo district (Figure 1). Pastoralists in remote areas are living a normal life despite curfews
and lockdown, but are facing challenges caused by transport disruption. There is
decreased access to foodstuffs and vegetables from Isiolo town which is about 230 km
away. Gurba Abduba, explained:
Due to hiked transport cost we are not getting daily vegetables and other food from Isiolo. we
used to buy two pieces of ‘Nyanya’(tomatoes) for KSHs 20 (0.2 USD), but now one piece of
‘Nyanya’costs KSHs 30 (0.3 USD). People have lost livelihood and it is very difficult to cope
…. the poor are not getting ‘deni’(loan) from the shops because the few shops that are
here are no longer bringing any food item and some are closed ….the road condition has
got worse due to the rain and no transporter wants to risk to bring just food items all the
way from Isiolo. (G. A., Korbesa, Isiolo, April 2020)
Pastoralists living in proximity to town by contrast do have access to foodstuffs, but their
livelihood is affected by strict policing from security forces who are using the pandemic to
extract fines from people. Abba Hoori said:
Supervising your livestock at ‘galchuum’(evening when livestock returns) and discussing
issues of concerns such as the types of pasture they ate, the sick among them and water
requiremnts are essential and part of mala mari hoori (livestock management talk). I usually
stay at the camp up to about 9 pm and only then go home. But now I have to be back
before evening since the police will take away your motorbike and you don’t get it back
untill you pay a fine of Kshs 5000 (50 USD). Our lifestyle does not work well with the
curfew; at least I have a motorbike, but those who walk to town have to face police wrath
or leave early without proper supervision of the herds. (A.H., Kinna, Isiolo, April 2020)
The effect of the pandemic is painfully felt especially by women whose economic liveli-
hood falls under ‘restricted trades’, (such as selling ‘khat’[Catha edulis], a stimulant).
Haati Diba explained that there is a general decrease in trading activities, but butchery
owners are booming partly because of Ramadan and also the decreasing price of live
animals due to less demand from the outside market. She further felt for the livestock
brokers whose earnings have been disrupted due to market restrictions and bans on
public gatherings, forcing some pastoralists to trade in a ‘hidden’place.
Pastoral responses to the pandemic are seen at two different levels. The first involves
ways of engaging with the virus through the establishment of local community ‘emer-
gency’teams, which include health volunteers, chiefs, youth, women and village elders.
Although they do not have medical training, they meet every Friday and engage in com-
munity sensitisation and screening at the entry borders of the district. Secondly, there is an
emerging structured network of community solidarities and mutual help: a new pastoral
moral economy. Examples include a group of youth in Merti who have initiated a
‘corona food drive’so as to feed vulnerable families. In addition, some women are
helping milk traders by purchasing excess milk and transforming it into butter so that
market disruption will not lead to complete loss. Amina Diko, says:
There is plenty of milk due to good rain this year, however this disease and restriction of
movement disrupted market and the transfer of milk from rural to town. We the women
4T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
did not easily give into the effect of the virus, we took the excess milk and converted it to
butter, to prevent our fellow traders from incurring loss; it’s a form of economic and social
support. Personally, I have five litres of ghee which will stay longer than the milk and I am
happy to make more ghee if this means preventing further loss from my fellow milk
traders. (A. D., Merti, Isiolo, May 2020)
Figure 1. Map of the study in Isiolo, Northern Kenya.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 5
As the Boran saying goes, ‘ilkaan walii ejjaanit funn walii kutaa’(the teeth that stand
together can chew food together). Forms of mutual support rooted in a local moral
economy, mobilising different groups of people –elders, women, youth –are proving
essential for pastoralists in the time of COVID-19. Drawing on culturally-rooted relations
to respond to uncertainties and everyday variable conditions are essential for pastoral live-
lihoods –whether in response to drought, insecurity, water shortages or animal diseases.
Such practices and relations have become equally essential during the pandemic.
Although these forms of locally-based support are essential in time of crisis, they are
highly differentiated in their reach and impact. In most cases, they are activated to
counter the lack of immediate state support by providing some relief, but they may not
be sufficient to respond to the full consequences of COVID-19 if it spreads seriously. There-
fore, to complement local moral economy responses in Isiolo, there is an urgent need for
greater state engagement, beyond simply policing a lockdown. This must focus on addres-
sing the structural inequalities that give rise to the differential vulnerabilities of pastoralists
in different locations, alongside the long-term effect of the pandemic –whether the
disease or the public health response to it –on pastoral livelihoods.
2.2. COVID-19: an enemy of mobility in Borana, southern Ethiopia (by Masresha Taye)
Mobility is part and parcel of the pastoral life. Take my name, [Godana], it means, to move
around or migrate; and I am more stressed by these mobility restrictions than I am by the pan-
demic itself. (M. Godana, Borana, April 2020, 56 years old)
About one month after Ethiopian authorities reported the first COVID-19 case (March 12,
2020), the impact of the public health measures in the country’s‘formal’economic sectors
was being felt. The adverse impact of the pandemic on the mobility of people was widely dis-
cussed, but no reports covered the pastoral perspectives, where mobility is entwined with
pastoralists’life and livelihood. As discussions with pastoralists in Borana zone in southern
Ethiopia have shown, restrictions on mobility due to the pandemic have hit pastoralists hard.
The Borana zone accommodates millions of livestock and more than 600,000 pastoral-
ists. Traditionally, Borana society believes in what is locally termed, Dhaaccii. This cyclical
pattern of events is divided into seven distinctive periods, and the entire cycle takes 56
years. Now, we are in the first cycle, termed as Fullassa. In literal terms, it means to
pierce something with a sharp object. These events are usually extreme –very good or
bad incidents, going outside the usual episodes of ‘normal’drought or conflict (Figure 2).
The last quarter of 2019 in Borana was characterised by magnificent rain with sufficient
pasture; all livestock were in good condition. Commonly, the month of April is a month
when pastoralists sell livestock. Following two months of fasting, close to 50 million Ethio-
pians celebrate the Orthodox Easter holiday in April, and the market demand for livestock
is high. In preparation for the festivity, pastoralists fatten their animals; this year luckily the
rain and pasture were good. Borana livestock are sourced for all major markets across the
country. Everyone was expecting a profitable year. Elders in their daily blessings confirmed
that ‘this Fulassa will bring floods of happiness and wealth to the people of Borana’.
But things quickly turned upside down; a series of events have jeopardised pastoralists’
livelihood. The good rains at the end of 2019 were followed by a major outbreak of desert
locusts, spreading from January during March 2020. And then COVID-19 struck. The fate of
the Fullassa period had changed from good to bad, it seemed. A series of measures by the
6T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
governmentaimed at halting the spread of the virus, including major restrictions on mobility,
had changed the high expectations. On March 30, the regional government of Oromia, where
Borana zoneis located, halted all meansof transportation in the region. In Borana, motorbikes
and tri-wheeled cars (nicknamed as Bajaj), which are vital means of mobility, were prohibited.
Figure 2. Map of Borana, Southern Ethiopia.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 7
This transformed the much-anticipated good price and bountiful market for the Easter
holiday into much uncertainty. When Easter was celebrated, Ethiopia had recorded 105
COVID-19 cases, with three fatalities. Many expected the worst, and public health
measures were implemented forcefully.
How did pastoralists respond to the restrictions on mobility, so central to their liveli-
hoods? In an attempt to diversify their risk, some pastoralists reoriented their marketing
strategy to Kenya, the second-best destination. The Kenyan government unfortunately
dug wide ditches in and around all the formal and informal roads to protect their bound-
aries from the potential spread of the virus. This made the movement of people and live-
stock across the border impossible.
The situation got further complicated when the local Ethiopian militia began chasing
the Kenyan livestock traders who were able to make it to the market areas on foot. As a
result, traders are now uncertain as to where and how to trade livestock.
Mobility is a critical element in the pastoral way of life, and when it is halted disaster
strikes. The restrictions on movement and trade have consequently massively affected
the economic and social life of Borana pastoralists. Godana elaborates on the situation,
‘mobility with livestock, either in search of water and pasture or market is halted, which
means my livelihood is at jeopardy.’
To make matters worse, during the first week of April, religious leaders of all faiths
together with the president appeared on national TV urging all Ethiopians to adopt phys-
ical distancing measures; to avoid going to churches or mosques and celebrate Easter at
home. This signalled the impending decline in livestock demand. Due to the new regu-
lation, the traditional ‘Qircha’practice performed during major holidays, where households
living in a neighbourhood contribute money, purchase cattle and share the meat, did not
take place. A favourite cultural dish –raw meat –was also banned, forcing thousands of
slaughterhouses to reduce their through-put by at least half. A government tax collector at
the gate of Borana’s largest livestock market, Haro Bake, confirmed that there was a
reduction of revenue by 60 percent from the regular Sunday livestock sales. The govern-
ment collects a dollar per animal in the fenced market for each transaction and holidays
are when the revenue passes increases massively.
Pastoralists’asset is livestock and during seasons when pasture and water resources are avail-
able, this asset is changed into cash. I have been standing in the market in case I get a buyer
for the third time in a month. Buyers could not come due to the restrictions on mobility and if
in case few came, they will kill the price. (H. Bake, April 2020, 65 years old)
Consequently, pastoralists are in a stalemate. Difficult and sometimes conflicting decisions
have to be made. Cut the price or keep a large number of livestock? Yet cutting the price is
losing income requiring more animals to be sold, thereby resulting in asset depletion.
Keeping animals will however force competition over the limited pasture resources,
maybe resulting in conflict. And with a second wave of desert locust expected, this will
only make matters worse.
COVID-19 –or at least the measures employed to restrict the spread of the virus –is
surely an enemy of mobility. This is having a major impact on pastoralists across Ethiopia;
yet despite the importance of the pastoral sector for the wider Ethiopian economy, the
importance of mobility in generating production and livelihoods in the dry rangelands
of southern Ethiopia is being ignored in public health policymaking.
8T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
2.3. Imagining the future market for caterpillar fungus in Amdo Tibet (by Palden
Tsering and Tsering Bum)
The market (for caterpillar fungus) is going to be better this year, there was talk circulating
from one of the incarnates, where he emphasises the value of the fungus (for treating
COVID-19) and advocates that pastoralists harvest and consume it this year, instead of
selling it at a low price. (Uncle Ray, Golok, March 2020)
When the Chinese government initiated measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in
Wuhan in January 2020, traditional Tibetan and Chinese medical communities worked
to produce therapies to fight the virus. Caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis)asan
important ingredient in Tibetan medicine has drawn renewed attention. Caterpillar
fungus is harvested in large quantities in some Tibetan rangelands, both in summer
and winter pastures. Those with caterpillar fungus resources can make considerable
money from harvesting or from leasing land to others. This complements, and in some
cases, it replaces the traditional pastoral production system of rearing yaks, sheep and
horses.
As COVID-19 spread, Tibetans from Qinghai donated huge quantities of caterpillar
fungus to patients in Wuhan. Medical professionals and Tibetan monastics advocated
for caterpillar fungus as a key medicine to boost immunity. For instance, renowned
Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan’s advocacy of caterpillar fungus use has been
widely circulated in Tibetan cyberspace. Meanwhile, Tibetan monastics also voiced their
support for caterpillar fungus. For instance, as Uncle Ray explained, an acknowledged
incarnate monk from one of the local monasteries in Golok had also highlighted the
importance of the fungus to pastoralists (Figure 3).
Even though some locals anticipate better market prices for the caterpillar fungus this year,
government officials are worried that the contracting economy will drive down consumption
of goods and services, with official reports of a 6.8% shrinkage in the first quarter of 2020 com-
pared with the earlier year (Cheng 2020).Thismayinturnaffect the market and so prices for
caterpillar fungus, as one of the prefectural leaders in Golok explained:
The price in the market depends on the consumers, not the pastoralists. The consumers (of
caterpillar fungus) are mainly from the coastal cities of China, such as Guangzhou and Shang-
hai. The COVID-19 outbreak during the Spring New Year had indeed charmed many to this
endemic resource after Qinghai Province offered boxes of them to Wuhan city. However,
with the national economic crisis this year, I don’t think there will be a big market for caterpillar
fungus, the demand will decline from the coastal consumers. (Interview, Golok, April 2020)
Access to and control over the valuable resource of caterpillar fungus has varied over time
and affects relationships around land. In Golok area, before 2013, all pastoralists had rights
to harvest caterpillar fungus on their summer pastures, and harvesting was frequently part
of a communal activity. But after 2013, the practice changed with caterpillar fungus har-
vests on the summer pasture limited to certain individuals from each family, in order to
avoid over-use.
Moreover, some families had privatised their summer pasture in order to use the range-
land for natural resources such as caterpillar fungus. As D.J. explained,
Unlike many other villages here, our summer pasture was already privatised to each house-
hold, and this was because of the soaring market price for the caterpillar fungus, which had
caused intra-village and intra-household disputes for the past years. To reduce the turbulence
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 9
Figure 3. Map of the study area in Golok and Hinan, Tibet.
10 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
in the village and household, we privatised our summer pasture in 2013. Therefore, the family
has the ultimate right to decide the use of the rangeland, and we decide the right to access
and harvest during the caterpillar fungus season. (D. J., Golok, April 2020)
However, for those who still use summer pasture collectively, the village leaders decide
how many people each family can send based on the size of land and resource ownership.
The caterpillar fungus resource ownership differs within the village with some families
having resources on both winter and summer pastures, and others only on their
summer pasture.
On April 2 2020, the village monastery gathered all village leaders to discuss a ban on
leasing pasture to non-locals this year, especially caterpillar fungus harvesters from neigh-
bouring Gansu and Sichuan Provinces due to a fear of virus transmission. As Uncle Ray
recalled:
The monastery, the village leaders and household representatives had collectively dis-
cussed and decided to implement a leasing ban for caterpillar fungus harvesting this
year. No land leasing to harvesters from outside of Golok and no harvesters hiring from
outside of Golok. (Uncle Ray, Golok, April 2020)
This is not the first time that leasing bans have been imposed on non-locals. However,
wealthy and influential families broke the rule and continued leasing their land to non-
locals since greater rents can be realised.
However, pastoralists, who rely on caterpillar fungus income to complement their live-
stock rearing are concerned that the ban will reduce local household income since there
are not enough harvesters locally, and they are unable to receive leasing fees from non-
locals. For instance, Uncle Ray argues:
My family had a total of 90,000 Yuan from leasing the winter pasture last year for 40 days
during the caterpillar fungus and Fritillaria harvest. With the leasing ban from the monastery,
we must figure out a way to harvest on both our pastures, and this requires additional labour
from the family, which is not realistic. (Uncle Ray, Golok, April 2020)
Many others hold similar views; for instance, T.S., another local pastoralist, shares the fol-
lowing perspective:
It (the ban) means no income from the winter pasture this year. I have leased my winter
pasture to a family from Gansu last year, and I charged 100,000 Yuan for a month. We
couldn’t harvest by ourselves, because when three or four of us go to harvest on summer
pasture, then there’s not enough labour left to harvest on the winter pasture. (T.S., Golok,
April 2020)
Most parts of the Tibetan pastoral world did not experience COVID-19 transmission, but
nevertheless the economic and social impact of the outbreak is felt at both community
and individual levels due to both government and local community responses. Even
though the social and economic value of caterpillar fungus has seemingly increased,
inter-provincial travel restrictions and declining consumer markets are generating many
uncertainties, notably around crucial income from caterpillar fungus, either through har-
vesting and sale or land leasing. COVID-19 is changing caterpillar fungus harvesting pat-
terns through a shift in labour relations –through the ban on outside leasing –and
land control, as new land is used for harvesting. This is having a major impact on the econ-
omic prospects of pastoral communities, generating heightened uncertainty.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 11
2.4. Negotiating mobility in Kachchh, Gujarat: Rabari pastoralists respond to
COVID-19 (by Natasha Maru)
‘Tamaane beek nathi lagti?’(Aren’t you afraid?) I asked over the phone. ‘Amne vagada ma
shaani beek hoy?’(What should we be scared of in the ‘bush’?) answered Naniben about
the coronavirus pandemic that has the world in its grips.
It was the second week of April; the sun was yet to reach its summer peak. A nomadic
pastoralist belonging to the Rabari community of Gujarat state, in western India, Naniben
was camped in a farm, her sheep grazing close by on cotton crop residues. She seemed
nonchalant, aware of the unfolding pandemic, but unaffected; they were going about
their business as usual she said, moving from farm to farm, village to village, mobile
despite the nationwide lockdown.
As a crisis of (im)mobility, the world’s biggest ever lockdown has revealed the various
circuits of movement in India. Contrasted with the elite transnational Indian sitting safe in
their home, images of a sea of migrant labourers, incomeless, shelterless, hungry and vul-
nerable, flooding the roads to their villages have left the world in shock. Many more of
them remain immobilised in India’s big cities. The pandemic has exposed the ‘other
India’, bringing into stark view the caste, class and religious politics that these mobilities
are drenched in.
Yet, there is another mobile India that remains invisible –that of its nomadic pastor-
alists. As pastoralists across the country move to their summer pastures, where do they
fit into the story of a country in crisis? Naniben’s migrating group, like many others
from her community, migrates up to 300 km eastwards from Kachchh, their home district,
into mainland Gujarat during the winter and summer months, before moving back to
graze in the monsoon months. Part of her family remains in camp throughout the year.
This mobility is not only central to their livelihood, but also their lifeworld, carving their
sense of self and community and their relationships with the natural and social world
(Figure 4).
The past year saw unusually late rainfall, and hence late harvests, delaying Naniben’s
winter migration considerably. This resulted in a shorter migration period this year, spend-
ing less than three months in Gujarat, as opposed to eight in drier years. While the late
rains were justified as God’s doing, the pandemic is understood by the pastoralists as
human-made. Their engagement with it is both distant and proximate; while it affects
their daily life in a limited way as they continue shepherding, it permeates their conversa-
tions and imaginations as a remote but ever-present spectre.
‘E badhu hachu chhe?’(Is it all true?) Dayabhai asks me as he seeks to corroborate
stories received through WhatsApp forwards and conversations with ‘bhanela loko’(edu-
cated people) like me in the villages. Rumours and myths about the pandemic abound. He
uses this information to warn me ‘ghare thi baro na nikalti’(don’t go out of the house) as
the ‘havaman’(lit. weather, used here to mean the airflow/the times) in the city is bad,
while in the ‘vagada’(bush), where they are, there is less threat. As one of the local
NGO staffsays, the pastoralists are making merry in the bush, ‘junglema jalsa kare
chhe.’(Naniben, Gujarat, April 2020).
The pastoralists have so far emerged resilient in the economic distress that has
accompanied the lockdown. A growing global meat market has ensured the financial feasi-
bility of keeping small ruminants, making it an attractive livelihood option, despite the
12 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
religious taboos against slaughter in the region. Although the export of live animals is
restricted at the moment, animal sales continue for domestic consumption in some
places. The pastoralists normally command the price and seem confident that they will
be able to have a desirable price even in a few months’time. The low input costs and
the long lifespans of livestock make it feasible to hold their stock until such a price is
received. Yet when I probed further about potential losses, Ishwarbhai said ‘Khule
tyaare hachu’(when it (trade) opens, we will know), indicating a sense of uncertainty
over his possible fortunes.
When grazing on farm residues, the pastoralists also earn a fixed amount per night for
the valuable manure deposits of their sheep as well as for clearing out the fields while
Figure 4. Map showing the Rabari migration area in Gujarat.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 13
receiving fodder at no monetary cost. Being a large community in Gujarat and falling
within dominant religious and caste categories that often mark social ties in the region,
the Rabari have cultivated strong relationships with agriculturalists over the years and
are valued within the local agrarian system. Therefore, they have experienced favourable
interactions with farmers and local state agents, like the police, who have provided free
passage and support to the pastoralists during these times.
By the time the lockdown was partially lifted in the area, six weeks after it was first
announced, Naniben had arrived back in Kachchh after grazing in another district 60–
80 km away. Her relatives, on the other hand, had gone further eastwards crossing
another couple of districts. Although the pastoralists maintain that in their local experience
‘amane toh kashu nadtu nathi’(we are facing no obstacles) and ‘vagada ma lockdown ni
khabar padti nathi’(lockdown is not felt in the bush), on probing they say that they have
returned earlier this year due to anxieties regarding statutory restrictions on movement. At
the same time such dynamics point to the relationship between the mobility experience
and grazing for livestock production.
The pastoralists, through their circuits of mobility, had cut across the fragmented,
enclosed and privatised farmlands, roads and highways. They walked or hitchhiked
through their extensive networks for commuter travel, by-passing the need for buses
and trains. They reduced their dependence on essentials by relying on grain from
farmers and dairy from their animals. Meanwhile, they also earned through ancillary
sources from their multi-resource income portfolio which often includes land given on
lease to contract farmers, renting out tractors or trucks, having a secondary flock, etc.
They operate at ecological and social interstices, imbibing heterogeneity, flexibility, self-
organisation and invention within their livelihoods and lifestyles. This allows them to
make the most of variable and uncertain conditions through careful and deliberate
decision-making on-the-go. Such capacities to respond to environmental uncertainty
have also come in useful during the pandemic.
While the Rabari may have been successful in navigating lockdown, things have not been
rosy for all pastoralists in India. Many have not been allowed to enter villages, have faced
food and fodder shortages and have also not been able to sell meat or milk. It has
been reported that the Muslim pastoralists in the north Indian states in particular have
also faced religious persecution due to the lethal communal politics currently ripe in
the country. Acknowledging the diversity of pastoral experiences allows for a fuller under-
standing of the social, economic, and political milieu within which they are embedded
and offers insights for more inclusive policies as the pandemic continues to spread in India.
2.5. Facing the pandemic between industrial and artisanal markets: the case of
Sardinia (by Giulia Simula and Domenica Farinella)
I had never seen a situation like this, and I am worried about that. Because you are working
and you don’t know how this is going to end. But at the same time, I am happy because
we are still standing and we are still working[…] so, this means that we are an important
sector […] At this moment maybe, people are understanding how valuable this sector is.
(Martina, Sardinia, April 2020)
We are in the third week of lockdown and Martina, 35 years old, sounds quite calm as we
speak on the phone. She keeps working, as all other pastoralists do 365 days per year. The
14 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
animals need daily care and the food chain cannot stop, especially in the case of Sardinian
sheep-farms where milk production is the main source of farm income: sheep need to be
milked and milk (a perishable product) must be sold or processed fast. In addition, most of
the milk is processed into a mature cheese, the Pecorino Romano, required by supermar-
kets or exported to the U.S., whose demand has not diminished during the lockdown.
We must be honest in these things, given the dramatic situation, right now those who are pro-
ducing milk have had no major inconvenience or loss, we will see later if we are able to sell all
the cheeses; there are categories and workers who are currently stationary and certainly need
more help […] so in my opinion our sector should give more support rather than demand
support! (M., Sardinia, April 2020, 50 years old)
Although the lockdown caused various difficulties and delays in feed purchase and a
strong decrease in the sale and price of lambs –which, during Easter, allows shepherds
to diversify and to increase farm income –pastoralists are used to facing uncertainty
and to responding to it, trying to project themselves into the future. The mantra is keep
calm, get through the moment and move on, as DM explained:
I sold the lambs yesterday for a pittance, but it is fine, in some ways we’re still working. …
Besides, we’re used to it!
Q. Do the cooperatives collect milk?
Yes, yes, all regular!
Well, at least you cry with one eye! […] We don’t even know how to cry with tears anymore!
The important thing is health …Then we’ll see how to make up for it. We need to be patient
now. […] (D.M., Sardinia, April 2020, 50 years old)
For shepherds, therefore, working life during the lockdown has continued. But the lone-
liness that characterises pastoral work has worsened, because that sociality that accompa-
nies the shepherds’life has disappeared: the meeting at the village bar in the evening after
herding and milking, the collective eating of pastoral products on Sundays.
What can I tell you? It’s terrible, depressing; you work as usual all day by yourself, but now you
no longer have the pleasure of stopping at the bar in the middle of the morning or in the after-
noon when you return from the farm to the village, to have a chat with friends …For someone
who’s alone like me, it’s really hard. (R.P., Sanluri, April 2020, 63 years old)
But just as all pastoralists keep working, not everyone is affected by the pandemic in the
same way. During the lockdown, if the shepherds who sell milk to local dairy industries –
producing mature cheese –survived, the most damaged were those who make cheese
from their own milk and sell directly, because their outlet markets were abruptly inter-
rupted. Many sales channels were no longer possible: local outdoor markets, itinerant
markets, national and international deliveries were either slowed down or in some
cases stopped completely. In other cases, orders were cancelled; those who supplied res-
taurants and bars saw the orders for their products drop. And consumer demand also
decreased. This happened because everyone had to buy at the supermarket due to the
restriction on mobility, which allowed everyone to move only within 200 metres from
their home. A drop in demand pushed producers to rethink their selling strategies in
order to guarantee orders; for example, guaranteeing home deliveries and creating
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 15
online sales operations. These implied higher costs and re-gearing operations. As Michele
explained (Figure 5):
You know, for us small artisans who, like me, have chosen not to go into big distribution, it is
very difficult to sell because no one can move […] The hope is to reopen the farm to sell our
products. (M., Sardinia, April 2020, 53 years old)
Those who sell informally were hit the worst: with restricted mobility and physical distan-
cing, those relationships were lost and so was the economic exchange. However, shep-
herds point out that there is great territorial variability. In some places, there are fewer
controls, or there is greater tolerance and flexibility from the law enforcement officers;
in other areas there are more entrenched and stronger social networks, allowing informal
selling to continue, at least in part.
Overall, in the short-term pastoralists who sell milk to the industrial sector of Pecorino
Romano cheese have been less strongly affected. But in the longer-term impacts are less
predictable. As some pastoralists explained, even those who sell milk to the industries
are starting to see signs of crisis. First, some smaller dairies communicated to their
associates that in the month of April they would process the same amount of milk as
in March, without accepting extra milk from pastoralists (even though April is the
most productive month of the milking season). Many factories decided to stop annual
cheese production one month earlier, and others have encouraged pastoralists to milk
only once a day. The consortium of Pecorino Romano had optimistic predictions, but
the demand for this product is highly dependent on exports and large retail sales and
these could fall over the next months, due instability in the global market. The US is
the main market for Pecorino Romano, and milk producers there are suffering. Substi-
tution of cows’milk for hard cheese production in the US would wipe out demand
from Sardinia at a stroke.
Sardinian industrial dairies are trying to manage this potential risk in advance. As in
the milk price crisis of 2017, rumours of local over-production of milk are spreading.
As a matter of fact, every time there is a milk price crisis in Sardinia, industries (both
private and cooperative) manage to get public subsidies to facilitate the sale of the
product. In order to mobilise financial resources, all the relevant actors use the case of
over-production of milk and cheese, and, in particular, of Pecorino Romano. Even
though the quantity of Pecorino Romano produced is well tracked, there is no mechan-
ism that tracks sales. Therefore, as pastoralists themselves say, industries are always able
to get public subsidies with the excuse that there was too much milk and too much
cheese produced which they, industries, are not able to sell because the market
cannot absorb such quantities. Whether this is true or not, this always results in public
resources being directed towards the transformation node of the milk chain. This
time, as other times in the past, there are no real signs of over-production, and so this
might seem like a strategy to drain public aid in order to overcome the post-COVID-
19 crisis. Industries argue that supporting themaincheeseproductionchainisthe
only way to support Sardinian sheep farming. In this way, public support would be
given to withdraw Pecorino Romano from the market, thereby subsidising industries
and retailers. Once again, however, what is missing are sufficient measures supporting
pastoralist themselves.
16 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
Pastoralists must adapt fast. While selling to industrial dairies is possible for now, arti-
sanal and local production must respond to these new conditions, avoiding the likeli-
hood of industries outsourcing the risk of the declining local demand onto shepherds’
shoulders. Innovations around local sales networks, home deliveries and online collec-
tive sales efforts have all emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic in those places
Figure 5. Map of the study in Sassari, Nuoro and Sud Sardinia province, Sardinia, Italy.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 17
where they were not there already. In the future, these could provide new and more sus-
tainable opportunities for Sardinian pastoralists. However, shepherds cannot do every-
thing on their own; it is necessary to rethink the dairy supply chain and the power
relations within it, including through the creation of policies that favour small-scale
peasant and pastoralist production.
3. How COVID-19 is restructuring agrarian relations in pastoral areas: six
emerging themes
Across these diverse cases, a number of themes emerge. Here we identify six, each of
which is central to restructuring agrarian relations in pastoral areas as a result of the pan-
demic. These themes do not stand independently, rather they are all connected to each
other. For example, restricted mobility influences pastoralists’market engagement.
Limited market engagement, on the other hand, influences how resources are managed
and accumulated –for example land. COVID-19 has resulted in an intensified pattern of
social differentiation, as those with more assets have found favourable conditions to
accumulate land and other vital natural and economic resources at a lower cost. Some
of the poorer pastoralists, by contrast, have found it hard to survive and sustain their
families and farms. Some coped thanks to state subsidies when these were available or
through the support of communities and moral economy mechanisms of reciprocity
and mutual help.
We highlighted that the pandemic has had differentiated impacts on the pastoral popu-
lations depending on class, gender and age. This is because pastoralists are very diverse
and heterogenous, but one thing that pastoralists have in common is the centrality of
mobility. Strategic mobility lends pastoralists the flexibility and adaptability with which
to make the most of variability in resource availability. Therefore, restricting mobility
through lockdowns in particular had a devastating impact on mobile livelihoods. Some
are able to respond by avoiding the restrictions or finding new ways of coping
(drawing on moral economies of care and support), or by starting up new livelihood activi-
ties, while others cannot. Reorganising mobility, land control, labour arrangements and
drawing on moral economies is not uniform in pastoral settings. Therefore, as in other set-
tings (Swartz and Valeske 2020), the pandemic has intensified patterns of rural differen-
tiation, as well as conflict between groups (often ethnically defined).
3.1. Mobility
Mobility –or immobility –is a theme that threads through all of the cases. Lockdowns have
restricted pastoralists’ability to move to markets, to tend their animals after curfew times,
to move animals near villages and seek fodder. Restrictions on outsiders coming into the
local area have also had an impact, as traders no longer come and buy animals or those
seeking to harvest products from rangelands –such as the caterpillar fungus in Tibet –no
longer are able to come. This reduces incomes and the flexibility so central to pastoralists’
adaptive responses. For even as the pandemic spread, production continued –animals
had to be fed and watered; cows and sheep gave birth and new-borns had to be
raised; animals had to be milked and the products stored. Without mobility then many
of these basic functions of animal production became difficult.
18 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
While urban populations were confined to their homes, with offices and factories closed
and income from wage employment ceasing, pastoralists had to continue their lives.
Having herds and flocks is a full-time business. In Kenya, one herder complained that
he was not able to manage his animals well as he had to return to town before the
curfew. In Sardinia, shepherds complained of loneliness as they were not able to meet
up after a long day with their flocks in the bars or restaurants of their town. Life was
not normal, but somehow it persisted.
Restrictions on mobility affected different people. Male herders –owners or hired
labourers –had to navigate the regulations, curfews and restrictions, including the
police and security forces. Younger men in particular learned the COVID-19 landscape,
finding ways for animals to survive. Meanwhile, women were more likely to be at home,
looking after other aspects of production and processing of products.
3.2. Markets
It was restrictions on markets that perhaps hit pastoralists across our sites the hardest.
Local markets closed and artisanal, informal trade was officially banned. The export
markets that offer high-value opportunities for live animal trade in East Africa or Tibet,
for example, closed, as borders were shut. The classic approaches to responding to uncer-
tainty that are so well honed in pastoral settings involving making use of different market
and hedging risks across options were no longer available. In all sites, prices of livestock
and their products declined, and markets shrunk. In COVID-19 times, simple rules of
demand and supply no longer functioned, and markets operated unevenly and sporadi-
cally, meaning that pastoralists had to be continuously alert and responsive.
A number of responses were seen. In some cases, alternative sources of income beyond
livestock became especially important. In Amdo Tibet, for example, caterpillar fungus, a
valuable rangeland resource long harvested as a complement to livestock income,
became a lifeline, with local religious leaders issuing a ban on others coming into the
area, encouraging locals to harvest the resource themselves. In Sardinia, those selling
milk to industrial dairies could continue as the dairies remained open and the export of
Pecorino Romano to the US and elsewhere in Europe continued. However, it was the
small-scale processors, producing for the local market, who suffered most. They were no
longer able to travel to farmers’markets, tourist purchases dried up and they had to seek
ways of moving online for sales combined with home deliveries to local towns. While
cheese markets continued in some form, meat markets collapsed. The huge number of
lambs grown for the Easter market in Sardinia no longer had buyers, and flocks had to incor-
porate them. In Kenya, the shutting down of Nairobi and its markets presented a dramatic
challenge to the marketing of milk and meat from different pastoral areas. Companies com-
mercialising camel milk from Isiolo were forced to shut down their businesses, with severe
implications for pastoral producers and female marketing agents alike.
As markets reconfigured due to border closures, movement restrictions and lockdowns,
some gained and some lost. As the cases show, the consequences were not evenly felt.
Those with the connections and resources to explore alternatives, including through
developing online marketing or hiring workers to process excess produce locally, survived
better. Others really suffered, as there was no opportunity to sell animals or livestock pro-
ducts, even at reduced prices.
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 19
3.3. Land
These changes have had impacts on land relations, including patterns of access, owner-
ship, leasing and so on. With new herd and flock compositions, there were new
demands for pasture and water in the rangelands. Having access to and control over valu-
able grazing and water resources became more important, especially as movements were
limited, incomes declined and fodder markets failed.
While in Europe subsidies for landowners continued, even while production faltered,
this was not the case in our other study sites. Here more forthright defence of land
from use by outsiders was observed, resulting in conflicts with neighbouring groups in
southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. In India, where pastoralists do not have extensive
areas of customary land, negotiating access to land from settled farmers became even
more crucial. Here, manure exchanges were reinforced and close links with agricultural
landowners became essential, not only to provide land, but also protection from others
wary of outsiders coming near a village with a potential risk of COVID-19 infection.
Social relations and networks to secure grazing and crop residue fodder were essential
and had to be reinforced during the pandemic.
In Amdo Tibet, long-standing lease arrangements with outsiders to harvest caterpillar
fungus on particular pastures –both through individual and community arrangements
–were overturned. The fear of outsiders coming from the ‘diseased’lowland areas into
what many regarded as a healthy mountain environment without the virus was a major
driver. Monastic leaders from local Buddhist temples also argued that it should be locals
who benefit from the increased potential value of the fungus as a COVID-19 treatment,
rather than allowing outsiders to profit. New regulations, imposed by joint agreements
between monasteries and local communities, resulted in a reconfiguration of land
control in the rangelands. Once again, some benefited, while others lost out. Those who
benefited were those with sufficient labour to harvest and sell the fungus while maintain-
ing their herds and flocks; those who lost were those who relied on external contracts and
could not harvest themselves. The result has been an overturning of land relations, and
new conflicts emerging.
3.4. Labour
Skilled labour is essential for successful pastoralism –for careful herding to maximise the
use of the rangelands; for managing young and sick animals; for processing of animal pro-
ducts and their effective marketing. Labour is highly gendered, with men and women
taking on different tasks, and is also age dependent with younger and older people
involved in different ways. Increasingly across pastoral areas hired wage labour is impor-
tant too, often involving workers from distant areas.
COVID-19 has disrupted these labour relations significantly, with different people
having to take on new roles; for example, in marketing new products or selling online. Fre-
quently women have been important in these innovations centred on processing and arti-
sanal product marketing, as seen in the Sardinia case. With migration for wage work
ceasing, securing wage labourers has become increasingly challenging, and many
moved home to their families. Instead, local family labour has had to be mobilised,
often including young people and children, who were no longer at school due to closures.
20 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
Changes in herd and flock composition –for example, more live kids, lambs and calves
due to lack of sales for meat –also imposes new labour requirements, again particularly on
women who often look after young animals at homesteads. Without access to government
services, such as veterinary care, other roles for looking after sick animals or seeking local
specialist help also emerge.
While the much-discussed impact of lockdown measures on labour in formal unem-
ployment, in pastoral areas the most felt consequences centred on the supply of informal
migrant labour and gendered and age-specific labour relations, each with specific impli-
cations for those who suffer the burden of COVID-19.
3.5. Moral economy
In the absence of state support in remote pastoral areas, pastoralists have had to rely on
their own community-based networks of support and solidarity. As the Kenya case
showed, such practices are deeply embedded in local institutions and cultures, and
have long been central to how pastoralism functions; not just at an individual level but
as a more collective endeavour amongst an extended family, community or clan. Tra-
ditional forms of moral economy have changed over time and become adapted to new
challenges. New institutions –such as mosques, temples or churches –provide support,
and new groups, sometimes very informal, sometimes organised with external support
from aid programmes, become involved.
The arrival of COVID-19 has provided an important moment for galvanising local forms
of moral economy and solidarity –around providing food; supporting production and the
management of animals at a collective level and offering labour and care to those in need.
In some cases, these drew on existing networks and social relations and were coordinated
by respected local leaders; in other cases, totally new initiatives emerged, such as the
various youth-led initiatives observed in Kenya.
3.6. Politics
COVID-19 has reshaped politics too. Fears of infection have become politicised, feeding
into religious and ethnic divides, as seen in India for example. Marginal, Muslim herders,
who sell animals for meat, have been targeted for vicious attacks in some parts of the
country. Even when violence is not meted out, forms of ostracism and stigma can reinforce
divides that have kept pastoralists politically and socially separate from settled agrarian
and urban societies, despite their obvious integration through grazing/manuring arrange-
ments, marketing exchanges and labour hiring.
While COVID-19 can bring people together in new forms of local solidarity and mutual aid,
it can also divide, feeding a wider politics of division so evident in many countries. Ethnic,
social and cultural differences are accentuated and instrumentalised in the process, fuelling
a‘crisis politics’that results in impositions of authoritarian control. Heavy-handed policing,
arbitrary arrests and discrimination of different sorts have been observed.
Pastoralists of course have long faced such political marginalisation; they are frequently
constructed as threats to a central, settled state, keen on secession and sources of vio-
lence. Since livelihoods depend on interaction, pastoralists are also adept at negotiating
good relations, whether this involves offering state officials milk or other now rare
THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 21
animal products, making deals with farmers who need manure or hiring labour from other
areas. Cultivating a peaceful politics in the time of COVID-19 is essential to continue liveli-
hoods, although not all marginalised pastoralists are able to achieve this.
4. Conclusion
Compared with others who have lost jobs and been confined to their homes, pastoralists, who
have been able to continue herding their animals and producing livestock products, seem not
to have suffered to such an extent. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic has nevertheless had far-
reaching effects. With the key public response to the pandemic being to curtail movements,
this has had huge impacts on pastoralist livelihoods who centrally rely on mobility and
exchange for their livelihoods. This has affected relationships and practices at the centre of
marketing, labour hiring and land management, for example, and so influenced patterns of
production and accumulation, as well as wider politics, in pastoral areas.
Pastoralists have always lived with and from uncertainty, and COVID-19 presented
another challenge, layered on responding to climate variabilities, market volatility, insecur-
ity and conflict, among other shocks and stresses. The practical repertoire of responses
used in other settings has been important in pastoralists’responses to COVID-19, and par-
ticularly the lockdowns (Scoones and Nori 2020). This has required adaptation, flexible
innovation and new everyday performances of pastoralism that allow solutions to be
found. These may draw on culturally-embedded moral economies or link to new techno-
logical innovations, such as online marketing. As Abba Hoori from Isiolo, Kenya explained:
‘pastoral life is all about uncertainty, but if the principle of ‘Borani walii waheela ammale
walii wareega’(literally: Boranas are companions and feed each other) is applied then it is
easier to overcome even the most difficult uncertainty.’Embedded in specific socio-econ-
omic contexts, these adaptations reveal how the pandemic is restructuring agrarian
relations; in some cases subtly, in some cases more concretely. In all the cases, though,
unknown futures are confronted and responded to as they unfold.
With the pandemic still on-going, the longer-term consequences remain unknown, but
pastoralists are perhaps particularly well equipped to weather the pandemic storm. Of
course, not all pastoralists everywhere can, and the opportunities to respond successfully
are varied. Some groups are so socially and politically marginalised that there is no room
for manoeuvre, and clamp downs and restrictions have resulted sometimes in violence
and suppression. In other cases where adaptive flexibility has been more possible, the
reconfigurations of land, labour and markets, as well as wider agrarian relations, have
resulted in impositions on some more than others –more often than not with women
and younger people bearing the burden.As we have emphasised, in most cases, the pan-
demic crisis has ended up exacerbating existing social, racial, gender, generational and
political inequalities, and the policies that are being pursued are reinforcing this divide
even further; for example, supporting agribusiness rather than small-scale and more mar-
ginal food producers. However, the resilience of pastoral producers comes across repeat-
edly in interviews. For example, a female pastoralist from Sardinia explained:
What do you want me to say, we’ll get up from this one as well, we always get up from every-
thing and we’ll do so in this situation too. It’s not a new situation for us, we’re used to hard lives
and to a life of sacrifices. As long as we have food on our table …and we always do. (Interview,
Ittiri, Sardinia, May 2020)
22 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
The voices of pastoralists from across our cases therefore do offer a note of hope and opti-
mism. While the pandemic threat is real and the measures imposed harsh, the survival of
pastoralism in the face of uncertainty continues to generate examples of creative inno-
vation in everyday practice offering wider inspiration.
Acknowledgements
The research for and writing of this paper was supported by the European Research Council through
the PASTRES programme (www.pastres.org). We especially would like to thank all our pastoralist
informants who provide the testimonies at the centre of the paper. Names are either anonymised
throughout the paper or fictitious names have been used, except where permissions have been
granted for their use. Thanks to Ian Scoones for guidance and assisting with drafting and editing
the paper, and thanks also to the wider PASTRES team, including Michele Nori, for contributions
to the Zoom discussion on the emerging findings. And finally, thanks to John Hall from Cape
Town who produced the maps of all the study areas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
The research for and writing of this paper was supported by the European Research Council through
the PASTRES programme (www.pastres.org).
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Tahira ShariffMohamed is from Northern Kenya. She is an anthropologist and holds a Master’s
Degree in International Studies from the University of Nairobi. Her MA project was on human smug-
gling across the Kenya-Ethiopia Border. Recently, Tahira has worked with the Effective State and
Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Centre at the University of Manchester on a project examin-
ing governance and the politics of implementing social protection in Kenya. She currently is a PhD
candidate with PASTRES at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK.
Masresha Taye has recently ended a post at the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI)
Program on Innovations for Resilient Livelihoods in African Drylands where he was working for
over four years as a Program Coordinator (Ethiopia) to be an affiliate PhD student with PASTRES. Mas-
resha worked as a Socio-economic Researcher for different projects for more than nine years focus-
ing on rural and agricultural development, food security, integrated land use studies and pastoral
resilience.
Natasha Maru is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex,
United Kingdom working with the PASTRES programme. She holds an MPhil in Development Studies
24 T. S. MOHAMED ET AL.
from the University of Oxford and is interested in the study of mobility, space, place, the commons,
the state and everyday politics. Currently working with the Pastoralist Knowledge Hub at the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Natasha is keen on bringing pastoral voices into
global policy processes.
Palden Tsering is from Amdo Tibet. He has worked recently as the project manager for Qinghai
Plateau Nature Conservancy (PNC), a local NGO which is dedicated to Biodiversity Conservation
and Community Development. In 2017, he completed an MSc in Conservation and Rural Develop-
ment at the University of Kent exploring the perspectives and attitudes of Tibetan Pastoral Commu-
nities in Qinghai toward monasteries involved in conservation and development. Palden is currently
a PhD candidate with PASTRES.
Tsering Bum is currently a PhD candidate of Anthropology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia,
USA. From 2012 to 2016, he worked with Tibetan pastoralist communities in China’s Qinghai Pro-
vince to build community-based resource management organisations to conduct biodiversity moni-
toring, waste management, and human-wildlife conflict resolution. His current doctoral research
interests broadly cover political ecology of wildlife conservation, development, and natural resource
management in Tibetan pastoralist areas of Qinghai Province.
Giulia Simula is an agrarian and food movement researcher and activist from Sardinia. She com-
pleted her MA at the ISS in the Hague and is currently a PhD candidate with PASTRES at IDS,
Sussex. She is engaged in food sovereignty efforts and worked with LVC, serving as the secretariat
of the International Planning Committee (IPC) for Food Sovereignty and with the secretariat of the
Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) for relations with the UN Committee of World Food Security.
Domenica Farinella is Lecturer in Economic and Environmental Sociology at Messina University,
Italy. She previously worked at the University of Cagliari as Lecturer in Environmental Sociology,
where she has been conducting ethnographic research, titled Changes in Sardinian Pastoralism: Shep-
herds and Romanian Workers. Drawing on this experience, she contributes to PASTRES work on mobi-
lity-migration interfaces, as well as help support the PASTRES case study on Sardinian pastoralism.
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