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PASTORALISM,
UNCERTAINTY AND
DEVELOPMENT
In the drylands and mountains where pastoralists live, uncertainty is everywhere.
In these settings, negotiating access to resources, navigating volatile markets, making
political dynamics is essential if livelihoods are to be generated. Pastoralism – the
globally. Rangelands cover more than half the world’s land surface, supporting many
pastoral mobility is sustained, how resources are managed, how markets are combined,
how social protections are provided, and how patterns of accumulation and investment
are sustained in a more globalized, interconnected world. Focusing on the attributes
the rigid modes of planning, management, and control.
Edited by Ian Scoones
PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
‘A timely and much needed window into the resilience of pastoralists
anachronism, but a sustainable solution for both people and the Earth.’
Maryam Niamir-Fuller, co-chair of International Support Group for the
United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, 2026
Jarso Mokku, CEO, Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative,
Nairobi, Kenya
‘A critically important and timely book. It explains why pastoralists are
Andy Catley, Tu�ts University, Boston
PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Edited by Ian Scoones
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Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development
Copyright
Praise for this book
A critically important and timely book. It explains why pastoralists are
experts in managing uncertainty, and why far more participatory, context-
specific analysis is needed if the dismal performance of decades of ‘pastoral
development’ is to be reversed.
Andy Catley, Tufts University, Boston
This book is a timely and much needed window into the resilience of pasto-
ralists worldwide, offering important insights into how to increase adaptive
capacity in the face of climate change. It offers further proof that pastoralism
is not an historical anachronism, but a sustainable solution for both people
and the Earth.
Maryam Niamir-Fuller, co-chair of International Support Group for the United
Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, 2026
Mobile pastoralism is a crucial livelihood for millions worldwide, supporting
people and livestock across over half the world's land surface – the rangelands.
This important book recognizes and supports this vital practice, which sustains
communities in often harsh and hostile environments.
Jarso Mokku, CEO, Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative,
Nairobi, Kenya
Copyright
Pastoralism, Uncertainty
andDevelopment
Edited by
Ian Scoones
Copyright
Practical Action Publishing Ltd
25 Albert Street, Rugby,
Warwickshire, CV21 2SD, UK
www.practicalactionpublishing.com
© Ian Scoones and contributors, 2023
The moral right of the editor to be identified as editor of the work and the
contributors to be identified as contributors of this work have been asserted
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This open access publication is created under a Creative Commons
Attribution Non-commercial No-derivatives CC BY-NC-ND licence.
This allows the reader to copy and redistribute the material, but appropriate
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licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/legalcode
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalogue record for this book has been requested from the Library
of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-78853-243-3 Paperback
ISBN 978-1-78853-244-0 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-78853-245-7 Electronic book
Citation: Scoones, I. (ed.), (2023) Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development, Rugby,
UK: Practical Action Publishing <http://doi.org/10.3362/9781788532457>.
Since 1974, Practical Action Publishing has published and disseminated
books and information in support of international development work
throughout the world. Practical Action Publishing is a trading name of
Practical Action Publishing Ltd (Company Reg. No. 1159018), the wholly
owned publishing company of Practical Action. Practical Action Publishing
trades only in support of its parent charity objectives and any profits
arecovenanted back to Practical Action (Charity Reg. No. 247257, Group
VAT Registration No. 880 9924 76).
The views and opinions in this publication are those of the author and do
not represent those of Practical Action Publishing Ltd or its parent charity
Practical Action.
Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information,
but the authors and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity
of all materials or for the consequences of their use.
Cover photo shows: Francesco Corda from northern Sardinia leading his
sheep to graze.
Credit: Roopa Gogineni.
Typeset by vPrompt eServices, India
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Contents
List of figures and tables vii
List of abbreviations ix
About the contributors xi
Preface and acknowledgements xv
Chapter 1: Pastoralism, uncertainty, and development:
perspectives from the rangelands 1
Ian Scoones and Michele Nori
Chapter 2: Decoding uncertainty in pastoral contexts through
visual methods 21
Shibaji Bose and Roopa Gogineni
Chapter 3: Engaging with uncertainties in the now:
pastoralists’ experiences of mobility in western India 39
Natasha Maru
Chapter 4: Hybrid rangeland governance: ways of living with and
from uncertainty in pastoral Amdo Tibet, China 51
Palden Tsering
Chapter 5: Uncertainty, markets, and pastoralism in Sardinia, Italy 65
Giulia Simula
Chapter 6: Responding to uncertainties in pastoral northern Kenya:
the role of moral economies 79
Tahira Mohamed
Chapter 7: Livestock insurance in southern Ethiopia:
calculating risks, responding to uncertainties 93
Masresha Taye
Chapter 8: Confronting uncertainties in southern Tunisia: the role
of migration and collective resource management 107
Linda Pappagallo
Chapter 9: Living with and from uncertainty: lessons from
pastoralists for development 119
Ian Scoones and Michele Nori
Index 141
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List of figures and tables
Figures
1.1 Map of case study sites 2
2.1 A collection of Facebook groups dedicated to Douiret in southern
Tunisia. Members post archival photos, maps, poetry, obituaries,
and live videos of sheep-shearing and olive-picking. 23
2.2 Pastoralists fill jerry cans at the water pan in 1975 and 2020 24
2.3 A wealthy adult male pastoralist took this photograph to show
a ‘natural dinner’ for children. Others perceived it differently. 25
2.4 An old photograph of a meal shared after sheep-shearing in
Sardinia, Italy 26
2.5 Locust swarms in southern Ethiopia 27
2.6 Uncle Lhabe looks out at his former winter pasture, now
underneath the lake 28
2.7 Goats lost to a lion 29
2.8 A Rabari camp on the move 31
2.9 An extended family gathers during a sheep-shearing in
Douiret, Tunisia 32
2.10 Felice’s cheese production, Sardinia 33
2.11 Tibetan language newspapers distributed at a horse festival 34
2.12 Swahili language newspapers on display at a community
feedback session in Isiolo 35
2.13 Sardinian pastoralists looking at photos of Tunisian pastoralists 36
3.1 The morning after the hailstorm 40
3.2 Map of the Kachchh study area 43
4.1 Saga and Lumu in Amdo Tibet, China 52
4.2 Members of the local monastery carrying hay for the blue
sheep in Golok 58
5.1 Map of Sardinia 70
5.2 Tonino with his Unifeed wagon. It simplifies distribution
of feed, reduces labour costs, and allows for controlled
and standardized animal feeding. Villamassargia,
south-west Sardinia, November 2020. 72
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viii PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
5.3 Felice leading the flock to graze in the land he accesses through
informal agreements with his neighbour. Sorso, north-west
Sardinia, January 2020. 76
6.1 Map of the study area 82
6.2 ‘Borantiti [being Borana and showing the ideals of the Borana]
is all about showing kindness and solidarity to overcome
shortages. Here, women share labour to load water on the donkey.’ 88
7.1 Study area: Borana, Ethiopia 97
7.2 A pastoralist fencing grazing land. When it starts raining,
pastoralists enclose areas that are closer to their villages to
improve grass growth for livestock feeding in the dry season. 101
8.1 Map of the study area 108
8.2 The old town of Douiret, with its troglodytic abodes, became
largely unpopulated by the late 1980s as villagers moved to
‘new’ Douiret or elsewhere. 109
8.3 The jessours help with water and soil management in order
to increase livelihood options 110
List of tables
4.1 Different responses to uncertainty in the Tibetan context 54
5.1 Distribution of sheep farms by flock size 66
7.1 Key features of the population from Gomole and Dire 98
7.2 Combining insurance with local responses in 2019 (per cent) 99
9.1 Reframing pastoral policy 131
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List of abbreviations
CAP Common Agricultural Policy
ESRC UK Economic and Social Research Council
ERC European Research Council
IBLI Index-based livestock insurance
ILRI International Livestock Research Institute
NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
PASTRES Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Global Lessons from
the Margins
TLU Tropical Livestock Unit
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About the contributors
Shibaji Bose is a creative consultant and a visual-methods researcher.
His work draws on long-term visual ethnography and participatory visual
action research in remote and climatically fragile zones in South Asia.
He has written extensively on health systems and climate change in
The Lancet, Indian Anthropologist, BMC Health Services Research, BMJ Global
Health, International Journal for Population, Development and Reproductive
Health, Regional Environmental Change, The Statesman, The Economic Times,
and the Hindustan Times. Alongside his interests in mediating between
dominant and implicit narrative spaces, he has co-curated photovoice
exhibitions and directed films showcased by the Cannes Film Festival,
Wellcome Trust, and Health Systems Global symposiums. He supported the
photovoice work for the PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience:
Global Lessons from the Margins) programme.
Roopa Gogineni is a director and photographer focused on historical
memory and modes of resistance. She has an MSc in African Studies from
the University of Oxford, where she researched the construction of media
narratives around Somalia. Her films have screened at festivals around the
world including the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Hot
Docs, Full Frame, and Sheffield DocFest. Her practice is rooted in long-term
engagement and co-creation. Her short film I Am Bisha earned the Oscar-
qualifying Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short, a One World Media Award,
and a Rory Peck Award. She has directed documentaries for The New York Times,
the BBC, and Al Jazeera and has received fellowships from CatchLight, Logan
Nonfiction, and FRONTLINE/Firelight. She supported the visual methods
work for the PASTRES programme.
Natasha Maru is a multidisciplinary social scientist and policy consultant
working on pastoral development. She has recently finished a PhD with the
PASTRES programme at the Institute of Development Studies, University of
Sussex, UK, where she studied the temporal experiences of mobility among
the Rabari pastoralists of western India. Drawing on a deep ethnography,
she shows how pastoralists ‘pace’ themselves in a rapidly modernizing
context. Her work innovatively combines concepts from mobility studies
in sociology and geography with temporal studies and the long-running
debates in pastoral development; it builds on earlier work undertaken
for an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford. She is
interested in space, the state, mobility, temporality, communing, and
living life in technicolour.
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xii PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Tahira Mohamed is an anthropologist from Marsabit County in northern
Kenya. She recently completed her doctoral research under the PASTRES
programme at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Her study examines how ‘moral economies’ and social ‘safety-net’ insti-
tutions are evolving among the Waso Boran pastoralists of northern
Kenya’s Isiolo County. In particular, she looks at the everyday role of moral
economy practices, including collective solidarities and resource redis-
tribution in managing drylands variabilities such as drought, conflict,
and other livelihood shocks since 1975. She holds a Masters’ degree in
International Studies from the University of Nairobi. Her MA project was
on human smuggling across the Kenya–Ethiopia border. Tahira has worked
on the politics of implementing social protection in Marsabit County
as a field researcher with the Effective State and Inclusive Development
Research Centre at the University of Manchester. Together with the Centre
for Research and Development in Drylands, she is currently undertaking a
study on local forms of resilience in pastoral areas, funded by the Australian
Centre for International Agricultural Research.
Michele Nori is a tropical agronomist with a further specialization in rural
sociology and specific expertise in the resource management and livelihood
systems of agro-pastoral communities. Through 25 years of work experience,
he has developed a ‘horizontal career’, by collaborating with various organi-
zations including civil society, UN agencies, research institutes, agricultural
enterprises, and donors’ offices in different dryland regions. His publications
range from scientific articles to technical notes and advocacy papers on agro-
pastoral livelihoods. By integrating field practice and academic research,
his concern is providing scientific evidence and policy advice on aspects
of rural development, food security, and natural resource management.
Such endeavours are currently undertaken through the Global Governance
Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University
Institute. He is part of the European Research Council (ERC) funded PASTRES
programme, which aims to learn from pastoral systems means to tackle
societal challenges related to growing uncertainties.
Linda Pappagallo has a background in research on the political economy
of managing resources, which has focused on understanding the political
economy of pastoral production, migration and collective management,
particularly in the Mediterranean region. Her Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) funded PhD research linked to the PASTRES Partir pour Rester
(to leave in order to stay) programme explores how human mobility and
collective herding practices in southern Tunisia explain the persistence of
livestock-keeping. She focuses particularly on the role of ‘absence’ in changing
agrarian settings and shows how pastoralism can persist as a livelihood
through commoning practices. Linda is originally from Italy, although she
grew up in different countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Before
completing her PhD at the University of Sussex, she completed a Masters’
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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS xiii
in International Affairs at Columbia University. Linda is currently exploring
practices of commoning in livestock-keeping, cheese-making and critical
research on pastoral development through visual tools.
Ian Scoones is a professor at the Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex. He is an agricultural ecologist by original training but
today works on questions of policy around land, agriculture, and agrarian
change, mostly in Africa. He is the principal investigator of the ERC-funded
PASTRES programme (http://pastres.org). He was the co-director of the
ESRC STEPS Centre from 2006 to 2021 and has been part of the editorial
collective on the Journal of Peasant Studies over the last decade. He has
published extensively on pastoralism and development since (co-)editing
Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa
(IT Publications, 1995) and Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of
Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaptation in African Savannas (ODI, 1993).
His most recent publication is Livestock, Climate and the Politics of Resources:
A Primer (TNI, 2022).
Giulia Simula is an agrarian and food movement researcher and activist
originally from Sardinia, Italy. She currently works with the secretariat of the
Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism for relations with the UN
Committee of World Food Security. In her work, she facilitates the partici-
pation of small-scale food producers, pastoralists, peasants, the landless, and
other sectors in policy processes. Giulia’s PhD research with the PASTRES
programme looked at the politics of pastoral markets, the dynamics of agrarian
transformation, and the different ways in which pastoralists navigate market
uncertainty in a globalized neoliberal economy. She supports the struggles
of social movements and civil society organizations advocating for food
sovereignty and for the right to adequate food and nutrition for all.
Masresha Taye is a development practitioner focusing on African dryland
systems. He is interested in research, development, and policy work on drought
and conflict-prone areas, disaster risk financing, anticipatory technologies/
innovations for pastoral populations, and climate change and uncertainty.
For five years, Masresha led the International Livestock Research Institute’s
(ILRI) index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) programme in Ethiopia. His PhD
with the PASTRES programme explored how pastoralists combine different
responses to drought with insurance. He is now a postdoctoral researcher
at the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science
Research – Governance and Inclusive Development) where he is working
on the project ‘From Climate Change to Conflict: Mitigating through
Insurance?’
Palden Tsering (Chinese Pinyin: Huadancairang) possesses an MSc from
the Durrell Institute of Conservation Ecology University of Kent, UK and a
PhD from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, as
part of the PASTRES programme. He has worked on the role of traditional
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xiv PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Tibetan resource governance, conservation and development, and the politics
of these dynamic interactions amongst institutions (government, monastery,
pastoral community) amid changes and uncertainties in the pastoralist
context. His recent research is on hybrid rangeland governance in two pastoral
settings in Amdo Tibet, China. His research offers a new way of thinking about
land governance and suggests an approach to rangeland governance that goes
beyond conventional approaches, with implications for management, policy,
and the politics of land in the Tibetan–Chinese context.
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Preface and acknowledgements
This book explores the connection between pastoralism, uncertainty,
and development. It makes the case that recognizing how pastoralists
make productive use of variability and embrace uncertainty is central to
understanding how pastoral systems in marginal dryland and montane
systems work. Further, the book argues that such understandings about
how reliability is generated in the context of highly variable settings offer
wider lessons for rethinking development policy and practice in today’s
uncertain, turbulent world.
This is important because uncertainties of all sorts – environmental, market-
based, and political – are on the rise, as the world faces climate and environ-
mental change as well as market volatility and political turmoil. Learning
lessons from pastoralists therefore not only ensures that development efforts
are more effective across the world’s rangelands, where millions of pastoralists
live, but is also important for all of us.
Pastoralists, while often marginalized in policy debates and development
efforts, are important guardians of vast rangeland territories that make up over
half the world’s land surface. Pastoralism generates livelihoods for many, as
well as providing animal-based products that enhance people’s diets in some
of the poorest parts of the world.
Despite their vital importance, pastoral systems are often deeply misun-
derstood, with false narratives dominating policy and public discourse alike.
This book offers a different set of perspectives, rooted in in-depth research
across six countries in three continents. The case studies presented as chapters
of this book were developed as part of the PASTRES programme (Pastoralism,
Uncertainty, Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins, https://pastres.org)
and individual PhD research projects over the past few years.
Together, they challenge mainstream thinking about pastoral development,
offering a new narrative with variability and uncertainty at the centre.
A unique lens on pastoralists’ own understandings of variable and uncertain
contexts is also offered through an innovative documentary photography
and photovoice project. The photos have been exhibited across the world,
including as part of feedback in all of the research sites, and in an online
exhibition, Seeing Pastoralism (https://seeingpastoralism.org).
The book builds on long-term research on this theme, starting with
the book Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in
Africa, first published in 1995 by Intermediate Technology Publications and
now available open access for the first time (https://practicalactionpub-
lishing.com/book/1264/living-with-uncertainty). It also builds on the work
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xvi PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
conducted under the Future Agricultures Consortium pastoralism theme
and published in two further books – Pastoralism and Development in Africa:
Dynamic Change at the Margins (Catley et al. (eds), open access: https://doi.
org/10.4324/9780203105979) and The Politics of Land, Resources and Investment
in Eastern Africa’s Pastoral Drylands (Lind et al. (eds), open access introduction,
https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/15458) – published
in 2012 and 2020 respectively.
The PASTRES programme has also produced a free online course (https://
pastres.org/online-course/) and, together with the Transnational Institute, an
accessible primer in multiple languages (https://www.tni.org/en/publication/
livestock-climate-and-the-politics-of-resources), both of which pick up on
many of the themes of this book. The PASTRES programme produces regular
blogs and publishes a six-monthly newsletter, and these can be subscribed to
via the website (https://pastres.org).
The PASTRES programme is supported by a ERC Advanced Grant
(no. 70432) and is hosted by the Institute of Development Studies at the
University of Sussex, UK and the European University Institute in Florence,
Italy. The programme has involved six PhD students, four country lead
researchers, five co-sponsored postdoctoral researchers, and a further
11 affiliate researchers; it has been led by Ian Scoones and Michele Nori,
with support from Jeremy Lind and others. The communication and
engagement activities of PASTRES have been led by Nathan Oxley, with
support from Shibaji Bose, Roopa Gogineni, Ben Jackson, and Natasha
Maru (https://pastres.org/about-us/pastres-team/).
This book is very much a collective output of the PASTRES team. The fabulous
linocut illustrations were created by team member Linda Pappagallo, while
the photographs in the book were curated by Roopa Gogineni. All the maps
were prepared by John Hall. We would also like to thank our many allies and
supporters across the world, as well as Andy Catley of Tufts University for
reviewing the manuscript and Dee Scholey of Vital Editing and Catherine
Fitzsimons for their excellent copyediting work. And, finally, many thanks to
the team at Practical Action Publishing for their invaluable support during the
publication process.
This book is a contribution to the wider efforts around the International
Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026 (https://www.iyrp.info/).
Ian Scoones
Brighton, UK, January 2023
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CHAPTER 1
Pastoralism, uncertainty, and development:
perspectives from the rangelands
Ian Scoones and Michele Nori
Introduction
Uncertainties are everywhere in today’s world. Market crashes, pandemics,
climate change, war, and conflict all provide the backdrop to daily life.
Uncertainty – where we don’t know the likelihood of future events – must be
central to any thinking about development (Stirling, 2010; Scoones, 2019;
Scoones and Stirling, 2020). This is often forgotten in our push towards
stable, predictable plans and our faith in risk-based approaches that claim
the ability to predict the future through calculative models and technol-
ogies, offering early warnings to offset the worst. As recent events (not least
the pandemic) have shown, this is not adequate, and uncertainty – even
ignorance, where we don’t know what we don’t know – must be central to
development thinking and practice.
Whom can we learn from in order to be better at responding to the uncer-
tainties of our turbulent world? It is those who confront uncertainties on a
daily basis and always have done so – pastoralists. Rooted in their cultural
practices and institutions, pastoralists – like delta dwellers, shifting cultivators,
or near-shore fishers – must live with and, indeed, from uncertainty (FAO,
2021; Krätli, 2015; Krätli and Schareika, 2010). In the drylands and mountains
where pastoralists live, negotiating access to resources, navigating volatile
markets, making use of varying social relations in times of stress, and
responding to conflict and complex political dynamics are all essential if
sustainable livelihoods are to be generated.
Yet the uncertainties that must be confronted are accelerating, emerging
from wider structural changes in global political-economic relations including
climate change, land grabbing, and the globalization of markets. Many of these
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2 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
shifts are beyond the control of pastoralists themselves, making it essential for
them to engage with others beyond their locales and organize collectively in
order to respond to an increasingly turbulent world (Scoones 2022a).
This book argues that embracing uncertainty is essential for effective
development. It also argues that pastoralists can help us reframe policies and
practices in ways that go beyond a risk management and control approach
to one that genuinely confronts situations where we don’t know what the
future holds. We consider this through a series of case studies, each focusing
on a different theme and all emerging from the ERC-supported PASTRES
programme ( Pastoralism, Resilience and Uncertainty: Global Lessons from the
Margins, http://pastres.org).
The cases come from three continents (Figure 1.1) – Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya,
Tunisia), Asia (China and India), and Europe (Italy) – and encompass a range of
themes, including mobility, resource governance, markets, moral economies,
insurance, and communal institutions. The case studies are complemented
by a chapter on visual, participatory methodologies as ways of exploring
uncertainty through the eyes of pastoralists, and a final chapter that reflects
on global and regional policy challenges. Overall, as this opening chapter
outlines, the book offers a new perspective on pastoralism and development
for our uncertain times.
Reframing development: what an uncertainty lens brings
Pastoralists must continuously confront uncertain events. Whether these are
droughts, floods, or heavy snowfalls, they are a normal part of life and, at one
level, are expected. Yet pastoralists never know when such events will occur,
Mombasa
Mumbai
Chennai
Kolkata
Shanghai
Shenyang
Ürümqi
New Delhi
Beijing
Rome
Nairobi
Addis
Ababa
Tunis
Lake
Vict oria
Aral
Sea
L. Balkhash
Lake
Baikal
Red Sea
C
a
s
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a
n
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e
a
Black Sea
M
e
d
i
t
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a
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a
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S
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a
North Sea
B
a
l
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a
Barents Sea
East China Sea
Sea of
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S
o
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t
h
C
h
i
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a
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Bay of
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Arabian
Sea
PACIFIC
OCEAN
INDIAN OCEAN
A
T
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Sardinia
ETHIOPIA
KENYA
TUNISIA
INDIA
ITALY
CHINA
AFRICA
EUROPE
ASIA
0 1 000 miles
0 1 000 2 000 km
Sardinia, Italy
Gujarat, India
Borana, Ethiopia
Isiolo, Kenya
Amdo Tibet, China
Douiret, Tunisia
Figure 1.1 Map of case study sites
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PERSPECTIVES FROM THE RANGELANDS 3
in what combinations, with what severity, over what area, and with what
effects on pasture, disease ecologies, or markets. This is why flexible, adaptive
practices are essential to live with and from uncertainty.
Conceptions of uncertainty are embedded in pastoralists’ world-views and
reflected in their practices (see Chapter 2). Pastoralists must respond in real
time, learning and adapting along the way. Everyday practices, drawing on
cultural norms and social relations, are central to responding to uncertainty,
as the chapters that follow show. There are of course limits to such practices.
As uncertainties increase – the result of wider, structural political-economic
forces – the possibilities of local responses are inevitably constrained.
In confronting uncertainty, a focus on the local must always be combined
with attention to wider structural conditions and drivers.
A different perspective for development thinking and practice emerges
from contrasting uncertainty (a lack of knowledge about future likelihoods
of outcomes) with risk (where likelihoods can be calculated and predicted).
This means a radical rethink of how we go about supporting people to
manage resources and sustain livelihoods, adapt to climate change,
negotiate markets, migrate to different places, deal with disasters, and so
on. A new narrative for development, based on pastoralists’ experiences,
means thinking about how people – individuals but also, most importantly,
collectives connected in networks – can transform high variability (the increasing
norm) so as to ensure a reliable flow of goods and services (the desired outcome)
(Roe, 2020).
However, much development policy and practice are blind to uncertainty.
A framing around risk suggests the possibility of advance planning where
stability and control are assumed. For some settings – such as building a bridge
or road – a standard risk assessment is of course appropriate. There are detailed
engineering protocols derived from the physics of materials, and deep under-
standing of potential shocks. But for contexts, we simply don’t know what the
future holds.
In respect of drought shocks, for example, even with the improvements
in climate science, the models are too aggregated to know, beyond some very
basic projections, what will happen in a particular place in a particular year.
There are still other situations where there are ‘unknown unknowns’ – in
other words, plain ignorance: where we know nothing about the outcomes
or the likelihoods. These are surprise events, where things arrive out of the
blue. These conditions of uncertainty and ignorance are common in complex,
messy contexts – indeed, they are the norm in development settings, perhaps
especially in pastoral areas.
How then are such conditions negotiated? One approach, developed in the
context of studying critical infrastructures – water or energy supply systems,
for example – highlights the vital role of ‘high-reliability’ professionals and
networks in generating reliable livelihood options (Roe, 2013, 2016). Such
high-reliability practices are rooted in local cultures and contexts but also rely
on external support, technology, and information. High-reliability practices
require scanning the horizon for troubles ahead while attending in real
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4 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
time to day-to-day responses. In supplying reliable flows of milk, meat, and
other services, pastoralism can be seen as a critical infrastructure, populated
by networks of high-reliability professionals taking on different roles in the
system (Roe, 2020).
This is not an argument for a retreat to the local and total reliance on
‘indigenous knowledge’ – useful as such insights are – but an approach that gets
us away from a control-oriented response that fails to engage with variability
and the consequent uncertainties and sources of ignorance. A perspective that
embraces uncertainty does not shy away from complexity and mess, domes-
ticating challenges through calculative models and political technologies, but
addresses uncertainties head-on.
Such a perspective must start from local conditions – the everyday
experience of people on the ground. External support must articulate with
this, helping rather than overwhelming local capacities. In pastoral areas, as
the chapters show, well-meaning efforts – such as land governance reforms,
insurance mechanisms, market support, and social protection programmes –
will fail if they don’t take uncertainty seriously. In the same way, even policies
that recognize the importance of the mobility of pastoral peoples and livestock
should avoid constraining this movement into narrow corridors or restricted
time windows (see Chapter 9).
Responding to variability means temporal and spatial flexibility, with
redundancy central to organizational design. Many examples are discussed
in the chapters that follow, and the concluding chapter explores implica-
tions for policy, suggesting that a major reframing of policy narratives is
needed for an approach that links pastoralism, uncertainty, and development.
This means a shift from a commitment to ‘control’ – and prediction, stability,
and planning – to one that is centred on social relationships and institutions
that support flexible and adaptive responses to the inevitable uncertainties of
today’s world (cf. Scoones and Stirling, 2020).
What is pastoralism and why are rangelands important?
Pastoralism – the extensive use of rangelands through mobile livestock-
keeping – is a vitally important livelihood practice globally. Rangelands cover
more than half the world’s land surface, supporting many millions of people,
often in harsh and hostile environments (ILRI et al., 2021). The provision of
livestock products – meat, milk, wool, hides, and so forth – is essential for local
economies and the nutrition of often marginalized people (Manzano et al.,
2021; Köhler-Rollefson, 2021).
Through highly skilled herding, often involving the movement of
animals and people across time and space, pastoralists maximize production
through exploiting environmental variability in places where other forms
of food production are not feasible (Krätli, 2015; Nori, 2019a; FAO 2021).
By managing extensive, biodiverse rangelands, pastoralists are also important
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PERSPECTIVES FROM THE RANGELANDS 5
for environmental protection and for generating food and income through
mobile livestock systems (Köhler-Rollefson, 2023).
In this book, we look at pastoralism in the high-altitude mountains of
Amdo Tibet in China, the Mediterranean hills of Sardinia in Italy, the savannas
of East Africa in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the dry plains of
Kachchh in Gujarat in India, and the semi-desert and rocky mountains of
southern Tunisia. We could have had examples from the tundra and forests
of the Arctic, the grassland plains of the Americas or Australia, the temperate
hills and mountains of northern Europe, and many more places. Pastoralists
live in very diverse settings, under very different environmental conditions,
influenced by diverse socio-economic and political contexts. What binds
pastoralists together is their capacity to generate sustainable livelihoods from
highly variable resources in a reliable way; and it is this capacity – and the core
principles that emerge – which the cases in this book explore (Nori, 2019b;
Scoones, 2021 and 2022a).
Rangelands are not uniform, despite the impression of a never-ending
expanse of grassland with the odd tree. In some people’s views, these are
‘wastelands’ in need of restoration through tree planting. But any pastoralist
will tell you that rangelands are biodiverse open ecosystems (Bond, 2019).
Scattered across the landscape are patches of different grass, multiple types of
trees with diverse uses, and water sources, creating important wetter patches
that act as key resources at the end of the dry season or during droughts
( Scoones, 1991). With rainfall so variable year-on-year, many rangelands
never reach an equilibrium carrying capacity – a fixed number of animals for
an area of land. In one year there is plenty of grazing, but in the next year,
there is virtually nothing and so it is vital to move to follow resource avail-
ability across the landscape. These are called non-equilibrium environments,
where inter-annual fluctuations mean that conditions are never static and
uncertainty is a defining feature (Vetter, 2005; Behnke et al., 1993; Scoones,
1995; Ellis and Swift, 1988).
All this means that standard approaches to resource management,
premised on fixed, stable, unfluctuating conditions, do not work. Nor do
standard designations of land degradation or desertification. It all depends
on the baselines, and these shift radically and constantly. Attempts at
control in highly variable, uncertain environments usually fail; fixed-
tenure regimes, fencing, sedentarization schemes, ranching systems,
delimited protected areas, and standardized stocking rates were designed
for temperate settings, and do not translate to the high-variability contexts
of most rangelands of the world. The illusion of control is strong and costly,
but the alternatives, rooted in a more complex understanding of context,
are often missed in these grand schemes. Such schemes are repeated
again and again over decades of inappropriate interventions and failed
development efforts, which frequently, undermine pastoralists’ reliability
capacities (de Haan, 1993).
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6 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Despite this, the mobile use of rangelands by pastoralists is under threat
on a variety of fronts, with encroachment and fragmentation of rangelands
continuing apace (Galvin et al., 2008; Lind et al., 2020a; Behnke, 2021).
This increases uncertainty for pastoralists, as the land that is grabbed for
agricultural or conservation investments, for example, usually includes the
high-value, wetter patches which are essential for the functioning of the
wider system. As a frontier for development, major investments are occurring
across the world’s rangelands, whether for irrigated agriculture, conservation
areas, hunting and tourism, watershed management, mining, or alternative
energy investments. All these efforts are combined with infrastructural
investment – roads, rail lines, electricity and mobile phone connections, and
more – often linked to the growth of towns in the peripheral pastoral areas.
These wider processes of investment, extraction, and exclusion are having
major impacts on pastoralists’ abilities to live with and from uncertainty.
Some of these investments benefit pastoralists – providing jobs, bringing
services closer, and so on – but often increased investment on an unregulated
frontier can lead to new forms of competition and to speculation, corruption,
and deal-making that drive division within communities as elites become
co-opted (Enns and Bersaglio, 2020; Lind et al., 2020a).
The challenges to pastoralism are exacerbated by the wider, longstanding,
well-entrenched colonial narrative that pastoralists are ‘backward’, environ-
mentally destructive, and in need of ‘modernization’ (Nori et al., 2008;
Omondi and Odhiambo, 2009; Little, 2012; Nori, 2022). Seeing like someone
from town, from the state, or from a development agency is very different to
‘seeing like a pastoralist’ from the variable, uncertain drylands (Catley et al.
2012; cf. Scott, 1998).
Pastoralism: a nature-positive contribution to the climate
andbiodiversity crises
Today, there is a strong Western and urban narrative about the dangers of
livestock production for the climate and the wider environment. For example,
aggregate statistics on the contributions of livestock production to climate
change are deployed to argue for an end to livestock farming, with pastoralism
and other systems wrapped up in a fervent rhetoric for a major switch in
diets and production systems (Monbiot, 2022, but see Houzer and Scoones
2021). Of course, some industrial, contained systems of livestock production,
reliant on imported feeds grown in cleared forested areas and transported
across the world, are highly damaging to the environment. But failing to
differentiate low-input, extensive livestock farming is a strategic error, with
significant consequences for pastoralists the world over (García -Dory et al.,
2021; Scoones, 2022b).
Even accounting for the limits of available data (which mostly come from
high-intensity industrial systems), there is little doubt that pastoral production
systems have low climate impacts and can, under the right conditions, have
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PERSPECTIVES FROM THE RANGELANDS 7
positive benefits for the environment. Pastoral animals are physiologi-
cally adapted to grazing conditions and are smaller than those in industrial
systems; dung and urine is not concentrated in one place but spread around,
potentially adding to carbon and nitrogen stores through incorporation by
trampling, and grasslands can sequester and store carbon in large amounts.
And in any case, low-density, dispersed pastoral systems may not add to
emissions of greenhouse gases above the baseline of a ‘natural’, wildlife-base
system (Manzano and White, 2019).
Pastoral production also produces incredibly valuable sources of
nutrients – not just protein, but a whole array of critical nutrients, which
are very difficult to gain from plant-sourced products (Leroy et al., 2022).
They may also offer medicinal benefits such as those claimed for camel milk,
for example. The option proposed by some, of producing meat alternatives
by corporate, industrial in large fermentation vats or through lab-growing,
seems to be a massive diversion, prone to corporate capture, and forgetting
the livelihood and environmental benefits of pastoral livestock production
(Howard, 2022).
Another argument often laid at the door of pastoralists is that they are
environmentally destructive, and their use of fragile, biodiverse environments
should be curtailed in favour of protective, exclusionary conservation and
forms of rewilding. This again has a long history, dating back to colonial views
of rangelands, where the lack of trees was seen as an indicator of deforestation,
with many rangelands designated ‘wastelands’ where ‘desertification’ was rife
(Behnke and Mortimore, 2016; Davis, 2016). However, this narrative derives
from a basic misunderstanding of the dynamics of open ecosystems and the
importance of variability in rangelands (Bond, 2019; Vetter, 2020).
Despite much debate on these issues over many decades, the control
imperative of environmental efforts remains, reinforced through inappro-
priate interventions. Huge tree-planting campaigns are proposed for the
world’s rangelands, with vast targets for expanding protected areas to preserve
biodiversity. In some parts of the world, largely urban movements are arguing
for ‘rewilding’ where livestock and people are removed (or drastically reduced)
and an alternative ecosystem is imagined, with trees regrowing and wild
predators reintroduced.
Many of these schemes are again premised on a false understanding of
rangelands as sub-climax forests, rather than natural systems maintained by
a combination of grazing and fire over millennia, with or without human
intervention. Of course, concentrating animals and people and reducing
movement options – as is happening through the effect of enclosures
from investments and land and green grabs – will result in land degradation,
but this is not the inherent consequence of a pastoral system of production.
On the contrary, mobile pastoralism can maintain, even enhance, biodiversity
through patch-based grazing, the dispersed deposition of manure and urine
creating nutrient hotspots, the spreading of seeds through movement along
transhumant routes connecting habitats, and the synergistic interaction with
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8 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
both wild predators and scavengers, which are often endangered species in
such environments.1
In sum, pastoralists – as producers who can make use of variability in
non-equilibrium rangelands and who know how to confront uncertainty
in harsh, unstable ecosystems – can be good for the environment. They can
have low impacts on the climate, sometimes even positive ones through the
sequestration in the soil of carbon and nitrogen, and positive impacts on
biodiversity, preserving open ecosystems through the skilled management
of grazing and fire. And through such a well-adapted production system,
pastoralists generate livelihoods and support the wider economy through
many actors: service providers, market brokers, transporters, and others
who process and trade animal products. By providing nutrient-dense, high-
quality food, pastoral production can help reduce malnutrition and improve
food security in some of the poorest parts of the world, while selling on to
urban consumers elsewhere a potentially climate- and biodiversity-friendly
product for which there is growing demand (Manzano et al., 2021; Köhler-
Rollefson, 2021).
Challenges for pastoral development
This is not to say that all is well in the pastoral rangelands of the world. As the
case study chapters show, there are many challenges. The adaptive flexibility
at the heart of pastoralists’ responses to variability and uncertainty may not
always work. Strategies developed decades ago may not be sufficient to sustain
fast-growing populations and may be unable to confront the more frequent
droughts, floods, and compounding uncertainties faced today. Pastoralists
must always innovate, adapt, and change to new circumstances. However,
things are not always easy as a result of constrained access to resources, terms
of trade that penalize pastoral production, and state or donor support that is
often lacking or misplaced, given the false narratives that still dominate policy
thinking (see Chapter 9).
As challenges have increased, in many places there has been a growing
differentiation of pastoralists between rich and poor, urban- and rural-based,
those with other jobs and connections and those without, those farming
and those who do not, and so on. Many younger people from pastoral
families are reluctant to follow their parents into what are seen as harsh,
unrewarding pastoral livelihoods and seek opportunities elsewhere through
migration. There are thus emerging class divisions within pastoral settings
that can result in conflict and exploitation (Catley et al., 2012; Scoones 2021).
Some richer households become increasingly oriented towards commercial
livestock production, investing in technologies to intensify production, hiring
in herders, enclosing rangelands, and capturing reliable markets. In some
instances, extensive livestock production becomes the speculative activity of
rich and well-connected entrepreneurs, traders, and politicians, sometimes
from outside the area.
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These changes leave others to struggle with fewer resources and limited
market access. When major shocks arise – a drought, for example – some drop
out, as their limited herds and flocks are depleted and they must make a living
outside pastoralism or provide services or labour to the richer pastoralists.
Some may become destitute and migrate to other areas or seek help from
humanitarian agencies. While, over time, some may return, it is becoming
more and more difficult to do so (Lind et al., 2020b). Impoverishment, socio-
economic inequality, political marginalization, and a sense of grievance may
be the triggers for conflict and insecurity, resulting in resource competition,
increasing ethnic and cultural divides linked to forms of political capture, and
radicalization (Benjaminsen and Ba, 2019; Nori, 2022).
This book does not attempt to paint a rosy picture of an imagined,
pastoralist idyll now long-lost – if it ever even existed. The case studies
discussed across the chapters and introduced next provide a flavour of the
complex, contested, and highly differentiated realities in the different sites,
influenced by diverse political economies. What comes across, however, is
that, despite the challenges, pastoralists are continuously adapting to contexts
of high variability and uncertainty and, as we discuss in Chapter 9, offer
important lessons for us all.
The case studies
The cases discussed in the following chapters highlight how forms of
variability, and therefore uncertainty, are changing and how environmental,
market, social, and political factors combine in different ways. The wide array
of practices that pastoralists deploy is discussed, showing how reliability and
resilience are generated in different settings in response to diverse shocks and
stresses, very often exploiting variability as a productive resource, rather than
a threat. This section introduces the cases and sets them within the wider
story of pastoralism in their respective regions. In Chapter 9, we return to
these regional settings and explore the implications for development policy
and practice.
Kachchh, Gujarat, India
Kachchh is a huge dryland area in the west of India, bordering Pakistan, with
a mix of extensive grasslands and increasingly cropped areas. As elsewhere,
rainfall variability is growing, and in recent years, the grasslands have been
subject to flooding. The area hosts a mix of pastoralists from a number of
different groups, including the Rabari. As with the rest of India, the Green
Revolution has affected Gujarat through the expansion of intensive agriculture.
New irrigation infrastructure and policies in favour of commercial agriculture
support this expansion.
In 2001, Kachchh experienced a massive earthquake and there was a
subsequent drive to industrialization as part of rebuilding the region, again
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transforming the landscape into one of fragmented and diversified uses.
Today, pastoralists have to navigate between different land uses, moving
between grazing areas using different forms of transport, and adapting
herding strategies accordingly. Links to farming are crucial, as pastoralists
negotiate access to crop residues on farmers’ fields. Such relations are essential
in sustaining pastoralism in the area by providing access to rich, nutritionally
diverse fodder resources. Each year, the pattern of movement is different,
responding to the timing of rains, crop harvests, and animal breeding, among
other factors. Movements follow different paths but link to cultural and
religious sites and connect grasslands to croplands.
As Chapter 3 explains, the contingent performance of movement is
invested with social, cultural, and emotional meaning for the Rabari pasto-
ralists and cannot be explained simply as a ‘rational’ response to variable
conditions. The rhythm and pace of movement are of course conditioned
by environmental dynamics and so generate reliability in the face of
uncertainty, but such responses are bound up with social and political
dynamics within mobile groups, between pastoralists, and across pasto-
ralists, farmers, and government officials.
Amdo Tibet, China
Amdo Tibet stretches across the Qinghai plateau from the Kokonor lakeshore
to the high mountains of Golok. High-altitude pastoralism is practised across
this area, with the herding of yaks, sheep, and goats in particular. Pastoral
production involves movement between winter pastures in the lowlands and
summer pastures in the mountains. Skilled herding allows the management
of grazing across these sites. While people live in villages near the winter
pastures, they move with tents to the high pastures in the summer. In some
places, herding competes with the harvesting of caterpillar fungus, a valuable
medicinal product that grows in certain pastures.
Amdo Tibet has been subject to major changes in the past years, as
China modernizes its economy and increases its influence in the Tibetan
areas. Investments in national parks, linked to watershed protection for
China’s major river systems, have removed large areas from pastoral use.
Large infrastructure developments associated with China’s Belt and Road
Initiative have seen roads, rail lines, and major energy schemes being built
in the pastoral areas. Various tenure reforms have attempted to individu-
alize range ownership, with particular plots assigned to certain households.
Quota systems, regulated at village level, allow certain numbers of animals
in defined areas.
As part of Chinese development programmes to improve living conditions
and access to primary services for those living in under-developed provinces,
the state has developed towns in pastoral areas, including resettlement
housing for pastoralists. For some, this is an imposition that undermines
herding systems while, for others, it provides welcome services. Herders split
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PERSPECTIVES FROM THE RANGELANDS 11
their households, with some staying with the animals in the mountains while
others stay in the resettlement schemes. Negotiating this new landscape, in
which there is an increasing presence of the state as well as in-migration from
other areas of the country, means pastoralists must draw on diverse relation-
ships, with a view to exploit ecological and institutional opportunities.
Gaining access to land for grazing is less straightforward than before
and the individualized plot system does not allow the flexibility to manage
grazing effectively. As a result, hybrid systems of rangeland governance have
evolved (see Chapter 4). Such systems are neither private, nor communal,
nor completely open property arrangements: they emerge from a negotiation
between herd-owners, village heads, religious monastery leaders, government
officials, and others. Institutional and organizational innovation therefore
means that pastoralists can generate reliability in the face of new forms of
variability and uncertainty.
Sardinia, Italy
Sardinia, an island in the Mediterranean off mainland Italy, has the largest
population of sheep in Europe. It also produces the largest quantity of
pecorino cheese in the world, most of it exported to Europe and the USA.
Milk production from sheep is therefore central to the livelihoods of many
Sardinians and keeping sheep has long been central to the culture and
economy of the island. Indeed, many Sardinians migrated as herders to
mainland Italy in the nineteenth century. However, in Sardinia, there are
many styles of sheep-milk production, associated with different types of
environmental, institutional, and market engagement.
There is no one single type of Sardinian pastoralist. They include those
who have intensified heavily with investment in machinery for milking, in
producing high-value fodder crops, and in supplying their milk to industrial
cheese processors. Such livestock production does not respond flexibly to
variability through herding but creates stability through technological,
managerial, and contractual arrangements. By contrast, other pastoralists
are more reliant on open pasture, where herding between different sites
is important.
Although the traditional transhumance from the mountains to the
lowlands has declined, flocks are still on the move locally, with pastoralists
always aiming to manage variability so as to produce reliably. Such pastoralists
range from those who sell milk to cooperative dairies, to those who have
invested in mini-dairies to produce artisanal products themselves, to those
who just sell locally and informally, focusing mostly on home consumption
and tourist markets. Expanded social networks, changing agricultural policies,
and diversified market options have therefore reconfigured the landscape of
Sardinian pastoralism, with new uncertainties emerging.
As Chapter 5 explains, understanding how uncertainties – in the weather,
in the market, in political conditions – are confronted by pastoralists
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requires insights into how markets and livelihoods are connected. Changing
market conditions require adaptation of livelihood practices, including the
management of flocks. Equally, when production conditions change – say,
through a poor season – market strategies must be changed too. Thus, under-
standing how reliability is generated in pastoral systems requires an intimate
knowledge of markets, how they are constructed socially and politically, and
how they change over time.
Isiolo, northern Kenya
The drylands of northern Kenya are home to many pastoral groups, but
Isiolo County is dominated by the Borana. Traditionally cattle-keepers, they
are increasingly switching to camels and goats due to climate and other
challenges, which implies a significant reorganization of herding practices.
Within Isiolo, there are varied rangeland areas, criss-crossed by seasonal rivers
which provide important dry-season grazing for animals. Recent decades
have seen a dramatic increase in livestock trade, including for export, and
more recently a huge growth in camel-milk marketing. The expansion of these
trade systems has contributed to the development of diverse market networks,
supported by newurban hubs and road connections. These in turn generate
new opportunities for pastoral producers, women traders, truck transporters,
and motorbike riders, all supporting an expanding pastoral economy.
Surrounded by Somali and Samburu areas, as well as increasingly policed
national parks and conservancies, pastoralists in Isiolo feel hemmed in and
are suffering an increasing fragmentation of land. This is the result of growing
encroachment, as well as land speculation emerging from the development
of transport corridors, wind farm development, and oil exploration.
The result is heightened conflict: between ethnic groups seeking out scarce
grazing; between humans, livestock, and wildlife; and with investors and
land speculators of different sorts. With the increase in small arms in the
region, some of these conflicts are violent, resulting in areas becoming out
of bounds for grazing by animals. This adds to the uncertainties around
gaining access to resources, requiring Boran pastoralists to develop new ways
of coping.
For some, links to growing urban centres are essential and some pastoralists
have settled, hiring herders to manage their animals in the bush. Others
have moved out of pastoral production altogether and are involved in the
wider service economy, often providing support to pastoralists. Responding
to different forms of uncertainty has always been part and parcel of pasto-
ralists’ livelihoods, but the uncertainties, and their frequency and intensity,
have changed. Climate change, land fragmentation, market volatility,
disease outbreaks, and conflicts compound each other. The result is that
pastoralists must rely on both individual and collective ways of responding
to uncertainty and reducing the impacts of high levels of variability to assure
livelihoods.
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Traditionally, Boran society had many different forms of sharing and
collective organization to manage herds, grazing, labour, and marketing.
Chapter 6 explores the persistence of local forms of ‘moral economy’ centred
on redistributive practices and collective solidarity across family, village, and
clan. Reliability in the face of shocks and stresses is generated through social
relations and networks, reinforced by cultural norms and local institutions,
both new and old.
Borana, southern Ethiopia
Across the border to the north, Borana is a wide zone with a large pastoral
population. The area is wetter than many other pastoral areas in the region
and, over the last 30 years, agriculture has expanded massively, particu-
larly in the areas around Yabello, the main town in the region. Here, pasto-
ralists combine crop-farming with livestock-keeping (mostly cattle but also
smallstock) and engage extensively in trade and other activities linked to
the now large urban centre. Further south, where the rangelands are less
connected and drier, a more traditional extensive pastoralism is practised.
High levels of rainfall variability, a strict policy framework, increasing
encroachment through farming, and conflict with neighbouring groups have
meant that pastoral production is challenging. Access to grazing is dwindling,
long-distance movements to other areas during drought periods are difficult
because of insecurity, and there are also the challenges of mobilizing labour
and capital.
The traditional network of collectively managed wells continues to
operate, but pressure on water resources has increased as privatization
through the drilling of boreholes has affected the management of both
grazing and water. As conditions change, some pastoralists have moved out
of livestock production, taking up jobs in local towns or migrating further
away. Meanwhile, other pastoralists have been able to accumulate by
taking advantage of growing milk commercialization and export markets
for cattle, and the opportunities for selling on to traders who fatten
animals in the highlands. The result is a much more differentiated pastoral
population. While kept together by social commitments to the clan and
wider Boran identity, processes of social differentiation – accumulation for
some, increasing poverty or destitution for others – is evident. This has
both a gender and generational dimension, with women and young people
in particular losing out.
Responding to the challenge of drought in pastoral areas, numerous
projects have been initiated aimed at increasing the resilience of livelihoods
and assuring social protection. Many of these have failed, and agencies have
been looking for new approaches compatible with pastoral settings. The latest
effort, index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), has become significant over the
last decade, as Chapter 7 explains. This aims to provide payouts to pasto-
ralists in advance of a disaster taking hold, based on an index linked to pasture
conditions assessed by satellite imagery. The insurance product relies on a risk
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assessment of a single peril – a lack of rainfall and therefore pasture – and does
not take account of the complex combination of uncertainties that pasto-
ralists must address. A focus on singular, calculable, index-based risk rather
than multiple, intersecting uncertainties means that, for many, the insurance
product is not appropriate or must be combined with other responses within
their wider livelihood portfolio.
Tataouine, southern Tunisia
At the crossroads between the Sahara, the Maghreb, and Europe, the dry desert
margins of southern Tunisia are harsh areas, with low and variable rainfall,
where integrated forms of resource management such as the terraced jessours
offer valuable grazing to the Amazigh, Berber communities inhabiting Douiret
in the mountainous ranges south of Tataouine. Here, livestock production
is combined with agriculture, mostly olive growing; however, making a
livelihood in the mountains is tough and, increasingly, livelihoods in Douiret
are crafted with income from elsewhere. As chapter 8 discusses, these areas
have a long migration history connecting Douiret to other parts of Tunisia,
notably the capital Tunis, but also to France, Canada, and parts of the Arabian
Gulf. The Douiri diaspora is huge but still remains culturally and economi-
cally connected to the pastoral areas, as remittances from outside the area
provide the basis for investment and accumulation in local flocks.
Such accumulation processes are not linear or even. Livestock exists
as ‘liquid wealth’, subject to boom-and-bust cycles, and flocks grow and
decline, not only in relation to environmental conditions but also due to the
flow of remittances from outside. Since migrants are absent, either seasonally
or very often for long stretches at certain stages of people’s lifecycles, ways
of managing livestock in their absence are required. Sometimes, this falls on
women and the young and old who live in the villages more consistently, but
such support is often combined with collective arrangements for managing
flocks, including hired herding, sharing pasturelands, and collaborative
tending of animals. Such arrangements are organized around collective
pooling systems, such as the khlata, which also offer a link between migrants
and their flocks at home, assuring their management and production while
they are absent.
The process of accumulation of livestock in this setting is thus mediated
by family arrangements and collective institutions, and is dependent on both
variabilities within the rangelands and variabilities of income earnings outside
and inside Douiret. The evolution of social networks is also important for gaining
access to market opportunities and political support, both of which contribute
to reconfiguring local pastoralism. The result is an uneven, non-linear
pattern of flock growth, reflecting economic, social, and political dynamics
across locations. This generates a particular pastoral mode of accumulation
and redistribution/sharing, conditioned both by the nature of livestock as
capital and by the types of institutions that mediate how flocks grow.
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Characterizing pastoral systems
Across these settings, a number of principles emerge that characterize pastoral
systems (see Krätli et al., 2015; Nori, 2019b; Scoones, 2021):
• First is the nature of livestock management, the intimate human–animal
connections that allow variability to be exploited, ensuring that herds
and flocks grow and produce, and that disease or death are avoided.
This requires skilled herding, including the switching of species,
composition, and careful breeding and training to encourage certain
traits and behaviours.
• Second is the importance of livelihood diversification. In pastoral areas,
there is always a complex mosaic of livelihood strategies, combining
livestock-keeping with other activities including farming, trading,
service provision, and so on. Increasingly, there are urban connections,
sometimes linked to long-term migration and the reconfiguration of
gender and generational roles. In order to gain value from livestock for
livelihoods, engaging with diverse markets – always embedded in social
and political relations and livelihood contexts – is essential.
• Third, mobility is essential for all pastoral production – whether of
animals, fodder, water, or marketed products. This is a key response
to the variability of rangeland systems and essential for survival. With
increasing rangeland fragmentation due to encroachments of different
sorts, patterns of mobility must change. Movement of people is
important too, with migration to and from other places becoming the
norm, and migrants providing remittances or hired labour, for example.
Such connections over space and time are crucial in responses to
uncertainty, with collective institutions emerging in pastoral settings
to allow for those absent to continue to engage with pastoralism.
• Fourth, responses to uncertainties often require close connections with
agriculture to be formed, either as part of a wider set of enterprises
pursued by an agro-pastoral household or through striking up relations
with farmers to gain access to fodder. Pastoral territories are not the
unenclosed vast pastures that are sometimes imagined but are increas-
ingly divided, with different patches enclosed and privatized and
affected by wider processes of investment, intensification, and accumu-
lation by the state and both local and global investors. This requires
new forms of land control and management across reticulated
territories, with flexible, negotiated forms of tenure and hybrid land
uses being essential.
• Fifth, in order to be able to manage land, markets, and social and
political relations with neighbours, the state, and other ‘outsiders’,
pastoralists must be increasingly adept at developing relationships,
building networks, and negotiating access to resources. Investment in
social institutions is vitally important as a reliance on such communal,
redistributive institutions is essential for offsetting the impacts of
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16 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
high variability and uncertainty and generating reliable, sustainable
livelihoods in increasingly challenging circumstances.
Wider structural political economy forces may, however, undermine pasto-
ralists’ strategies for generating reliability in the face of variable conditions,
as the chapters discuss. In some contexts, the constraints may simply be too
great: there may not be enough land if it is degraded, grabbed, and enclosed;
climate variability may be too extreme for local strategies to work; the terms
of trade in markets may be too skewed for pastoralists to make a living; and
so on. Understanding how uncertainties are constructed and responded to
within wider political economies, and how global and national forces impinge
on pastoral settings, is therefore vital if the connections between pastoralism,
uncertainty, and development are to be fully understood and appropriate
interventions designed. Just like everyone else, pastoralists cannot be simply
expected to go it alone.
Conclusion
As the chapters in this book show, pastoralism is a modern and intensive
production system, adapted to highly variable contexts and able to adjust to
fast-changing uncertainties in an increasingly turbulent world – although of
course with limits. Pastoralism therefore remains a viable, vibrant production
system precisely because pastoralists are able to live with and from uncertainty,
transforming high variability into successful livelihoods, even under very
challenging circumstances.
The sources and impacts of uncertainty change over time and across
contexts, as the book’s case studies show. Today, climate change, expanding
investments and infrastructure, and engagement in global markets all
affect pastoral systems, generating new uncertainties. For pastoralism to
persist, pastoralists must continuously adapt and innovate. The result is
that ‘traditional’ practices – transhumance, collective wells, land institu-
tions, livestock sharing and loaning, and so on – must always change; new
practices, technologies, social institutions, mobility patterns, and networked
relations are always emerging.
Understanding the different dimensions of pastoralism and pasto-
ralists’ adaptive capacities can help us learn wider global lessons on how to
respond to diverse uncertainties. At the root of pastoralism’s success – in all
its diversity – are the set of principles centred on making use of variability
and managing uncertainty highlighted above and discussed throughout the
chapters that follow. These principles, with their focus on the key attributes of
flexibility, adaptation, innovation, and learning for generating reliability, are
in turn suggestive of a wider set of principles for development more generally.
This book therefore offers broader lessons for development and governance
the world over that go beyond the standard, rigid modes of risk management,
planning, and control. These lessons are developed further in Chapter 9.
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PERSPECTIVES FROM THE RANGELANDS 17
Note
1. See the set of PASTRES briefings, www.pastres.org/biodiversity
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CHAPTER 2
Decoding uncertainty in pastoral contexts
through visual methods
Shibaji Bose and Roopa Gogineni1
Introduction
Pastoralists in popular culture have long been flattened, rendered in word
and image as primitive, stuck in time; at once romanticized and vilified.
In reality, pastoralist systems are highly adaptable and defy easy catego-
rization, varying widely across and within regions. One commonality,
however, is the presence of uncertainty. Pastoralists around the world
constantly face and respond to the unknown and unexpected, from floods
and droughts to locust plagues and market collapse (Chapter 1). Our work
across six countries employed a variety of visual methods to surface and
convey this diversity of experience.2
Since its invention in 1839, the camera has most often served as a tool for
the elite (Berger, 1980). Its early use in police investigations, war reporting,
and anthropological records was predicated on the belief that photography
carries an incontrovertible truth. A photograph is a ‘trace, something directly
stencilled off the real, like a footprint’ (Sontag, 1977: 154).
This assumption of veracity and the treatment of cameras as objective tools
of documentation contributed to the widespread (mis)use of photography by
researchers without explicit consideration of the practices by which images
are produced and interpreted. In recent decades, however, the social and
power dynamics inherent to image creation and consumption have been
better explored, resulting in the development of more nuanced and critical
visual methods (Spiegel, 2020).
The visual practices used in the PASTRES programme aim to capture the
lived experiences of pastoralists. Through photos, videos, and narratives,
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22 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
the stories are largely told from the vantage point of pastoralists who are
confronting diverse uncertainties. Storytelling through visual methods
facilitates an engaged process of building knowledge that can eventually
foster positive social change from below. In our work, it enabled pastoral
communities to contribute experiential knowledge, providing an embedded
understanding of uncertainty.
As a part of a broader agenda of community participation, stories shared
through visual methods can help build critical consciousness to construct and
forge knowledge and take action (Freire, 1970). Forging knowledge of place
and facilitating engagement with local traditions and cultures can open a
democratic space for dialogue among various climate actors. This provides an
opportunity to support inclusion of local knowledge in policy, to systematize
experience, and to draw out priorities for future actions.
Research design and methodological reflections
Visual tools for surfacing tacit and subjugated knowledge are increasingly used
in a wide range of research activities, including in pastoral settings (Johnson
et al., 2019). During the interaction, visuals provide a ‘bridge’ (Meo, 2010)
that enables participants to converse about milieux that are very different
from the researchers’ own. The use of visual methods therefore helps the
interaction between the researchers and the study participants. At a cognitive
level, Pain (2012: 309) argues, ‘because visuals use different parts of the brain
than language, the two in combination could provide additional cues for
understanding and encourage new connections between the two patterns of
thought, thus facilitating new insights.’
This chapter reflects on a variety of visual methods selected to unpack
multidimensional and evolving themes across a range of pastoral sites and
therefore tries to make sense of the mangled, messy issues in different pastoral
landscapes.
Photovoice
Letting go of ‘researcher control’ is itself an emancipatory approach. Visual
tools collectively serve to centre the voices of pastoralists, inviting them to
share beliefs and perceptions within their own frameworks of understanding
and experiences of contending with unfolding uncertainties.3 This embracing
of the ‘indigenous lens’ helps orient the researcher to the intimate under-
standing of how pastoralists contend with variability, whether in terms
of climate and weather or in relation to changing governance and market
regimes. Across the case studies, what emerged was new hybrid knowledge
and understanding of uncertainty refracted through perspectives of caste,
identity, race, gender, and age.
In Amdo Tibet in China, for example, groups were formed in both research
sites – Kokonor and Golok – and included faith leaders, women, and men from
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 23
the Tibetan pastoralist community. In Isiolo, Kenya, one of the groups was
composed solely of women of different ages, drawn from a mixture of social
and economic circumstances to provide a distinct gender lens, while another
was composed of younger men, offering an age-related perspective. In all sites,
a diversity of views on how uncertainty as a concept was understood and how
people responded to it was gleaned.
Visual methods help systematize local experience by appreciating partici-
pants’ understandings of the local context and its socio-political and cultural
elements. In Kenya, the methods led to a sense of empowerment among the
participants, especially within the women’s photovoice group. The partici-
patory visual methods also help to lessen the power imbalance between the
researcher and the photovoice group members, due to the collaborative nature
of the method, which leads to the co-creation of evidence.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, digital media such as WhatsApp, Snapchat,
and WeChat were used for remote facilitation of community-led methods,
like photovoice, under lockdown. In Gujarat, India, this proved to be an
effective method for a continuous conversation with the camel- and sheep-
herders who travelled huge distances over the course of several months.
In Amdo Tibet, China, remote conversation on these platforms helped the
researcher to stay in contact with pastoralists (in both summer and winter
pastures) in remote areas, with the exchange and dialogue continuing even
during lockdown periods.
Social media ethnography
Pandemic-related travel restrictions disrupted the fieldwork of most researchers.
Unable to carry out the photovoice exercises as initially conceived, the
researcher in Tunisia observed images that proliferated in various pastoralist
Facebook groups (Figure 2.1). This remote ethnographic approach shed light
on diaspora networks and their sense of belonging. Across the sites, image
Figure 2.1 A collection of Facebook groups dedicated to Douiret in southern Tunisia.
Members post archival photos, maps, poetry, obituaries, and live videos of sheep-shearing
and olive-picking.
Credit: Linda Pappagallo.
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24 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
sharing on social media platforms offered insight into self-representation and
reflected implicit ways of seeing.
Rephotography
Visual materials from archival sources allowed for interpretations of change
across time by comparing images from today with those in the past. This proved
a unique way of understanding the changes in pastoralists’ space, identity, and
sense of place, along with the evolving dynamics of uncertainty.
In Kenya, for example, photographs of a water pan taken 45 years apart
were compared (Figure 2.2). The observed deterioration of the water pan
prompted a conversation around the lack of community solidarity and its
implications. When elders engaged in the discussion, they reflected on the
need to mobilize a response to protect the shared resource.
Photo elicitation
Pictures taken by the pastoralists and/or by the researcher were able to draw
out reflections around themes that were not easily expressed. This process
uncovered subconscious and tacit knowledge of the unreliability and unpre-
dictability of their setting.
The articulation of emotions became important, allowing people to reflect
on how perspectives had been subjugated for social and economic reasons. This
in turn provided a richer understanding of the evolution of their livelihood,
food security, shelter, displacement, and identity, relating these changes to
both personal and community experiences.
Figure 2.2 Pastoralists fill jerry cans at the water pan in 1975 and 2020.
Credit: Gudrun Dahl (left), Goracha (right).
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 25
Figure 2.3 A wealthy adult male pastoralist took this photograph to show a ‘natural dinner’
for children. Others perceived it differently.
Credit: Malicha.
The lack of uniformity in the reflections of individuals and groups,
even within a given context, mirrored the differences in their contextual
experiences, depending on the vantage points of their lived daily experience.
One of the most telling examples is a photograph of a woman milking a
cow with a baby on her back in the early evening hours (Figure 2.3). To a
middle-aged, relatively rich man, the photo symbolized the opportunity for
nutritious milk from livestock, while the same photo shown to a poor, young
female elicited empathy for the women burdened by her daily chores without
a helping hand, a situation that may adversely affect her time for childcare.
In uncertain contexts, photo elicitation thus helped to draw out and
prompt an in-depth line of thinking and contemplation.
Photo elicitation allowed the pastoralists in Sardinia, Italy, to express
themselves through images from their personal archives. For example, a sheep-
herder shared an old photograph of a meal shared with fellow pastoralists
after a sheep-shearing session (Figure 2.4). This evoked in him memories of
solidarity and continuity with the core traditions of the community, which
he identified as a strong foundation against the uncertainties brought in by
the market and Covid-19 (see Chapter 5). The discussions in Sardinia – as
in the other sites – brought out pastoralists’ engagements with dealing with
uncertainty, surfacing memories, meanings, and often deep emotions about
their landscape and their linkages with a fickle market.
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The community validation of the findings from photovoice groups in Amdo
Tibet, China similarly provided a moment for deeper, collective reflection on
pastoralism, uncertainty, and development. The discussions brought meaning
to the evidence when participants shared photos and their narratives with
the researcher. These conversations added trustworthiness and rigour to the
research analysis.
Documentary photo/video by researchers and other interlocutors
Embedded photography and videography carried out by researchers,
community groups, and occasional professional documentary photographers
chronicled pastoralist communities in the face of evolving uncertainties,
showcasing special events and everyday lives.
Often these pictures and films showed efforts to preserve significant customs
and cultural moorings. Photographs from Sardinia, Italy, showing festivals
that were attended by pastoralists dressed in traditional attire, highlighted the
social value of maintaining cultural identities as pastoralists in the face of rapid
change. In the same way, a video documentary of a yak beauty competition
in Amdo Tibet, China, highlighted the importance of social processes at the
heart of pastoralism, as well as the aesthetic and cultural features of livestock-
rearing. Pictures from Gujarat, India, taken by a professional photographer
working alongside the researcher, provide a fresh positioning, offering repre-
sentations of how the camel and sheep-herders grapple with daily uncer-
tainties during their opportunistic journeys to different lands.4
Figure 2.4 An old photograph of a meal shared after sheep-shearing in Sardinia, Italy.
Credit: Giulia Simula.
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 27
In Tunisia, the researcher worked with a local filmmaker to visit pastoralists
and film interviews. Reflecting on the role of the camera, she noted that while
its presence contributed to a degree of performance, the interviews were largely
unstructured, often resulting in an uninterrupted monologue meandering into
topics and avenues that may not otherwise have come up.
Visualizing uncertainty
In each of the study sites, the visual material complemented other research
tools such as interviews or surveys and helped to open up discussions,
providing an opportunity to articulate local conceptualizations of uncertainty.
Conversations around uncertainty can often veer into murky abstraction,
but photographs helped to ground the discussions in lived experience.
The following sections offer some brief examples of how photographs
encouraged debate about understandings across the sites.
Borana, southern Ethiopia
When asked about the locust plague that arrived in Borana in 2020, one
pastoralist responded ‘Bofa dheedhiitti, buutii afaan buune’ (‘When we
attempted to flee from a bofa snake (less deadly), we were met with butti (the
most poisonous snake)’). Photos of locust swarms (Figure 2.5) provided a focus
for discussion around the meaning of uncertainty. In the Borana pastoralist
communities of southern Ethiopia, pastoralists explained that many terms
Figure 2.5 Locust swarms in southern Ethiopia.
Credit: Masresha Taye.
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28 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
are used to express uncertainty, including hinbanne (not known or unknown),
haala or jilbii hinbanne (limited knowledge, not knowing the likelihood), and
mamii (unexpected).
It is believed that rain follows locusts. However, in 2020, rains preceded
the arrival of a small locust outbreak. This provided an ideal environment
for locusts to multiply and, later, they wreaked havoc on newly planted
crops and fresh grassland. Pastoralists explained that they reoriented their
strategy to deal with the situation, but mobility – a key feature of the
pastoral coping strategy – was halted to contain the spread of Covid-19.
This combination of shocks devastated many pastoralists in Borana
(see Chapter 7).
Amdo Tibet, China
Kokonor is a sacred lake on the Qinghai plateau in Amdo Tibet. In 2016, the
lake began expanding, subsuming the winter pasture of many pastoralists.
As Uncle Lhabe explained when describing the photo shown in Figure 2.6,
‘That is my winter house, we spend most of our time there. Unfortunately,
I lost my winter pasture and the house in 2019 due to the lake expansion.
Now I need to rent pasture from other pastoralists, and I need to find a place
to stay.’
Discussion of the lake expansion provoked many discussions of uncertainty.
As noted in Chapter 4, the Tibetan phrase Bsam yul las das pa means
something beyond one’s imagination, beyond the realm of thought. It then
Figure 2.6 Uncle Lhabe looks out at his former winter pasture, now underneath the lake.
Credit: Palden Tsering.
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 29
is unmeasurable, unpredictable, unexpected, and impossible to prepare for.
The lake expansion was definitely in this category of experience. As another
pastoralist explained, ‘What is going to happen is unpredictable; all we can
depend on is the present, what happens now, we deal with it now.’
During a photovoice feedback session in Kokonor, various interpretations
emerged regarding the causes of the lake expansion. Some described the
occurrence as the intended result of successful conservation efforts carried
out by the government. Others pointed to religious reasons, saying it was the
consequence of neglecting certain religious practices, such as releasing fish
or failing to carry out the water-deity ceremony. Participants also identified
climate change – marked by increased temperatures, melting glaciers, and
changing precipitation levels – as a contributing force. Discussion of the photos
collected by the men’s and women’s photovoice groups allowed the community
to reflect on the different causes and consequences of the lake expansion, and
the impacts on pastoralists’ lives of the uncertainties.
Isiolo, northern Kenya
Ali Saleisa, a resident from Merti in Isiolo County, northern Kenya, shared
images of his dead goats, which he had photographed to seek compen-
sation for losses (Figure 2.7). The photographs embody intersecting uncer-
tainties faced by pastoralists in the region: wildlife attacks, the impact of
Figure 2.7 Goats lost to a lion.
Credit: Ali Saleisa.
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30 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
invasive species, conservation policy, and the role of the local government,
he explained.
When livestock disappear, they are not easy to recover; the entire
area is covered by the thorny mathenge (Prosopis juliflora) and other
shrubs. We took the flock to a place called Goo’aa near the galaan
(river) to feed on a d’igajii shrub, which is not as thorny. The goats
dispersed and a lion attacked and killed 84 goats. We kept searching
with the help of other herders but only found the carcasses; the lion
killed them all without eating any flesh! It was very disheartening.
I reported this to the chief, received a letter, and followed it up with
the county government. It has been five years since then, and I have
never been compensated.
Discussions such as this, prompted by the sharing of some images, raise
many questions about how uncertainties are understood, experienced, and
confronted socially and practically (see Chapter 6). Further discussions
with elders highlighted local conceptions of uncertainty: ‘No human
knows everything, even if you are an expert in one area’, explained
one elder in the Waso Borana community. As Abdullahi Dima observed,
‘Hooraa buulaan (whoever desires a prosperous life) will survive all the
c’inna (calamities) that we face in society.’ Individuals who desire a
successful life are always in fear of the unknown (‘Hooraa buulaan waa
soodaataa’) and must know how to handle those fears without harming
others, he explained.
Kachchh, Gujarat, India
When asked if they could predict certain events, like the pandemic or the
first rainfall, or whether they knew to expect such events, Rabari pasto-
ralists in eastern Gujarat shrug their shoulders and say ‘Kone khabar’ (‘Who
knows?’ ‘We don’t know’, and ‘Only God knows’). Rather than speculate
on events that are beyond their control, the Rabari often say ‘Thaay tyaare
hachu’ or ‘It will be true when it happens’/’It will be known when it
happens’.
As discussed in Chapter 3, Rabari pastoralists have long responded to
unfolding circumstances through movement. Their mobile camps are packed
on camels, tractors, and tempos (small trucks or vans), moving daily and
seasonally to exploit emerging opportunities. Figure 2.8 shows one photo
that reflected discussions on pastoral mobility. As a young male Rabari
pastoralist explained:
We decide two to three days in advance of moving. We think of where
there is good grazing, where it is worth staying. We may stay in one
place one night or even 15–20 days. We contact pastoralists ahead and
farmers ahead – they tell us, come to our farms in a week or come in
10 days. Our mukhi or leader goes to find grazing. This scouting is called
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 31
niharu karvu. If we take a stroll through the outskirts of a village, then
we know that there are crops that will be harvested in so many days
and will be available for the livestock to graze. It is not decided where
we go, but we have built relationships in certain villages over the years
where we are comfortable, so we try to go there year after year, providing
grazing is available.
Douiret, southern Tunisia
When asked what comes to mind with the word ‘uncertain’ (al majhoul or
aashakk), one pastoralist in the mountainous village of Douiret in southern
Tunisia responded as follows:
When there is no rain it’s hard. It’s quite difficult. Thankfully, I manage
the livestock on my own. If I ask a herder to be responsible for the herd,
along with the increase in forage and barley prices … I wouldn’t make
it … I do not have the resources to resist. I contribute with my own
money, my family is helping me a bit, we rise and fall, and we thank God.
This is uncertainty. One day the livestock eat, the next day they don’t.
And hopefully, since we have in our pocket some money, we will provide
the flock with what’s necessary for their needs. Living is hard, especially
when there is no rain, it’s hard. Along with the high cost of living, in our
time it got harder.
Figure 2.8 A Rabari camp on the move.
Credit: Natasha Maru.
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32 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
In Douiret, many pastoralist families navigate such uncertain circumstances by
maintaining transnational networks. Douiris travel to Tunis or abroad, all while
financially contributing to the keeping of herds back home (see Chapter 8).
An estimated 80 percent of Douiris do not live permanently in the village but
instead return seasonally, often during the jezz, or sheep-shearing, season. This
marks the beginning and the end of the pastoral year in the southern regions of
Tunisia. Extended family members gather to help shear the community’s stock,
as shown in Figure 2.9. These are moments of discussion, and one returning
pastoralist reflected on the theme of migration and uncertainty:
This coming and going creates a sort of continuity for me, for my
mother and my younger sister. This continuity manifests itself every
time someone comes, when we receive letters, when someone says that
it has rained in Douiret. So, this relationship with the village is virtual,
not real, and manifests itself with people that come, with couriers, with
good and bad news. We continue to live the village in an imaginary
fashion, in a virtual fashion, we continue to keep the images of our
childhood vivid. The caves, school, the olives, the dromedaries.
As discussed earlier, the ‘imaginary’ or ‘virtual’ presence is maintained
through active online communities. Dozens of Facebook groups and pages
are dedicated to Douiret, with members posting photos and videos of sheep-
shearing and olive-picking, images used to establish presence in spite of
physical absence.
Figure 2.9 An extended family gathers during a sheep-shearing in Douiret, Tunisia.
Credit: Linda Pappagallo and Hamdi Dallali.
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 33
Sardinia, Italy
According to pastoralists from Sardinia, precarity and uncertainty are the
only constants. As they explained, when we make plans, we rarely say ‘Yes’;
instead, we say, ‘Barring unforeseen events, I will be there!’ A pastoralist from
the south of the island explained how uncertainties about price, demand,
supply, and market conditions are endless: ‘Uncertainty is there every day …
uncertainty around whether to continue or not because it is becoming less
and less profitable and difficult to predict from an economic point of view.’
Although ‘uncertainty’ in Italian is translated as incertezza, other terms are
also used in the Sardinian context, including precarieta (precarity), insicurezza
(insecurity), and imprevisto (unexpected event), reflecting the livelihood
contexts of uncertainties in a pastoral setting.
Although pastoralism is central to the livelihoods of most Sardinians,
the form it takes varies dramatically. Some make and sell cheese on
their own, others increase bargaining power by selling milk through a
cooperative. The constant fluctuation in markets requires close attention
and adaptation. Reflecting on the photo in Figure 2.10, Felice explained
how milk prices fluctuate a lot and the best solution for him is to make
cheese and sell it, gaining greater income and keeping the farm going
(see Chapter 5).
Figure 2.10 Felice’s cheese production, Sardinia.
Credit: Giulia Simula.
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34 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
The afterlives and circulation of visual material
Beyond a tool to surface knowledge and open discussions in pastoralist
communities, the visual methods used across the sites also produced a
collection of images that clearly communicated salient findings, visualizing
uncertainty and making what is otherwise a quite abstract concept real. In
order to share the insights from the six sites more widely, the photographs and
their linked narratives were curated and shared through a variety of platforms,
including travelling in-person exhibitions, an online exhibition, and photo
newspapers.
Initially, researchers had intended to hold exhibitions in each of the
field sites, but pandemic-related restrictions around travel and gathering
disrupted some of these plans. In response, hand-held exhibitions were
designed in the form of photo newspapers. Each tabloid-size paper
contained a series of photographs that distilled central research themes in
an accessible format. Although the content was primarily visual, accom-
panying text was translated and printed for local audiences. The research
culminated in six site-specific newspapers and one longer thematic
newspaper exploring manifestations and responses to uncertainty across
sites. The newspapers were widely shared and received much interest from
the pastoral communities.
Researchers employed the newspapers in a variety of ways. In Ethiopia,
Borana language newspapers were brought to homesteads that participated
in the research. In Amdo Tibet, newspapers were distributed at a horse festival
in Kokonor (Figure 2.11) and used in classrooms. Newspapers were hung on
clotheslines for an impromptu exhibition in Isiolo, Kenya, during a feedback
Figure 2.11 Tibetan language newspapers distributed at a horse festival.
Credit: Palden Tsering.
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 35
meeting bringing together pastoralists and public officials (Figure 2.12). This
process of sharing and receiving feedback through exhibitions and small
group meetings demonstrated the importance of pastoralist knowledge in
the research.
The inaugural cross-country exhibition titled Seeing Pastoralism took place
outside Alghero in Sardinia, Italy in September 2021. Newspapers and prints
were hung on yarn spun from Sardinian wool in the gardens of an agriturismo
hotel (Figure 2.13). The event attracted hundreds of visitors, including many
pastoralists from nearby communities as well as international guests. After the
exhibition, one Sardinian pastoralist reflected:
It has been very interesting to take this virtual walk through the
different sites. The reflection I can make is that, notwithstanding
the different environments, climates, and cultures, there is a single
thread that links pastoralists across the world. And that is adaptation.
I believe that this disposition of adaptation that pastoralists have is
in fact a reflection of the adaptation that animals themselves have.
In reality, animals adapt and we adapt along with them … these
realities represent issues that do not only concern pastoralists because
we are talking of climate change and global economy; these are
aspects that concern everyone.
Figure 2.12 Swahili language newspapers on display at a community feedback session
in Isiolo.
Credit: Ian Scoones.
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36 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Following the successful launch in Sardinia, the Seeing Pastoralism exhibition
travelled to the international climate meeting, COP26, in Glasgow, the Global
Land Forum in Jordan, the Stockholm+50 conference, the online European
Development Days Forum, and events in Addis Ababa, Bhuj, Brighton, Brussels,
Isiolo, Florence, and southern Tunisia. A digital exhibition was designed
and published, incorporating audio and video content in addition to the
photographs and text narratives.
The site-specific and cross-country exhibitions, both in-person and online,
have generated a reflective and socially critical dialogue between community
members, researchers, and policymakers about pastoralism, uncertainty, and
development in ways that could not have been imagined had more conven-
tional research formats been used.
Conclusion
This multi-country experience has demonstrated how a hybrid visual
approach may be used to surface and share knowledge about complex and
intersecting uncertainties. Much like the pastoralists at the centre of this work,
the researchers themselves faced uncertainty, which sparked experiments and
innovations in the use of visual tools.
To understand uncertainty from the eyes of the pastoralists has always been
a challenge to the traditional researcher aiming to build research credibility,
give back the results of the research to the communities at the margins, and
Figure 2.13 Sardinian pastoralists looking at photos of Tunisian pastoralists.
Credit: Roopa Gogineni.
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DECODING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH VISUAL METHODS 37
build knowledge together. Participatory visual research methods were able
to unearth hidden tensions in uncertain pastoral landscapes. These method-
ologies, which were accessible to diverse groups – including women and
youth as well as older men – provided insights into their own world-view,
going beyond ‘literary’ or ‘reflexive’ approaches. By shifting authority and
power in the process of knowledge-making, the approach took inspiration
from feminist, post-colonial, and critical epistemologies (Denzin and Lincoln,
2003). The differentiated knowledges and perceptions reflected in people’s
explorations of uncertainty reinforced the argument that there are multiple
realities, which are socially constructed, and these must be engaged with in
processes of development (Yilmaz, 2013).
While the legacy of lens-based tools in academic research is fraught, the
potential of thoughtfully designed non-didactic visual methods is vast. Such
tools may challenge the narratives of the dominant frames of development
planners, policymakers, and implementers with the more tacit, hidden
knowledge drawn from the daily rhythms of the lives and livelihoods of the
pastoralists. In so doing, such approaches can help open up debates about
pastoralism, uncertainty, and development in ways that are not constrained
by conventional understandings.
Notes
1. This chapter was developed collaboratively with PASTRES researchers
Natasha Maru, Tahira Mohamed, Linda Pappagallo, Giulia Simula,
Masresha Taye, and Palden Tsering who are authors of the six subsequent
chapters and worked across the six sites discussed.
2. Now curated into an online resource and exhibition, Seeing Pastoralism
(seeingpastoralism.org).
3. This effort built on previous photovoice work with pastoralists; for
example, in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Ethiopia (https://fic.tufts.
edu/wp-content/uploads/Pastoral-Visions.pdf) and Mongolia (https://
documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/986161468053662281/
pdf/718440WP0P12770201208-01-120revised.pdf).
4. Photographer Nipun Prabhakar (nipunprabhakar.com) documented
the migration of Rabari pastoralists to mainland Gujarat and facilitated
photography workshops.
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CHAPTER 3
Engaging with uncertainties in the now:
pastoralists’ experiences of mobility in
western India
Natasha Maru
Introduction
I first participated in a migration journey in November 2019. I was travelling
with Vasu’s flock from one village to the next, just a short trip. Vasu belongs
to the Rabari community of mobile pastoralists from Gujarat in western India.
She, along with her brothers Varna and Veho, travels with their flock of sheep
throughout the year to ensure fresh and nutritious fodder for their animals. They
spend the monsoon months in the commons of Kachchh District that sees fresh
grasses after the rains, while grazing on crop residues in agricultural hotspots in
central Gujarat in the summer and winter months once the grass dries out.
We started our journey from Vasu’s home village in Kachchh. Having
grazed in the grasslands of northwest Kachchh, they were now making
their way towards central Gujarat. After walking for about an hour, we
arrived at a suitable site in the bush near the next village, and the women
began setting up the camp. The Rabari sleep under the stars with only a
few belongings transported on top of the camels. The camp consisted of a
couple of charpoy beds, cooking utensils, and their minimal belongings –
such as clothes, toiletries, tools, and medicines – all neatly organized on
and around the beds.
But just as soon as the camp was set up, we found ourselves caught in
a violent and unexpected storm. Huge hailstones – larger than I had ever
seen – pelted the ground and rain continued well into the night. The storm
caught us completely by surprise! While normally the men would sleep on
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40 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
the ground close to the sheep pen, this night we all huddled on the damp
charpoy beds under a flimsy tarpaulin roof for shelter. The night was wild.
As the storm blew outside the tent, a wild dog took away a lamb from inside
the tent despite our vigilance.
It was well past the monsoon season in the region and this late
and violent rain destroyed the Bt cotton sown for a winter harvest.
This would mean a huge loss for the farmers as they would miss out on
a season’s earnings, having already invested in seeds and inputs for the
crop. Therefore, the state government announced a subsidy on inputs for
the farmers and encouraged them to resow the crop. The availability of
irrigation through infrastructural development also meant that resowing
out of season was possible, and the farmers were able to have a new crop
to minimize their losses.
The resowing shifted agricultural timelines, extending the impact of the
rains into the next season. As pastoralists do not graze on standing crops,
Vasu’s camp was forced to slow down and circle around the fallow fields in
Kachchh for several months after the storm in anticipation of the harvest.
They were still in Kachchh in February 2020, frustrated as they waited for the
crops to be harvested so they could graze their flocks and travel on.
Uncertainty and change lie around every corner for the pastoralists,
whether through unexpected extreme weather events (like hailstorms), the
dogs who come and take away lambs in the night, or the organization of
Figure 3.1 The morning after the hailstorm.
Credit: Natasha Maru.
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ENGAGING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN THE NOW 41
a life on the move. Uncertainties exist at various scales. For example, the
dog attack happened in a single night at the spatial scale of the camp,
while uncertainties related to harvests and access to crop residues for
livestock fodder are regional and seasonal in scale. What is evident from
the experiences of Vasu’s family is that just as change is the only constant,
uncertainty is the only surety.
Pastoralists in western India have a long history of managing change and
uncertainty through their mobility. Whether it is variable environments,
disease outbreaks, or fluctuations in market conditions, pastoral systems
have evolved strategies, processes, and institutions for mobility to engage
with uncertainties. They are increasingly being valorized for their capacity
to adapt to, take advantage of, and overcome difficult circumstances (FAO,
2022). This view counters the dominant, and persistent, narratives of vulner-
ability, struggle, and coping with ‘harsh’ and ‘scarce’ environments, which
consequently underpin mainstream imaginaries of pastoralists as ‘backward’,
unproductive, and marginal (Butt, 2016).
Yet such views of successful adaptation have been challenged for being
apolitical, ignoring the increasing pressures that pastoralists face, as shown
by the frustration felt by Vasu’s family towards the end of the vignette.
Whether the challenges relate to anthropogenic climate change or a shift
in political economy geared towards more commercial crop-farming and
industry, pastoralists in western India, as elsewhere, bear a disproportionate
burden of adaptation.
In this chapter, I explore these tensions through a temporal lens to introduce
a new way of looking at mobility and uncertainty, and the limits of pasto-
ralists’ practices, based on a case study of the Rabari from Kachchh District in
Gujarat, India. Uncertainty can be understood in two ways: empirically, in
the sense of uncertain events and circumstances, and as a strategy applied
by pastoralists to adapt to new circumstances. I see variability and change
as intrinsically temporal, and these temporalities as central to pastoralists’
mobile practices, social relations, and institutions.
Highly attuned to shifts in their context, the pastoralists display flexibility
and agility to adapt to changes in the here-and-now. The ‘pastoral present’
thus serves as the arena for action where pastoralists engage with uncertainties
as they unfold; that is, in the now. Rather than a discrete period, the ‘now’
draws on experiences from the past to address expectations of the future.
Juxtaposed against these synchronized temporalities of pastoral mobility is
the rapidly shifting political economy of Kachchh modelled on fast-paced
neoliberal capitalism and globalization. This limits pastoralists’ abilities to
respond adaptively to uncertainties, with adverse policies undermining pasto-
ralists’ strategies.
While, on the one hand, pastoralists are being lauded for their ability to
counter mainstream narratives of unproductivity and destitution, on the
other hand, their capacities are challenged as shifts in political economy fail
to account for pastoral livelihoods.
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42 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
The Rabari: their context and pastoral practices
The Rabari describe their origin in a religious myth where the Hindu god,
Lord Shiva, created their forefather to take care of his wife’s camels (Westphal-
Hellbusch and Westphal, 1974). They are a prominent Hindu community from
the western Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, with some small groups
settled in central India. Many of the Rabari now keep small ruminants instead
and remain attached to their original identity as maldhari or pastoralist.
Rabari pastoralists are specialized livestock producers who are adept at taking
advantage of variabilities in the distribution of fodder resources in order to
secure optimum nutrition and wellbeing for their flock (FAO, 2021). They come
from multi-ethnic, multireligious, spatially segregated villages and have no
territory of their own (Mehta, 2005). Therefore, they rely on mutually beneficial
relationships with other groups such as farmers and local livestock-keepers to
graze on grassy commons and crop residues after harvests. They mostly graze
on cotton crop residue in the winter months and wheat crop residues in the
summer months, along with those of other crops such as castor, sesame, moong
beans, pigeon pea, sorghum, and cumin (Figure 3.2).
The pastoralists journey across the landscape in migrating groups of two
to ten flocks. Timing is very important for Rabari pastoral practices and
their mobility. The Rabari time their movements paying attention to several
rhythms, including crop lifecycles from sowing to harvest, animal lifecycles,
and lambing periods. Weather, especially rainfall, has a critical role in these
cycles. The migrating group, as a social institution, has imbibed these tempo-
ralities. It remains agile and can easily change labour and livestock composition
to adapt to the available fodder resources. These temporal aspects of mobility
are thus key to how pastoralists respond to uncertainties.
In recent decades, Gujarat has undergone some major shifts in its political
economy. Following a massive earthquake in Kachchh in 2001, the region
has seen statist developmentalism where major investment has come to
represent progress and modernity. Huge areas of the sparsely populated region
have been opened for large-scale export-oriented industries and commercial
agriculture, making Kachchh one of the fastest growing regions of India in
economic terms. Such developmentalism seeks to instil stability, order, and
productivity within a landscape that has long been considered wild, empty,
and ‘waste’ (Bharwada and Mahajan, 2006).
Most relevant for the pastoralists are the developments in the agricultural
sector. Genetically modified Bt cotton was introduced in India in 2002 and soon
became one of the biggest crops in Gujarat. Aided by new irrigation possibilities,
including through India’s largest dam project, the Sardar Sarovar Dam, along
with the subsidized supply of synthetic fertilizers, this has changed the region’s
agrarian landscape in profound ways. These developments have had major
implications for the temporalities of agrarian life: accelerated harvests have
been achieved by manipulating crop lifecycles, through seed hybridization, and
weather cycles have been changed through dam construction.
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ENGAGING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN THE NOW 43
Although these changes seem to favour industrialization and settled
agriculture to the detriment of pastoralism, pastoralists have found ways
to take advantage of such capital-driven developments. For example,
through the strategic pacing of their mobility in interaction with agrarian
dynamics, Rabari pastoralists have been able to avoid travelling long
distances. They receive not only nutritious protein-rich fodder, in the form
of cotton crop residues, but also income for the manure from their animals
from farmers who increasingly have the potential to pay and see value in
organic fertilizers.
ARABIAN SEA
ARABIAN
SEA
Rann of Kachchh
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New Delhi
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GUJARAT
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Figure 3.2 Map of the Kachchh study area
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44 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
At the same time, the pastoralists have become valuable contributors to
global livestock chains by meeting growing demands for animal source foods.
Nearly 700,000 live sheep and goats are exported from India each year, mostly
to the Middle East, making it a lucrative profession (TNN, 2020). In fact, the
Rabari pastoralists are even adapting their animal breeds in response to these
shifts as the wool market has declined in favour of the meat market.
Therefore, the pastoral production system remains tied to capitalist
development and has adapted to changes over time in a way similar to
the Rabari of Rajasthan as described by Robbins (2004). For example, while
agriculture policies in western India neglect pastoralism and promote
commercial crops, pastoralists adapt to these changes by synchronizing
their movements with harvest times. They not only receive fodder access
but also capitalize on the growing agrarian market by earning income
through manure exchange. While changes in political economy seek to push
pastoralism outwards to its margins, it grows inwards towards the centre of
the regional economy. Rather than subvert or submit to changes emerging
from capitalist development and globalization, the pastoralists engage with
these processes dialectically, ‘not only to enhance the possibility of survival
but also to reclaim the material and symbolic conditions for the flourishing
of life’ (Kolinjivadi et al., 2020: 907).
Yet, although the pastoralists remain economically relevant, they continue
to face social marginalization. This has many implications. Locally, religious
proscription in the region affects them economically by interrupting the sale
of animals for slaughter and also asks them to justify socially their paap no
dandho (sacrilegious work). In a broader sense, pastoralism continues to be
seen as out of kilter with the dominant paradigm of progress, modernity, and
development, leading to the neglect or active marginalization of pastoralists.
Given these changing contexts, there are limits as to how far the pastoralists
can be expected to adapt. Understanding this requires a deeper unravelling of
the dynamics of uncertainty and its implications for development.
Uncertainty, mobility, and the now
‘Tamne khabar hati aavu thashe?’ (‘Did you know this would happen?’), I asked
Harjanbhai, the elderly leader of Vasu’s migrating group, about the hailstorm.
We were sat under a tarp, tied loosely over the charpoys for shelter, along
with a few other members of the group. Harjanbhai, as the leader or mukhi
of the group, was responsible for securing grazing for the five flocks that had
chosen to accompany him: ‘Kon jaane?’ (‘Who knows?’), ‘Amane kem khabar
hoy?’ (‘How would we know?’), ‘Bhagwan jaane’ (‘God knows’), ‘Kai nakki na
kehavaay’ (‘Nothing can be said for certain’).
In fact, these are the kind of responses I received in many different circum-
stances. For example, the pastoralists change group configuration throughout
the year in response to contextual specificities. But when asked who they were
planning to move with in the next season, they would indicate ambiguity
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ENGAGING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN THE NOW 45
by saying ‘E toh kai nakki na kehavay’ (‘That cannot be said for certain.’)
They might, in practice, travel with the same group year after year but they
keep their options open to be able to adapt to variable conditions as they
encounter them. Embracing uncertainty and allowing for multiple possibil-
ities, as reflected in discourse, is key to maintaining the flexibility integrated
within the social institution of the migrating group, and this allows them to
adapt to uncertain events through their mobility.
Similarly, Vasu knows that travelling to Gujarat with Harjanbhai is a
possibility, but that choice is not made until closer to the time of departing
from Kachchh, once fodder conditions are known. Therefore, there is always a
temporal horizon to uncertainty. By this, I mean the temporal distance within
which objects and events come to influence behaviour such as mobility.
This is not a discrete period along a linear timeline of past, present, and future
but, rather, a temporal consciousness within which experiences of the past,
and aspirations, expectations, and fears for the future intertwine with and
shape the present. Rather than remaining separated from the past and future,
the pastoralists act in an ever-evolving now. The temporal horizon of the
‘nomadic present’ or now means that reasoning moves between knowledge
from past experiences and future expectations by ‘tacking back and forth
between nitty-gritty specificities of available empirical information and more
abstract ways of thinking about them’ (Adams et al., 2009: 255). It is therefore
a ‘constitutive and productive heterogeneity, a circulation of multiple times
in a single instant’ (Luckhurst and Marks, 1999 quoted in Burges and Elias,
2016: 4). Therefore, the now is the contingent cumulation of history and
context rather than an abstracted and discrete moment.
The Rabari pastoralists have a long history of managing change and
variability. Their temporal horizon remains highly attuned to shifts in context.
They do not seem to get bogged down in speculation about things they are
unable to control or foresee. Rather, they rely on past experience and their
networks to assimilate knowledge on the go, in the here-and-now, as events
unfold. They operationalize this knowledge in the form of mobility decisions
that ensure the best outcomes for their flock. For example, given the available
information regarding weather and fodder conditions in the area, as well as
the labour capacities across the migrating group, Harjanbhai decided that it
was time for his migration group to set off on their journey. They were, firstly,
able to manage the composition of their group and, secondly, decide on where
and when to go, having scouted the area and asked for information from a
range of contacts.
At the same time, the group confronted several uncertainties. While
they were aware of the occurrence of hail as a weather phenomenon, it was
completely unexpected that day, and its likelihood could not have been
predicted. Similarly, while they were aware of the possibility of a wild dog
taking away their lambs, the likelihood of this happening was completely
skewed by the weather event – instead of keeping the lambs in the pen with
the adult animals, the lambs were kept under the tarp to save them from
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46 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
getting wet and ill. The menfolk were also sleeping under the tarpaulin,
instead of keeping guard close to the pen, and the storm obscured the vision
of those who might have otherwise seen a roving dog.
Following the events described, the group decided to move to a different
area the next day – somewhere stonier so that wet soil would not hamper
the sheep’s movements. This demonstrates the pastoralists’ ability to read the
environment and understand the interaction between natural elements such
as soil and rain. They relied on their experiential knowledge of the terrain
to decide on their moves. It reflects their contextually embedded flexibility,
the agility, the ‘built-in elasticity’ to perceive and respond immediately to
change (Hazan and Hertzog, 2011: 1). Such real-time responsiveness relies
upon the mobility of the system, characterized by mobile assets – the animals,
the leanness of the camps, knowledge of the terrain, and the social relations
built over generations.
The role of the mukhi or the leader is crucial in these decisions. Mukhis
such as Harjanbhai are self-appointed leaders of a migrating group who take
charge of ensuring fodder availability for a group of flocks under their charge.
The mukhi is familiar with the landscape and has the social resources and
communication skills needed to negotiate and make decisions regarding
fodder access. He understands not only the ‘right’ place to move to but also
the ‘right’ time to move. He has a kairological understanding of time based
on past experiences and intuition. In contrast to the abstracted, objective,
and impersonal time of chronology or chronos, kairos is the perception of
‘temporal opportunities’ (Maffesoli, 1998: 110), ‘the moment that must be
seized’ (Ingold, 2000: 335) and ‘time considered in relation to personal action,
in reference to ends to be achieved in it’ (Robinson, 1950 quoted in Jacques,
1982/1990). The mukhi grasps opportune moments and makes decisions that
are both calculated and spontaneous, informed as well as instinctive.
As such, the mukhi thus performs the role of a ‘reliability professional’
(Roe, 2020) who manages uncertainties by employing various mobility strategies
to reduce variability. He is able to assimilate knowledge from multiple sources
and scales across networks, bringing core considerations within the temporal
horizon. He has a step firmly in the present with a view towards the future,
while relying on past knowledge. Moreover, he acts as a broker, mediator, and
negotiator within networks, relying on experience, tacit knowledge, diverse
senses, emotional intelligence, intuition, and networking.
The migrating group also integrates temporalities within its social institution
as it shape-shifts to reflect mobility decisions. While Harjanbhai’s group was
experiencing the hail away from their home village, another migrating group,
that of Nathubhai, stood at the outskirts of their village. Nathubhai’s camel
drowned and died unexpectedly while grazing in the mangroves close to the
village. Unable to travel long distances without the help of a camel to carry
their belongings, Nathubhai was forced to remain around his village where
he could rely on the support of friends and relatives to move camp. This also
meant that he chose to remain with a single flock rather than join others in a
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ENGAGING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN THE NOW 47
group. A single flock is able to sustain itself within a limited area as its fodder
requirements are lower than a large group. The modularity and dexterity of the
migrating group supported Nathubhai in facing the uncertainties emerging
from the death of his camel and to modify the spatio-temporal organization
of his mobility to meet fodder availability.
The same property of a migrating group was operationalized by Vasu. Her
father had unexpectedly passed away in the bush the previous year, leaving
her and her brothers responsible for taking care of their animals. While they
normally travelled with their uncle Hemangbhai’s migrating group, this year,
they had chosen to go with Harjanbhai instead, changing the composition
of both groups. While such choices call for delicate social navigation, the
institution of the migration group allows members to freely exit and enter a
group at any time and is adaptable to such changes, also indicated through
the phrase kai nakki na kehavay (nothing can be said for certain).
Thus, mobility and its temporalities are key to pastoral adaptation
to uncertainty in western India at various spatial and temporal scales.
The practices, social relations, and institutions of mobility are flexible,
prompt, and modular in design to enable the pastoralists to adapt to new and
unknown circumstances as they emerge. Being so attuned means that rather
than following a linear path, the pastoralists embrace uncertainty as a strategy
and act in response to an ever-changing present.
Limits to adaptations to uncertainty
The previous section has highlighted the adaptive capacity of Rabari pasto-
ralists to respond to uncertainties across space and time through movement.
Crucial to this are real-time adjustments made in the now. A focus on the
nomadic present therefore enhances the agility of pastoral systems and opens
alternative possibilities.
Understandings of pastoralism through an uncertainty lens challenge
mainstream framings that see pastoralists as ‘outdated, irrational, stagnant,
unproductive, and ecologically damaging’ (Butt, 2016: 463). Such a perspective
shows the capacity of pastoralists to not only manage but also take
advantage of variable conditions (Krätli and Schareika, 2010). Yet while, on
the one hand, pastoralists are being lauded for their flexibility and mobility,
on the other, their capacity to adapt is challenged further as shifts in political
economy fail to account for pastoral livelihoods. Despite growing recognition
of pastoralism within international development as both economically viable
and environmentally beneficial, the ‘sediment of nomadism’ (Kaufmann,
2009) continues to undermine pastoralism and privilege linear visions of
modernity, development, and progress.
In Kachchh, such developmentalism has led to the structural oppression
and marginalization of pastoralists through adverse policies, as discussed earlier.
The transformation of the political economy in Kachchh has rendered the pasto-
ralists out of kilter with, and irrelevant in, popular imaginaries of progress and
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48 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
development. The temporal horizon within which pastoral action is oriented is
increasingly being disrupted through shifts in political economy. Borrowing from
Rosa (2013), the Rabari pastoralists can be seen as facing three levels of accel-
eration – technological acceleration, which is evident in transportation, commu-
nication, and production; acceleration in social change, in cultural knowledge,
social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of
life – that are transforming the temporal structure of society. Such accelerations
are shifting the template of social life, such that the past can no longer inform the
future, leading to a ‘contraction of the present’ (Rosa, 2013: 76).
Bauman (2000), too, suggests that the fluidity of a ‘liquid modernity’
is disrupting the templates that govern social life. In this zadapi zamano
(fast age) ‘only the sky (or, as it transpired later, the speed of light) was
now the limit, and modernity was one continuous, unstoppable and fast
accelerating effort to reach it’ (Bauman, 2000: 9). Similarly, Guyer (2007)
shows that there has been an evacuation of the near past and the near
future in favour of significant short- or long-sightedness as contemporary
modernities recast temporality.
These shifts have significant implications for Rabari pastoralism. Such
changes in temporal horizons disrupt nomadic temporalities, limiting the
pastoralists’ capacity to adapt. For example, Nathubhai’s eldest son, Valo,
was never sent to school and had been sheep-herding since he was young.
Yet now, given the negative discourses surrounding pastoralism, he wishes to
exit and try his hand at a new profession. With greater access to information
and images of quick success floating in through his smartphone, his vision
has expanded from the immediate shifts in his surroundings to longer-term
concerns about the future.
He has tried to exit pastoralism and gain access to several alternatives, such
as setting up a dairy or working as a taxi driver, or taking up a job in a factory,
but his attempts have been unsuccessful. He has returned to the animals each
time as pastoralism continues to be economically viable, even if politically
marginalized. At the same time, while he faces precarity regarding his job and
future in the short term, his lack of education being a long-term disadvantage,
his migrating group suffers as well. In the short run, they are unable to opera-
tionalize strategies like herd-splitting or destocking.
Valo’s young wife, Seju, also does not wish to travel in the bush with
the camp. They have abandoned the camel as a draught animal and begun
migrating with a van to make the journey more comfortable and improve
their social status, affecting the socio-temporal organization of their mobility
as well as the group structure. In the longer term, Seju wishes to remain in the
village to educate her children so that they may access alternative livelihood
opportunities. Given these circumstances and uncertainties for the future,
Nathubhai remains dismayed at the failure of generational succession for his
livelihood and flock.
Therefore, while the Rabari display immense flexibility and adaptability in
the face of uncertainties, we must ask: Why must pastoralists always adapt,
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ENGAGING WITH UNCERTAINTIES IN THE NOW 49
and for how long? Why must they bear the burden of unfavourable policies
rather than demand safeguards and enabling environments? When options for
flexible adaptation are increasingly constrained and difficult to realize, pasto-
ralists’ agency is reduced in the face of political-economic forces outside their
control. Hence, there is a thin line between highlighting adaptability even
under challenging circumstances and becoming insensitive to the slow violence
of accelerated transformations under capitalism (Fitz-Henry, 2017).
Therefore, not only is it crucial to recognize uncertain circumstances and
the inherently ambiguous, flexible, and uncertain strategies and structures of
the pastoralists, but it is also important to draw from pastoralism the more
fundamental challenges to the singular views of progress, modernity, and
development that underpin restrictive policies. There are always multiple
development trajectories, and avoiding the invisible foreclosing of possible,
alternative futures must be prioritized.
Instead, embracing uncertainties as a framework offers a more plural vision
of progress with multiple versions of modernity that incorporate different
viewpoints and pathways (cf. Scoones and Stirling, 2020). It disrupts the
binaries that pitch pastoralists in opposition to progress and development.
It recognizes the contemporaneity of pastoral strategies and capacities and so
allows for the reclaiming of the pastoral present.
References
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CHAPTER 4
Hybrid rangeland governance: ways of
living with and from uncertainty in pastoral
Amdo Tibet, China
Palden Tsering
Introduction
Ecological, social, political, and economic variabilities combine in the pastoral
areas of Amdo Tibet in China, bringing with them multiple uncertainties.
Findin g ways to respond to these uncertainties is central to pastoralists’
successful use of rangelands. During my fieldwork, I would ask people, ‘How
do you understand uncertainty?’ I can still recall the first time I posed this
question when visiting the winter pastures in the southern part of Kokonor in
November 2018. In a small winter house, while sipping milk tea, the host, Suby,
a male pastoralist with a white baseball cap, sunglasses, and ruddy cheeks, said
calmly, ‘Why worry about uncertainty? We cannot foretell anything, so why
bother to worry about tomorrow? Yesterday is already the past, and we do
everything we can to address the issues of today.’
Like Suby, pastoralists across Amdo Tibet have long faced highly variable
conditions such as tribal disputes, natural disasters, climate change, and
policy shifts. In other words, pastoralists have always lived with uncertainties;
to them, uncertainty is the only certainty. Such collective world-views and
beliefs about uncertainty are in turn reflected in livelihood and management
strategies. This is why it was important to understand uncertainty through
the eyes of pastoralists. From 2019 to 2022, I conducted in-depth interviews,
focus group discussions, participant observation, and photovoice exercises
in Saga and Lumu villages, two pastoral settings in Amdo Tibet, China
(Figure 4.1).
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52 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Seeing uncertainty in pastoral Amdo Tibet
How different groups of people construct knowledge through constant
engagement with the dynamic world is the key to exploring the under-
standings and implications of uncertainty in the Tibetan context. In other
words, pastoralists’ knowledge not only reflects their beliefs and world-views
but also actively shapes the changing world.
G315
G315
G6
G6
G6
G109
G109
G214
G214
Qinghai Lake
Xining
Shinaihai Xiang
Qieji Xiang
Tanggemu Zhen
Heimahe
Xiang
Jiangxigou
Xiang
Qiabuqia Zhen
Daotanghe Zhen
Beijing
Gonghe
County
Xinghai
County
Guinan
County
HAINAN TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS
PREFECTURE
GOLOK TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS
PREFECTURE
HAINAN TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS
PREFECTURE
QINGHAI
CHINA
RUSSIA
INDIA
MONGOLIA
MYANMAR
NEPAL
TAIWAN
KAZAKHSTAN
County boundary
Main town
Town
Highway
Main road
Area of interest
(study site)
KEY
0 20 km10 155
Qinghai
Figure 4.1 Saga and Lumu in Amdo Tibet, China
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HYBRID RANGELAND GOVERNANCE 53
The uncertainties that pastoralists are most focused on are visible, traceable,
everyday uncertainties, where people have the capacities to make a difference.
During the photovoice sessions, pastoralists rarely identified political and
policy shifts as sources of uncertainty.1 This does not mean that pastoralists
are unaware of such uncertainties: they all experience the consequences
of major policy changes, resource grabbing, and ecological resettlement.
They opt instead to disregard these uncertainties because they are outside their
control; their voices are not heard and they have limited agency in relation to
externally imposed policies.
In Tibetan Buddhism studies, uncertainty and the closely related terms
‘impermanence’, ‘emptiness’, and ‘mid-way’ are widely explored (Thanissaro,
2012; Todd, 2015). I got the opportunity to visit a Geshe (དགེ་བཤེས། 格西, the title
given to a Tibetan Bhuddist scholar) from Saga in his cave-like quarters on
a lovely summer afternoon in August 2019. The Geshe fully comprehended
my explanation of uncertainty – focused on the condition where we don’t
know the likelihood of certain outcomes (see Chapter 1) – but he found it
difficult to identify an equivalent Tibetan term. After finishing his butter tea
from a brown wooden bowl, the Geshe began to explain his interpretations:
‘In Buddhism, we use mi rtag pa:2 what happened is already in the past, and
what is going to happen is unpredictable; all we can depend on is the present,
we deal with what is happening now.’
The Buddhist perspective on uncertainty centres on the nature of the
consequences. As indicated by the Geshe’s quote, things change due to their
impermanence. Thus, it is vital to recognize that the ultimate consequence
of everything is destructive in order to embrace the ongoing, perpetual,
and contingent flow of processes and relations. In this perspective,
uncertainty is the impermanent consequence of constant changes, and
thus the interpretation stresses the realization, acceptance, and embracing
of changing realities.
The expression mi rtag pa is widely used to denote that the condition
of things is always changing and disappearing in each instant. The term
emphasizes the impermanent and destructive aspect of existence, since
nothing is permanent but only continuously changes. Nevertheless, as
the Geshe explained, the understanding of uncertainty has other connota-
tions: ‘Uncertainty is everywhere, it is unpredictable, unimaginable, but
unlike the concept of mi rtag pa, it has consequences, results, and particular
impacts.’
After this discussion, the Geshe offered the term nges med (ངེས་མེད་འགྱུར་ལྡོག), which
refers to the Buddhist concept of change in motion, the state of continuous
change. nges med, unlike mi rtag pa, focuses on the continuity of change, its
processes and relations. The state of society or the local ecosystem therefore
has to be understood in relation to constantly changing processes – both
past and present – as verbs, not nouns (Hertz et al., 2020). For instance, in
the case of the expansion of the Kokonor lake, which is taking up important
pasture and displacing pastoralists, the cause – whether climate change
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54 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
or expanding conservation efforts – is less of a concern compared to the
consequences. As the Geshe stressed, nges Med does not provide a compre-
hensive understanding and so additional phrases are required to illustrate
uncertainty.
Bsam yul las das pa is commonly used by both secular and non-secular
Tibetans. It refers to things, events, and states that are beyond one’s
imagination, thought, and experience. If something is bsam yul las das pa, it
pertains to things that are unpredictable and unmeasurable, a state of simply
not knowing that cannot be prepared for.
Bsam, the Tibetan word for thought, refers to the capacity for thought
or thinking ability. Yul signifies the location or object, which here refers to
the object of the thought, whereas das pa refers to things beyond thought
and capacity for thought. This phrase therefore implies the consequences
of the ongoing and changing processes, with the emphasis on responses
to unexpected outcomes. However, in this case, experiences are key and
conditions of those experiences matter for possibilities of adaptation and
transformation.
As West et al. (2020: 311) argue, our engagement with ‘the social,
material and technological aspects of holistic, unfolding situations
produces experience’. As the Geshe concluded, bsam yul las das pa refers to
the things and events beyond one’s experience; thus, uncertainties such as
snowstorms and wildlife attacks are not included, as they are more or less
resolvable based on existing and accumulated experiences and practices,
despite the fact that the forms and scale of these uncertainties vary over
time and space. Pastoralists are able to respond to such uncertainties due to
their accumulated individual and collective experiences, inherited over time
across generations. Thus, bsam yul las das pa focuses on the realm of novelty,
particularly things and events that are beyond one’s experience, where no
responses have been worked out before.
Through my discussions with the Geshe and others, I learned that there
is no single, definitive, equivalent Tibetan term for ‘uncertainty’; rather,
there are multiple phrases and expressions that convey the term in different
contexts. Mi rtag pa focuses on the impermanent consequences of things; nges
med emphasizes the ongoing process, while bsam yul las das pa relates to the
conditions of experience (Table 4.1).
Table 4.1 Different responses to uncertainty in the Tibetan context
Different context Different foci Different responses
Mi rtag pa Impermanence Staying with the changes/
vulnerability unmeasurable
Nges med Ongoing process
ofchange
Customizing rules and relations/
adaptabilities and transformability/
vulnerability depends on variables
Bsam yul las das pa Conditions of experience Experiences from the past matter
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HYBRID RANGELAND GOVERNANCE 55
Uncertainty in the Tibetan context
However, in their day-to-day practice, pastoralists must continuously adapt to
uncertainties, making use of a well-developed, practical repertoire of responses,
even if the terms used are varied. In order to go beyond the philosophical
debates around terms and phrases, I explored ideas of uncertainty in grounded
contexts through two rounds of photovoice discussion (see Chapter 2).3
In these exercises, pastoralists – both men and women in the two sites in
Amdo – expressed their understandings of uncertainty through photographs
and narrative interpretations. During a photovoice discussion in November
2019, TJ, a father of three children from Golok, shared his perspective,
reflecting on a photograph of a senior couple who chose to stay with their
livestock on the pastures.
Pastoralism is the only thing we are good at. Most of the elders already
moved to the town and close to the monasteries. And I think the further
you get away from your grassland, the more uncertain your life gets. For
example, the quality of the food you take is mi rtag pa (uncertainty); the
milk powder you buy for your grandchildren is mi rtag pa; the fake butter
and raw meat you purchase from the market is mi rtag pa. You are not
sure (mi rtag pa) about the prices of the electricity and gas that you pay
monthly for the heat because you don’t collect yak dung anymore. You
are not sure (mi rtag pa) about your wellbeing because you don’t share
stories and you don’t have temples and stupas to circulate. Therefore, the
only certain thing for us is pastoralism, even though there are uncertain
occasions like heavy snowfall and wildlife attacks. But compared to the
urban and non-pastoral way of life, our life is more certain in all different
ways because we are familiar with and we know how to handle things.
Uncertainty, according to TJ, consists of unexpected relationships and inter-
actions with the environment, which is why his familiar lifestyle inspires
confidence. In the same discussion, TJ emphasized that, ‘According to Tibetan
Buddhism, all existence is impermanent, and uncertainty is one of its aspects.
It does not imply that we should give up because everything eventually comes
to an end. Realizing the fundamental nature of existence is the essence of
impermanence and uncertainty, and this understanding enables us to make
decisions throughout the various periods of life when confronted with
uncertainties.’
Another reflection on uncertainty comes from Lhamo, a mother of two sons.
During a group discussion in Saga, Kokonor, in January 2020, she noted:
One of the many mi rtag pa (uncertainties), and the one most pertinent
to pastoralism, is the loss of pasture due to lake expansion. The loss
made life difficult for my family and me. I was born on this property as
a pastoralist and grew up herding the flock and consuming the milk and
meat of the animals. My primary source of family income is the sale of
animals and dairy products, such as butter and cheese. Due to the loss
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56 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
of land, it is now extremely difficult to earn a living. We must now rent
pasture from relatives and friends, and these pastures are frequently of
lower quality and further away. Therefore, renting pasture and herding
livestock now necessitates greater investments in land, labour, and
transportation.
However, we all know that this [lake expansion and land loss] is not
going to be permanent; the lake expands and also shrinks. Moreover,
we started to do eco-tourism here, my sons have started a home-stay
centre here for the tourists, and it is good money, especially during
summer time. So, this Mi Rtag Pa will also change, and we will have
our pasture back.
Uncertainty, according to Lhamo, is not something permanent; rather, it is
central to the fluidity of things. Uncertainty brings challenges but also oppor-
tunities for transformations; in her case, gaining profit from engaging in
eco-tourism on the winter pasture. Thus, in the Tibetan context, the essence
of uncertainty is centred on fluidity, something that is always in motion
and is focused on the immediate challenges of things that are ‘taking place’.
Uncertainty is therefore the endless combination of dynamic processes and
relations from various actors and realms, whether material or immaterial, and
so central to pastoral livelihoods.
The fluid processes and connections at the centre of interactions between
nature and humans enable pastoralists both to live with and from uncertainty,
making use of uncertainties as possibilities and opportunities for adaptation
and transformation (Mancilla García et al., 2020). Thus, embracing uncertainty
means focusing on interactions within and between ongoing complex
adaptive systems (Preiser et al., 2018). The question then becomes how Amdo
pastoralists transform these perceptions into actions on the ground.
Living with and from uncertainty
Increasing uncertainties pose considerable challenges for governing
rangelands. Uncertainties include climate change, new large-scale infrastruc-
tural investments, the establishment of new settlements, resource grabbing,
and land fragmentation. All these combine to increase the challenges for
pastoral livelihoods. Navigating uncertainties, responding to the negative
effects, and making use of opportunities requires considerable skill and has
resulted in a series of practical innovations around rangeland governance: the
management of land used by pastoral livestock.
Pastoralists’ strategies must also confront state policies on rangeland
governance, which add another layer of uncertainty. In recent decades, these
have taken a market-oriented stance linked to policies for ‘rural vitalization’,
‘ecological civilization’, and the reinforcing of private property rights. Through
these policies, the state has provided incentives for changing land use on the
rangelands. However, these changes may not help with navigating diverse
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HYBRID RANGELAND GOVERNANCE 57
uncertainties and sustaining pastoral livelihoods, so pastoralists always have
to seek compromises between local practices and state impositions.
State policies invariably assume a stable, regulated form of property and
land use, with clearly defined patterns of tenure. On the ground, however,
pastoralists must maintain more flexible, negotiated, hybrid arrangements
to live with and from diverse uncertainties. The disconnection between
what state policies and what exists on the ground is sometimes the basis for
contention and conflict. However, the state’s ability to impose and enforce
is always limited, and compromises emerge. This results in a hybrid constel-
lation of roles, rules, and relationships, which allow pastoralists to navigate
uncertainties effectively (Scott, 1990; Simula et al., 2020; Tsering, 2022a).
As a result, various arrangements around land use are improvised, refor-
mulated, and remade from below. These do not necessarily directly challenge
state power (e.g., Hall et al., 2015; Ptáčková, 2019); rather, pastoralists try to
find ways to negotiate, seeking practical solutions that work in local contexts.
These emerge through what I call ‘practices of assemblage’ (Tsering, 2022a, b;
Li, 2014), where local practices emerge in response to uncertain contexts
(Ho, 2005, 2017; Heilmann and Perry, 2011; Yeh et al., 2013; Scoones et al.,
2018). As the cases below show, assemblage is the technique of drawing
heterogeneous elements together, forging connections between them, and
sustaining these relationships in the face of uncertainty (Li 2014, 2021).
Rangeland governance is therefore not restricted to formal edicts from the
state but is centred on the fluid practices, negotiations, and contestations
involving multiple resource user groups on the ground.
The following two sections explore such hybrid rangeland governance in
Amdo Tibet, highlighting how uncertainties are embraced through perfor-
mative practices situated in context, and how responses are assembled through
a variety of means.
The role of the monasteries in resource governance
In pastoral Lumu in Golok, the role of the monastery is pervasive in everyday
social, cultural, and religious life. Despite the central state’s power, there is a
need to combine diverse forms of authority, and this results in the emergence
of negotiations around highly contentious state policies. The case of the
construction of a mineral water factory on a private winter pasture in Lumu
showed how pastoralists, or ‘rangeland contractors’4 often approached the
monastery for advice.
As Uncle Bam a contractor on the land, reflected when interviewed in
February 2021:
I went to the monastery and consulted the incarnate, the incarnate
recommended not to give the permit [to the water factory company]
because a mineral water factory will bring damage to the water, not only
the water we drink, but also the water that our livestock, the wildlife,
and the downstream villagers use.
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58 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
In Lumu, the monastery serves as both the local authority and intermediator
between the villages and local government. It takes these roles seriously
and, consequently, the de facto use and access to resources is continuously
negotiated and contested with the participation of various resource users
(Tsering, 2019; Simula et al., 2020). In December 2019, Jab, the monastery
secretary, concluded:
The monastery is determined to serve all sentient beings. We are never
opposed to development, we just worry about how to develop. This land
belongs to the pastoralists, the monastery, livestock, and wildlife.
Therefore, we cannot just give the land for a mineral water factory; this
is selfish. We must think about others because all things are intercon-
nected, and we must remember this.
This use of rangeland in Lumu is governed not only by land contractors but
also their relationships with the bigger world, including the monastery. Land
is viewed as pasture for livestock, as a habitat for wildlife, and as a sacred site
for the monastery. The inclusion of the monastery is therefore crucial in any
decision linked to rangelands and land use in the area.
The existence of the monastic network and the mediation role of religious
leaders are essential for negotiation-based, hybrid rangeland management.
The presence of the monastery also creates ‘possibility spaces’ (directly or
indirectly) for participation and engagement of local pastoralists in policy
Figure 4.2 Members of the local monastery carrying hay for the blue sheep in Golok.
Credit: Palden Tsering
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HYBRID RANGELAND GOVERNANCE 59
processes, allowing them to claim their rights to land, sometimes confronting
powerful external investors.
Pluralist resource governance
In Saga village, near the Kokonor lake area, pastoralists must work with
many actors to strengthen their bargaining power and advance their own
interests in the face of strong efforts to change land use by external actors,
both state conservation agencies and private investors interested in the
tourism potential of the area. Rather than direct confrontation, pastoralists
challenge government policies through informal networks and more hidden
forms of passive resistance (Scott, 1985, 1990). These forms of resistance
can be seen from pastoralists’ flexible ways of responding to different state
projects. Interviewed in February 2021, Uncle Bam, the former village party
secretary, explained:
The government claimed that the village needed a grazing ban zone in
order to receive the subsidy. Pastoralists wanted the subsidy and also
worried that they would no longer be able to herd livestock. Therefore,
the village decided to design the collectively used summer pasture as the
grazing ban zone because it is far away from the government; therefore,
it will be hard for inspections.
Subsidies are allocated to pastoralists if they agree to prioritize rangeland
conservation over animal grazing, through designating their pasture as
part of the grazing ban zone and decreasing animal numbers. This is in
line with state policies for conserving rangeland due to ecological concerns
about rangeland degradation and desertification. But, according to Uncle
Bam, there were many local, collective concerns about rangeland loss due
to government projects, such as the grazing ban zone policy. Instead of
complying completely, pastoralists opted to maximize rangeland use by
designating an area for the ‘ban’ that was used for only a few weeks, was
far from the township centre, and was not subject to regular inspections,
so could still be used surreptitiously. Meanwhile, pastoralists shifted their
grazing to the winter pasture areas that were not being targeted by the state.
This meant that pastoralists moderated the impacts of the state project
by adjusting their use of rangeland areas, making use of their livestock
management abilities to adapt.
Apa Tashi, a 58-year-old herder who lost half of his winter pasture to the
lake, complained:
They [the government] always choose quick-fix solutions. They relocated
my family to the township centre right after the lake expansion. It is
acceptable for me to move to the township, but as a pastoralist, my
livelihood depends on livestock and rangeland. What is the good if
I cannot make my belly full [living in the township without livestock
and land]? It will only create issues for the government.
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60 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
As Apa Tashi argued in this July 2020 interview, quick-fix solutions may
resolve temporary issues (in his case, the loss of a winter house to the lake
expansion), but further livelihood policies for the landless pastoralists need
to be negotiated. Apa Tashi’s access to the rangeland is critical to his capacity
to continue his way of life. Numerous state-designed strategies for rangeland
conservation and mitigation of lake expansion have consistently targeted the
removal of pastoralists from their rangelands as a solution.
However, some pastoralists view policies such as the grazing ban and reset-
tlement as advantageous. For some, the creation of the grazing ban zone on
the summer pasture worked out well. In another interview in July 2020, Apa
Libo, who sold all his livestock and moved to the township centre in 2015,
told me:
I am happy the village and the government [township level] designed
the summer pasture as the grazing ban zone because I don’t have any
livestock; thus, summer pasture is useless to me, and now there is money
[the grazing ban subsidy], which is great for those who don’t graze on
the summer pasture.
Others with few animals move their stock to the winter pasture and so also do
not worry about the ban.
In this case, for those other than some larger livestock owners, the
negotiated solution worked out well. The hybrid arrangement, a result of
informal negotiation and centred on hidden forms of compromise agreement,
provided a solution whereby pastoralists both received a subsidy and could
continue to graze their animals. The intermediation of local government
officials at village and township level helped with the negotiation, and for
now at least, a satisfactory outcome has been brokered.
Negotiating solutions for adaptive responses
Both cases show how uncertainties emerging from state policies and
competition over resources from multiple actors (exacerbated by climate
change in the case of the lake expansion) were addressed by creating new,
brokered solutions. The process of assemblage, responding to the unfolding
and fluid nature of each context, resulted in new elements being composed,
with new roles, rules, and relationships constantly emerging.
As state policies shift, so must the local practices of assemblage and
the form of hybridity in land governance that emerges at a local level
in response to uncertainty. Collaborative approaches to assemblage
involving multiple actors result in higher participation from resource users,
greater investment in appraisal before the design and implementation of
interventions, and improved conflict negotiation mechanisms. All these
elements are important for the adaptive management of resources and
the building of resilience under uncertain conditions (Berkes et al., 2000;
Folke, 2006, 2016).
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HYBRID RANGELAND GOVERNANCE 61
This has practical implications for how resource management is designed
and practised in rangeland areas such as Amdo Tibet. If uncertainties are to
be embraced, and lived with and from, authorities must devote additional
time and effort to becoming informed about local contexts during policy
design, formulation, and implementation. Informed policymaking stresses a
thorough understanding of local politics, power dynamics, power relations,
and grounded practices. If processes of assemblage are to be facilitated,
multilateral and multilayered processes involving multiple actors always
need to be encouraged.
In the Amdo Tibet case, this means that local government officials (at the
prefectural, county, and township level), local institutions (the monastery,
nunnery, monastic associations, grass-roots civic organizations), and pasto-
ralists themselves (as landholders and users) all need to engage in the
formulation, reformulation, and implementation of policies. This means
a shift away from a centralized, fixed, and dominant style of policymaking
towards an inclusive, co-produced policy process that stimulates inclusion
and innovation.
An informed approach to policymaking thus means not just seeing
through the eyes of pastoralists but also thinking as they do, grasping how
‘uncertainty’ is understood through local, culturally embedded perceptions,
as discussed earlier. In this way, with common understandings, a hybrid
approach may facilitate interactions, negotiations, and bargaining between
informal and formal authorities over policy outcomes.
Pastoralists are not necessarily opposing a particular policy or inter-
vention; rather, they challenge top-down designs and try to incorporate
new initiatives from the government into their local repertoires. They must
adapt continuously, tailoring materials at hand through customizing roles,
enlisting different players into their networks – such as the monastery or local
government officials, for example – through various practices of assemblage,
and so constructing new rules for resource management in a plural, highly
fluid context.
In this way, what I call hybrid governance of rangelands emerges. As a route
to more effective cooperation, mutual understanding, and co-production
amongst diverse actors, the process offers opportunities for the state to see
plans emerge more effectively, while for pastoralists, options are more likely to
be embedded in existing practices, allowing them to continue their production
and respond flexibly to uncertainty.
Conclusion
There is no single, definitive Tibetan term for uncertainty; rather,
different phrases convey the concept in various circumstances. The core of
uncertainty in the Tibetan context is fluidity, something that is constantly
in motion and constituted through things that are ‘happening’. Uncertainty
is the unending mixing of dynamic processes and relationships between
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62 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
diverse material and immaterial actors and domains. The interdependent
relationship between humans and nature enables pastoralists to live with and
from uncertainty, utilizing uncertainties as possibility spaces for adaptation
and transformation.
Through multi-case ethnographic research and a mixed method approach
in two pastoral villages in Amdo Tibet, China, findings reveal that ongoing
rangeland governance practices are constructed through different practices
of assemblage. The result is a hybrid regime that goes beyond the classic
description of private, common, or state-led forms of tenure. A hybrid
approach – and especially the process of building assemblages of actors,
practices, technologies, and forms of knowledge – in turn allows herders
both to respond to uncertainties as they arise, as well as make the most of
opportunities that emerge from uncertain settings.
Notes
1. See seeingpastoralism.org.
2. མི་རྟག་པ།, impermanence, refers to the state of things that are changing and
disappearing each instant.
3. Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris defined photovoice in the early
1990s as ‘a participatory action research method, from the photos that
the participants took, people can identify, represent, and enhance their
community through a specific photographic technique’ (Wang and
Burris, 1997; Bennett and Dearden, 2013, quoted in Apaza and DeSantis
(2011: 369)). See more on the PASTRES Photovoice website, seeingpasto-
ralism.org.
4. This specifically refers to the holders of a rangeland household contract.
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CHAPTER 5
Uncertainty, markets, and pastoralism
inSardinia, Italy
Giulia Simula
Introduction
In Sardinia in Italy, pastoralists constitute the great majority of those who work in
agriculture. (Sardegna Agricoltura, 2013). The most important pastoral products
are sheep milk and cheese, and the quantities produced stand out in both the
Italian and European markets, with Sardinia as the Italian region where most
sheep cheese is produced and a leading region in Europe (Ismea, 2019).
One can see that Sardinia is a land of pastoralists, not only by looking at the
data on milk production but also by looking at the history, the landscape, and
the culture. Sardinian songs often tell stories of transhumance, of migration, of
struggles over land, and the tyranny of rich landowners. Pastoralism in Sardinia
is a very important part of how people build their own livelihood; it is often
mixed with other activities and, as shown in Table 5.1, there is a high percentage
(almost 30 per cent) of very small farms. There are around 12,000 sheep farms in
Sardinia and around 70 per cent of the farms have less than 300 sheep.
Across this range of farm and flock sizes, there are different types of
production, ranging from highly extensive (including some who still practise
transhumance) to those who have intensified in a fixed farm site, with high
levels of inputs and mechanization, much of the feed supplied through forage
crops grown on site, and the use of purchased supplements. Each pastoralist
must navigate many uncertainties – from a changing climate to highly
variable market conditions. Livelihoods and therefore production systems are
constructed around such adaptive responses to uncertainty. In some cases,
pastoralists must live with and from uncertainty, responding flexibly to
changing conditions, including developing high-value niche products, such
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66 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
as artisanal cheeses, or diversifying to activities outside livestock production.
Others attempt to tame uncertainty by investing in production systems that
aim to control and manage risk and reduce variability. Depending on the
asset base, networks and connections, and people’s attitudes and outlooks,
very different styles of pastoralism exist in Sardinia. There is no one single
pastoralism, but many (Simula, 2022).
Where does the sheep milk go? The milk has different destinations.
Some sell milk to cooperative dairies, managed and owned by pastoralists
themselves. These cooperatives industrially process the milk into Pecorino
Romano cheese. This cheese has the biggest market share and is mostly sold
in the USA and elsewhere in Europe. While the cooperatives process and
sell other types of cheese, the market is dominated by Pecorino Romano,
with important consequences for pastoral livelihoods, as the chapter will
show. Others are not part of a cooperative but rather sell the milk to private
industries. There are also those who own mini-dairies to make artisanal cheese
and sell directly to consumers in their shops. Finally, there are those who sell
locally and informally to members of the community, focusing mostly on
home consumption, and who complement this with other paid work.
While high-quality artisanal cheeses are produced for niche markets in
Sardinia and abroad and sold to tourists who visit the island in huge numbers
during the summer, the industrial cheese – Pecorino Romano – dominates the
market. This results in a high dependence on the market conditions and prices
of Pecorino Romano, which in turn has a great influence on the price of milk
(Farinella and Simula, 2021). Given the variabilities of these markets, which
are outside the control of pastoralists, this has created great uncertainties for
them in the last decades.
Common uncertainties, different experiences, contrasting reactions
Sardinia has a typical Mediterranean climate: temperate with dry summers.
The last decade has been characterized by more extreme weather events, such
as droughts and floods, and added to this is the problem of recurrent fires
during the summer.
Table 5.1 Distribution of sheep farms by flock size
Flock size Number of
sheep farms
% of total
sheep farms
Number of
sheep
% of total
sheep
Average
flock size
<100 3,455 28.65 148,119 4.88 43
100–300 4,982 41.32 976,736 32.16 196
300–500 2,245 18.62 860,538 28.34 383
500–700 778 6.45 455,775 15.01 586
>700 598 4.96 595,598 19.61 996
Total/Average 12,058 3,036,766 252
Source: Atzori et al. (n.d.: 8).
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 67
Access to land and natural resources is key in the life of any rural producer.
Privatization of land has drastically changed the pastoral landscape in
Sardinia: land reform in the 1970s redistributed land and resulted in the
semi-sedentarization of many pastoralists. In the mountainous areas of
Sardinia, some common land areas remained but these, together with
pastoralists’ livelihoods, have been threatened by environmental conser-
vation projects. Nowadays, land is also a great source of passive income
thanks to European Union farm subsidies, and this leads to high levels of
land speculation (Mencini, 2021).
The European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most
important frameworks that influence the direction of economic incentives
and policies in agriculture, livestock production, and pastoralism across
the European Union. Uncertainty related to policies and institutions
has several aspects. Policy frameworks change at every mandate with
no long-term consistency. In some years, the production of wheat and
cereals is incentivized, then it is disincentivized. The same is true for wine
growing – first incentivized as a source of diversification and then disin-
centivized. And then it was the turn of sunflowers and cannabis. The CAP
has created a lot of unexpected consequences, distortions, and reasons for
speculation, and has thereby increased uncertainty in the life of pasto-
ralists who, once adversely integrated into the formal sector and into
international commodity chains, have become partly dependent on public
incentives.
As already mentioned, markets are certainly among the biggest source of
uncertainty for Sardinian pastoralists. Artisanal produce is often sold directly
to consumers (with a maximum of two intermediaries) in local, national,
and regional markets. What I call ‘industrial cheese’ is sold in international,
European, and Italian markets. Industrial cheeses are linked to industrial
processing and a standardized type of production. Throughout the last decades,
more and more pastoralists have been incorporated into international markets
linked to the booming production of Pecorino Romano cheese. While some
increased their milk production and specialized in milk sales to the industries,
others partially delinked from this commodity chain and produced cheese
to sell locally. Market uncertainty in Sardinia is characterized by fluctuating
and overall falling prices. This has resulted in the accumulation of profits
and power in the input and distribution nodes of the milk commodity chain
(Farinella, 2018).
All these uncertainties are widely recognized. But the solution offered
by state officials and many experts is to address uncertainty as risk and
attempt to predict and control it. ‘Traditional’ pastoralists are seen as
‘backward’ and in need of modernization. Only with developments
such as consolidating farms, mechanizing production, and industrial-
izing will pastoralists be able to benefit, it is argued. The narrative is that
they need to be incorporated into markets and become more competitive
and efficient.
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68 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
The developmental narrative: trying to control uncertainty
withefficiency and productivity
The state apparatus, mainstream research, and development agencies try
to eliminate uncertainty based on the assumption that, with the right
planning, pastoralists can produce more, more efficiently, and so increase
their income. In this highly variable and uncertain context, research
institutions, politicians, and experts who implement state policies try to
manage and respond to the crises affecting the pastoral sector as if every
condition were stable and predictable. This assumption is based on a vision
of development and modernization that sees pastoralists incorporated
into global commodity markets, one that responds to market crises with
increasing efficiency, productivism, and profit.
For example, as a response to the milk price crisis – when milk prices crashed
due to overproduction and lack of sales, and pastoralists came onto the streets
to protest (Simula, 2019) – experts and politicians called for pastoralists to
expand investments in their farms and to increase efficiency by reducing
costs of production for each litre of milk. Agronomists and experts in animal
nutrition, often working for multinational feed companies, suggested keeping
track of the amount of milk produced by each animal and eliminating all the
animals that were less productive to avoid wasting resources such as feed and
fodder. Agricultural technology is also developing in this direction and the
latest models of milking machines can track exactly the amount of food given
to each animal and the amount of milk produced by each sheep.
This view emerges from several assumptions. The first is that the current
crisis results from a lack of efficiency rather than from a problem of distri-
bution of resources and profits in the commodity chain. The second is that
pastoral farms function with an imperative of milk productivity and economic
efficiency. The third is that pastoralists live in stable conditions and can
therefore plan for high capital investments with predictable returns.
However, believing that such technical, productivist solutions can address
the intersecting uncertainties created by markets, climate, and agricultural
policy in the context of Sardinia is a sign that the state/expert perspective is
far from the realities of pastoralists.
Pastoralists living with uncertainty
In contrast to the assumptions of many policymakers and experts, pastoralists
do not live in stable conditions but in highly variable, uncertain, and often
harsh and precarious situations. In this context, less productive animals might
be more resistant to hostile territories and to diseases; they are important to
maintain the flock biodiversity and to increase the flock’s resistance to shocks
and stresses. The ability to thrive in harsh environments with low pasture
availability is a very important characteristic, according to pastoralists, who
have a focus beyond an animal’s efficiency in strictly productive terms.
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 69
Pastoral farms function within a complex system that is influenced by many
elements, so assuming that economic efficiency – and an economic rationality
based on a linear understanding of demand and supply and cost and benefit –
is the guiding principle is a deep misunderstanding.
Rather than living in stable, controlled conditions with abundant avail-
ability of feed and fodder, most pastoralists work and live in variable
and often precarious situations, with limited availability of natural and
financial resources. They build their livelihoods taking advantage of the
limited resources they have. As a result, pastoralists are very sceptical about
top-down programmes and incentives. This is not because they are ignorant
or ‘backward’, as they are very often portrayed, but because they know very
well that they live and survive in uncertain circumstances. They necessarily
work with contingency, always leaving several doors open as there are always
multiple futures possible depending on what uncertainties impinge on them.
They know that investing €200,000 (US$ 216,600) in an electric milking
machine would mean entering a technological/production trap, unless they
are extremely rich and have other income-earning options. To repay such a
large debt and capital investment, they would need to make very high and
consistent returns – an unlikely prospect for the vast majority of pastoralists in
Sardinia living with predominantly low and very uncertain milk prices.
Although there are common uncertainties – from the market, climate, and
policy environment, for example – these are lived, perceived, and experienced
differently by pastoralists who inhabit different class positions, are of different
genders, have different access to natural resources, and are different in respect
of age and identity.
In this chapter, I will contrast two opposing realities of pastoralism in
Sardinia, located in two different settings (Figure 5.1). On one side, I will look
at the story of a livestock producer who engages in semi-intensive production
in the plains area in the south of the island and sells milk to a private industry
operator. In this case, the pastoralist follows the adage ‘If you plan ahead,
there is no uncertainty’; by investing and intensifying, uncertainties can be
controlled. On the other side, I tell the story of a small-scale pastoralist living
in the north of the island who can flexibly respond to uncertainty through a
range of adaptive practices that generate reliability in the face of high levels of
variability and therefore uncertainty.
Of course, there are many other types of pastoralism across a wide spectrum
(see Simula, 2022), but these two examples highlight the contrast between
developmental narratives of techno-managerial control and pastoralists’
flexible practices of navigating uncertainty.
Managing uncertainty by trying to control it: the transformation of pastoralism
into semi-intensive livestock production
When I met Tonino, one of my first questions was how long he had been a
pastoralist. The fact that I called him a pastoralist made him laugh because
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70 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
ORISTANO
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Figure 5.1 Map of Sardinia
according to him, that word is used for another category of producers, not
him. He self-identifies as a livestock producer, not a pastoralist. Pastoralists,
in his understanding, are all those producers that do not take this job
seriously.
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 71
His origins are in Desulo, a town in the mountainous area of Sardinia. Both
of his parents were from Desulo and his father was a transhumant pastoralist
who moved to the plains of Villamassargia in the winter and then back
to Desulo around May and until September. His father started buying land
when he was still transhumant. At that time, the dairy industry in Sardinia
was growing, and pastoralists were able to make a good income and started
investing. Also, starting from the end of the 1960s, a process of state-led
sedentarization and regional land reform encouraged his father to settle
permanently in Villamassargia and to stop using transhumance.
The transformation of pastoralism into semi-intensive and sedentary
livestock production is very much linked to state-led incentives and the
process of industrialization. Tonino feels part of another generation; he
supports the linear, evolutionary narrative according to which pasto-
ralists have ‘developed’ into entrepreneurs and this is how he identifies.
Nonetheless, he also has a strong sense of belonging to Desulo and he is
proud of the pastoral culture and tradition where his roots are.
Tonino lives with his wife Marianna, who is also from Desulo. The family
has its own vegetable garden and diversifies by producing and selling olive oil.
Marianna does all the work in the house (caring for their son, cooking, and
cleaning) and she also works in the olive grove and in the vegetable garden.
Upon request, she also produces filled pasta, Sardinian sweets, and other
typical products with the sheep milk they produce, selling them to friends
and acquaintances in town.
Animal production is pursued by Tonino, his brother, and his nephew.
A semi-intensive production system involves a flock of around 700 sheep,
kept in more than 120 hectares of land that is used for cereal, legumes, and
hay for animal use. The sheep graze in the open 2–3 hours per day, but
the flock spends most of the day in the stable where they are fed a mix of
grains, hay, and concentrates so that they get the right amount of protein
and fibre. He explained that if you leave sheep alone, they will eat anything
they find. Fibre provides energy, gives a sensation of satiety, and ensures
that there is enough fat in the milk. But the daily ration must have a well-
balanced ratio of fibre to protein to allow optimal rumen functioning during
digestion. Too much fibre can result in digestive problems for the animals.
As Tonino explained in great detail, working out feed rations is one of the
most important daily activities in the farm; they determine animals’ welfare
and, most importantly, their productive efficiency.
Everything is analysed, decided, and planned with the support of
experts; nothing is left to chance. The impact that nature can have on
the management of the farm is reduced to the minimum through in-barn
feeding, preventive medicine, and monthly inspections by nutrition and
veterinary experts. A commercial salesman (working for the Italian feed
company from the Cargill group) supports planning animal nutrition and
achieving the most productive and cost-efficient outcome so that milk
production is maximized. A private veterinarian follows the reproductive
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72 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
cycle of the animals and helps Tonino with genetic selection and breeding
of the animals, where choices are based on their productive capacity. Capital
investment in the farm is very high and there is a strong reliance on external
inputs as well. Without external feed, concentrates, and preventive medical
care, the farm could not continue to exist.
Producing in a capital- and input-intensive way, and having a livelihood
that mostly depends on the sale of milk and partly on the sale of lambs, means
that when the price of milk goes down, Tonino has little or no flexibility
to change the way of production or to diversify his income. According to
Tonino, uncertainty can be controlled or reduced through careful planning,
by following this cost-control and profit-maximization rationale that helps
him to minimize external influences on the output produced. However, he
is also highly unsatisfied because keeping everything under control is very
labour- and capital-intensive. Tonino is now on a technological treadmill that
feels like a trap from which it is hard to escape.
Although producers who first adopt certain technologies or practices to
increase production might initially benefit financially, once other producers
also adopt those technologies and increase their yields, the overall higher
production results in the fall of commodity prices, and so the consequence
Figure 5.2 Tonino with his Unifeed wagon. It simplifies distribution of feed, reduces labour
costs, and allows for controlled and standardized animal feeding. Villamassargia, south-west
Sardinia, November 2020.
Credit: Giulia Simula.
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 73
is that producers must constantly increase their production to maintain the
same revenue. The treadmill trap is quite evident when talking to Tonino.
He works long hours without holidays and he still feels like all his sacrifices
are not met with adequate returns. He is constantly menaced by uncertainty
in the price of milk, which is exacerbated by trade policies that allow cheap
meat and milk to come from abroad and be sold in local markets. Speaking in
December 2019, he said:
It’s little, little, little. You work long hours and … it’s not paid …
If they paid me all the hours of work I do … I get up at 4:00 a.m.,
come home when it’s dark, what the f*** for? So that they collect
all the money? No! You go protest, and for what? You don’t achieve
anything protesting.
So, even if Tonino paints a narrative where everything is under control and
he and his brother can minimize uncertainties through investments and
planning, he cannot control the price of milk and the price of inputs and so,
despite all his investments, this does not result in higher revenues.
Since reducing inputs to production is not really an option, Tonino tries
to manage uncertainty by building positive relationships with the industry
to whom he sells milk. He has been selling to the same dairy industry for
decades and, since he sells big quantities, he has some negotiating power
when it comes to deciding the price. Even during periods of milk price
crashes, he can secure a relatively constant milk price thanks to the personal
relations he has built with the owner. This relationship is maintained through
favours and gifts, and recently, he has been trying to convince a group of
pastoralists to produce milk in summer so that the industrialist can produce
all year round, resulting in an increase in revenue for Tonino as well.
While he intensifies production on one side, Tonino also has a long-term
project. His son Piergiuseppe is 20 years old, and he is studying agronomy at
the University of Sassari. Together with him, Tonino wants to de-intensify
slowly and shorten the supply chain by producing cheese and selling directly
to consumers. As he said:
The world is changing … I do not want to be in the hands of the industries
anymore. Slowly my son Piergiuseppe will help me too, he’s young now,
but he’ll come back with a degree. I’ll put [in] the experience, he’ll put
[in] the theory, the knowledge.
To conclude, Tonino has always followed a productivist trajectory, based on
the assumption that the intensification and rationalization of production
with increased efficiency can lead to the control and prevention of uncertainty
and to income increases. However, the reality is that the intensification of
production leaves little flexibility to face uncertainty and results in high
dependency on external inputs and on experts’ advice and intervention.
In this scenario, Tonino relies on personal relations with the industry to secure
a decent price for his products, and at the same time he is trying to get out of
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74 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
the technological treadmill trap by building an alternative and gaining more
control over his products.
Managing uncertainty by ‘living in between’: the flexibility of
small-scalepastoralists and direct sales
Pastoralists with a smaller flock can face market uncertainties in a more flexible
way. They sell to private or cooperative industries when it is convenient to
do so, and they produce cheese and sell it directly to local communities and
nested markets when the price of milk goes down.
Low-input production and co-production with community members
is important to reduce costs. Such pastoralists also cut down on costs by
controlling and adjusting the level of farm inputs. Smaller pastoralists also
diversify income and make the most of the resources available in their
territories – wood, forestry resources, olives, honey, and so forth. They tend to
focus on other employment, especially when the milk price is low.
Relationships and social networks help them navigate uncertainty because
such linkages help new forms of diversification to emerge. Social relation-
ships are a source of help and reciprocity and so often provide a safety net
(see Chapter 6). Women are key to maintaining and nurturing these social
relationships; they attend social events and keep connected to the families in
town. While older pastoralists are more connected to family and town-linked
networks, younger pastoralists build relationships with urban communities
and so broaden out their activities, with the involvement of the whole family.
This might be through tourism and social activities, such as activities with
schoolchildren, or opening the farm to young people with disabilities or to
people who have to re-enter the labour market after completing a period of
imprisonment. In a pastoral family, women are key to enabling diversified
production and widening farm-based activities.
Felice, for example, has around 100 sheep. He milks by hand as he
doesn’t have a milking machine, and he is now building a small barn for
the animals to avoid milking in the rain. To make this relatively small
investment, he is waiting for the subsidy allocated to new, younger farmers,
as he does not have capital available. Together with his family, he lives close
to the northern coast of Sardinia, which is a tourist area and 10 minutes’
ride from Sassari, one of Sardinia’s major towns, in an area where tourists
transit. He sells to a dairy cooperative located away from the coast, but
when the price of milk is too low, he makes cheese and sells it to the local
communities, tourists, and through local bars. His wife Elisa used to help
Felice with the making and selling of cheese locally but now that they have
three young children, she is fully engaged in care work. She prepares food,
takes care of the house, and helps with the daily work that needs to be
done in the house and the farm. Producing a small quantity of milk gives
Felice space and flexibility to decide the destination of the milk according
to the best conditions and to navigate uncertainty as it comes. In fact, on
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 75
a 50-litre output, the difference between selling to the cooperative and
making cheese at home is large. As Felice says:
Last year it [one litre of milk] was 60 cents [selling to the cooperative].
Two years ago, it was 80. Three years ago it was 85. We are more or less
around that figure. I am telling you again, on a 50-litre output, €35
to €37, it does not change my life. If you produce a thousand litres,
from €700 to €750, it can make a difference because maybe with that
€50 is earned daily, you pay a worker for example … If I make cheese
myself, I can get out 10 types of cheese and three ricotta …, I can
make €130. From one day’s worth of milk, so now we’re talking … It’s
like selling for €3 a litre more or less. [As larger sizes were not selling],
I’ve made smaller rounds of cheese. Once they are half mature, they
weigh 800/850 grammes. I sell them for €10 a piece so in the end it is
like selling the cheese at €12 a kilo. This way, I can sell it more easily
because I can find €10 in the pocket of almost anyone.
Navigating market uncertainty also means being able to control farm costs.
Felice’s production is low cost and low input. This is both because he does not
have the capital available and because he wants to rebuild those community
relations of cooperation, reciprocity, and co-dependency that were the
norm when his father was a pastoralist and which have now disappeared.
He makes agreements with his neighbours who cultivate fruit trees to go
and clean their field with his sheep after the harvest and take advantage
of the stubble. During the olive harvesting period, he also goes to the oil
mill to get the olive leaf waste. He then spreads the freshly cut leaves on his
two hectares of land as fodder for the animals. The leaves are also useful for
fertilizing the land. He also ploughs his neighbour’s field before sowing and,
in return, he uses his neighbour’s cooler to store milk before the coopera-
tive’s truck picks it up.
These social dynamics were everyday practice for a pastoralist until the
1980s and 1990s but with policy incentives focused on intensifying land
and increasing the use of technology, flock sizes increased and so did milk
production. Pastoralists then started working more individually using family
labour rather than reciprocally helping each other in groups. However,
during periods of repeated crisis and increased uncertainty, these practices
remain key to navigating market volatility and shrinking revenues, and
pastoralists like Felice are investing in them once again.
Income diversification is important for reducing farm costs and boosting
income. Working in the farms of bigger producers and landowners serves
both to build a network of collaboration and reciprocity and to diversify
one’s income. Small-scale pastoralists have some flexibility and, although a
small flock living on reduced inputs does not produce as much milk and as
much income, it can survive and needs less constant care. In this way, the
pastoralist families can free up some time for seasonal work and for trading
in homemade products.
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76 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Reducing farm inputs is also vital. While there is an awareness that many
farm inputs are industrial products – for example, feed comes from soya or
other genetically-modified grains grown on a large scale in eastern Europe,
Asia, and Latin America – small-scale pastoralists must take a pragmatic
approach. They might prefer to use other types of feed, but they also
Figure 5.3 Felice leading the flock to graze in the land he accesses through informal
agreements with his neighbour. Sorso, north-west Sardinia, January 2020.
Credit: Giulia Simula.
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UNCERTAINTY, MARKETS, AND PASTORALISM 77
know that some supplementation is necessary to have a production that
can sustain the family income. As a result, they increase feed supplements
when the price of milk rises and reduce their use by favouring open
grazing when the price of milk falls. This is not experienced as a contra-
diction but as a necessary coexistence with an uncertain context. The same
goes for medical care. Medical intervention is often kept to the minimum
and left to times when strictly necessary. Animals are not squeezed as
productive machines but rather pastoralists try to ensure that the animals
become accustomed to coping with uncertain circumstances as part of a
wider approach to pastoral care.
For those who sell artisanal cheese through their own shops, engagement
with a more formal market system adds costs. In order to meet sanitary
standards, investments in processing and selling facilities – improving
buildings, investing in refrigeration, and so on – are imperative. As soon
as you enter the formal market, taxes must be paid too, book-keeping and
accounting must be in order, and all regulations must be followed. This is
costly compared to the informal systems of production and sale. This in turn
means that costs of production have to be kept in check and the marketing
of products improved if the whole chain is to be profitable. Although Felice
does not have his own shop, market networks remain essential.
Across more formal and more informal production and marketing, family
and territorial networks are central in times of uncertainty. Selling in niche
markets (where quality, territoriality, and the social, cultural, and traditional
value of the product are the focus) requires much skill and good collabor-
ative networks. While among those who sell formally these agreements may
take the shape of a written contract, among informal producers, they are
just verbal agreements. Even formalized mini-dairies, however, must sustain
themselves through the extensive networks they build based on shared values
between producers and consumers. Moreover, this flexibility to sell milk to
the industry or to turn it into cheese for sale allows producers to respond to
uncertain market conditions as they unfold.
Conclusion
For decades, pastoralists have been dismissed as ‘backward’, ignorant,
and unwilling to develop and modernize. This modernizing narrative has
contributed to transform pastoralism in Sardinia. But this narrative is based
on the assumption that everything can be planned, risks can be calculated and
controlled, and market fluctuations can be overcome by increasing efficiency
and investing in technology. Yet pastoralists’ logics, rationalities, and practices
start from the notion that conditions are variable and cannot always be
controlled. They are experts in dealing with uncertainty and they have much
to teach us in this regard.
Flexibility, especially when dealing with market uncertainty, is key.
This means that being able to remain in the informal sector is very important
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78 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
for small-scale producers in order to avoid high costs of production and
the productivity trap. The value of pastoralism goes beyond the production
of particular commodified outputs. Pastoralists also invest in and build
communities and social networks. They also have an important environ-
mental function, managing pastures and supporting biodiversity. They are
also innovators, creating new agri-tourism activities and also linking with
urban communities.
As a result, policymakers should be aware of the wide variety of
pastoral systems and their numerous positive effects on society and the
environment. Instead of applying top-down models of development, the
contextual richness and variety of pastoralism in practice must be acknowl-
edged. While controlling uncertainty through investments in technology
aimed at boosting production efficiencies may work for some, there are
challenges, as the case of Tonino showed. Meanwhile, small-scale pasto-
ralists, such as Felice – who are by far the majority – take a more flexible
approach. They are the real experts at living with and responding to
uncertainty. Policies and public services need to take such experiences into
account, and indeed learn from them.
References
Atzori, A.S. et al. (no date) Report of the Characterization of Sardinian Dairy Sheep
Production Systems. Available from: <http://www.sheeptoship.eu>.
Farinella, D. (2018) ‘La pastorizia sarda di fronte al mercato globale.
Ristrutturazione della filiera lattiero-casearia e strategie di ancoraggio al
locale’, Meridiana: Rivista di Storia e Scienze Sociali 93: 113–134.
Farinella, D. and Simula, G. (2021) ‘Ovejas, tierra y mercado: dependencia
de los mercados internacionales y cambios en la relación entre pastores y
naturaleza’, Relaciones Internacionales 47: 101–24 <https://doi.org/10.15366/
relacionesinternacionales2021.47.005>.
Ismea (2019) Il Mercato dei Formaggi Pecorini: Scenario Attuale e Potenzialità di
Sviluppo tra Tradizione e Modernità dei Consumi, Ismea, Roma.
Mencini, G. (2021) Pascoli di Carta: Le Mani sulla Montagna, Kellermann
Editore, Vittorio Veneto.
Sardegna Agricoltura (2013) Il 6° Censimento Generale dell’Agricoltura in
Sardegna: Caratteristiche Strutturali delle Aziende Agricole Regionali, RAS,
Cagliari. Available from: <http://www.sardegnastatistiche.it/documenti/
12_103_20130710170153.pdf>.
Simula, G. (2019) ‘Should we cry over spilled milk? The case of Sardinia’,
in PASTRES [blog] <https://pastres.org/2019/02/15/should-we-cry-over-
spilled-milk-the-case-of-sardinia/> (posted 15 February 2019).
Simula, G. (2022) ‘Pastoralism 100 Ways: Navigating Different Market
Arrangements in Sardinia’, doctoral dissertation, Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton. <https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/
eprint/109485/>
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CHAPTER 6
Responding to uncertainties in pastoral
northern Kenya: the role of moral economies
Tahira Mohamed
Introduction
Pastoralism is a vital source of livelihood for about 10 million people across
northern Kenya. Yet events such as droughts, floods, disease outbreaks, locust
attacks, conflict, and displacement affect pastoralists in this region. Over the
past decades, the frequency and intensity of such challenges in the drylands
of northern Kenya have increased due to climate change, shifts in land tenure
security, and transformations in political economy (Birch and Grahn, 2007;
Mohamed, 2022). In pastoral areas, such events may occur in sequence or may
compound many already-existing challenges. They cannot be predicted and
so events remain fundamentally uncertain.
However, by failing to embrace uncertainty, standard development
approaches often fail. They are instead premised on predicting, managing,
and controlling pastoral systems. These approaches include disaster risk
management through early warning systems, shock-responsive social
protection, and market infrastructure development (Bailey et al., 1999; Borton
et al., 2001; Barrientos et al., 2005; Caravani et al., 2021; see also Chapter 1).
Many standard approaches see the route to controlling risks as through
standard investments in productivity and market development (Catley and
Aklilu, 2012; Carter et al., 2018).
For example, in northern Kenya, between the 1970s and 1980s, the
focus was on food aid and irrigated agricultural expansion to support food
security. Rangeland development emphasized water infrastructure, livestock
feed supply, and reseeding programmes, among other interventions. In the
2000s, Kenya’s National Drought Management Authority emerged as the
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leading agency managing drought and related disasters through providing
early warning bulletins and contingency planning. Later, numerous pastoral
livelihoods and resilience-building projects were developed to promote
livestock market infrastructure, abattoirs, and investment in the livestock
value chain. Such production-oriented interventions were combined with
social protection through cash transfers, livestock insurance, and the
promotion of ‘climate-smart’ agriculture to replace traditional food security
projects (Mohamed, 2022).
Although there have been some successes in responding to disasters in
pastoral areas via project-based interventions, such as supporting livelihood
diversification and initiating cash transfers (Little, 2001), pastoralists are still
affected by climate-related uncertainties, conflict, and social instability. Over
decades, pastoralists have thus become enlisted in massive aid programmes,
resulting in self-reinforcing dependency, with pastoralists seen as the victims
of recurrent disasters.
Given this experience, this chapter asks whether the state, humanitarian
agencies, and development interventions have missed their mark by focusing
on predicting and controlling risks rather than embracing and managing
uncertainties as part of continuous, everyday practices of generating reliability.
Could pastoralists themselves, through their adaptive strategies and redistrib-
utive moral economy practices, show us an alternative approach more attuned
to dryland uncertainties?
The chapter argues that pastoralists should not be seen as passive victims
of disaster, forever reliant on external support, but that they have their own
agency; their own practices embedded in social relations that help them
respond to complex, uncertain, and unpredictable events. Living with
and from uncertainty is central to pastoral livelihoods, and it should be
fundamental to the disaster response policies and development strategies in
pastoral areas.
Responding to uncertainties: the role of pastoralist moral economies
Pastoralists respond to uncertain events by galvanizing various relationships
embedded in social-cultural and religious identities. These relationships allow
for the redistribution of resources, including livestock and labour, as well
as extending solidarities in times of need through moral economies. Moral
economy practices based on collective redistribution of resources and solidar-
ities are essential to how pastoralists manage uncertainties.
The concept of ‘moral economy’ gained popularity following the classic
1971 essay by E.P. Thompson, The Moral Economy of the English Crowd, and
James Scott’s Moral Economy of the Peasant in 1976. Both Thompson and Scott
used the concept of moral economy to explain collective resistance against
food crises, exploitation, and unfair practices. However, Scott also emphasized
the notion of ‘subsistence ethics’ that facilitated reciprocity and redistribution.
In a pastoral context, a moral economy enshrines reciprocity, redistribution,
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 81
social insurance, and the formation of identities that are essential in helping
people survive and thrive, including under uncertain conditions (Ensminger,
1992; Bollig, 1998; Mohamed, 2022).
Many standard disaster risk reduction and social protection policies in
pastoral areas ignore these vital moral economy relationships between diverse
social groups, including men and women, the wealthy and poor, and young
and old. Through case studies in two pastoral settings in Isiolo County, one
urban and another remote, this chapter reveals the fundamental role of
such culturally and religiously embedded relationships that help pastoralists
respond to uncertainties.
The study sites
The arid and semi-arid area of Isiolo County is about 250 km from Kenya’s
capital, Nairobi (Figure 6.1). Isiolo borders five other pastoral counties,
including Marsabit, Samburu, Garissa, Laikipia, and Wajir. The county also
borders the farming areas of Meru county as well as Meru National Park,
creating competing land uses. The area is traversed by the Ewaso-Nyiro river
that is a significant resource for humans, wildlife, and livestock. In the early
1970s, Isiolo Town had a human population of about 21,000, poor infra-
structure, and livestock-keeping as the main livelihood of the population
(Republic of Kenya, 1976). From the 1970s to date, Isiolo has grown into a
modern town with a high population, diversified livelihoods, and significant
infrastructure, including an international airport, major abattoir, government
institutions, and international NGO offices. As of 2019, the human population
stood at 268,000 (KNBS, 2019). Although the rise in population and growth of
the urban centres is clearly visible, the remote regions of the county remain
under-developed, with poor roads and services.
Fieldwork for this chapter took place between 2019 and 2022 in two
pastoral areas – Korbesa and Kinna – the former remote and rural and the
latter more urban, and also closely linked to the major town of Isiolo and
nearby Meru (Figure 6.1). Through a series of community and historical
event-mapping exercises, key informant interviews, focus group discussions,
in-depth narrative interviews, and photovoice exercises, I explored how pasto-
ralists in Korbesa and Kinna managed uncertainties through time and space.
Korbesa is located in the very arid northern region of Merti sub-county, about
290 km from Isiolo town, and receives an annual rainfall of about 200 mm
(Republic of Kenya, 2018). Korbesa people are predominantly pastoralists keeping
cattle, camels, and goats. The owners herd the livestock through partnerships
with relatives and friends and with support from hired labourers. Korbesa is a
small centre and depends on nearby Merti town for services, including water,
a market, and transport to other parts of Isiolo. Due to increased insecurity and
livestock-raiding, pastoralists practise livestock redistribution to enhance their
livelihoods. However, as the case studies below show, these redistributions are
uneven, stratified between wealthy and poor people.
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82 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
A2
A2
B6
B9
B9
C11
B9
E
w
a
s
o
N
g
i
r
o
N
o
r
t
h
Bisanadi
National
Reserve
Meru
National
Park
Kulamawe
Skot
Belgesh
El Dera
Mado Gashi
Biliqi
Korbesa
Sericho
Madogali
Yamicha
Kom
Archer’s
Post
Merti
Kipsing
Oldonyiro
Kinna
Eskot
Garbatulla
Isiolo
ISIOLO
NORTH
ISIOLO SOUTH
MARSABIT
SAMBURU
LAIKIPIA
MERU
WAJIR
GARISSA
TANA RIVER
District boundary
KEY
Area of interest (study site)
County capital
Main town
Town
Highway
Main road
Proposed highway
River
County boundary
0 40 km20
Isiolo
Nairobi
ETHIOPIA
SOMALIA
TANZANIA
UGANDA
SOUTH
SUDAN
KENYA
Figure 6.1 Map of the study area
Kinna is in the southern, semi-arid region of Garbatula sub-county, about
90 km from Isiolo town, and receives an average annual rainfall of 500–600 mm
(Republic of Kenya, 2018). The inhabitants of Kinna practise livestock-rearing
in combination with some small-scale irrigated farming, while others have
diversified into trade, mining, and motorcycle transport services due to good
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 83
connectivity to major towns. Insecurity and livestock-raiding are common
due to the competition over resources, fuelled by the increased presence of
small firearms and weapons spread through porous borders and armed conser-
vation rangers. Another significant challenge is tsetse fly infestation through
elephant-inhabited habitats, especially near the rivers.
Recurrent droughts and prolonged dry periods wreak havoc regularly in
Kenya’s pastoral regions, including Isiolo. This has been especially acute in
recent years, with international humanitarian organizations reporting rainfall
failure, livestock deaths, and the subsequent loss of livelihoods and acute
hunger in the area during 2022 (United Nations, 2022). The Kenya Food
Security Steering Group estimated that close to 4.4 million people in Kenya’s
arid and semi-arid counties were subject to a severe food crisis due to the failed
rains over three consecutive seasons (Republic of Kenya, 2022). Emergency
appeals have raised the alarm, and pleas for humanitarian aid to cushion the
pastoralists from the increasing catastrophe have been made.
Despite the numerous development projects in these areas promoting food
security, climate-smart agriculture, rangeland development, market intensifi-
cation, and resilience building, pastoral areas continue to experience drought-
related emergencies. Clearly, such development efforts have not worked. What
lessons can we learn from pastoralists’ own practices, and in particular how
they draw on different relationships and moral economy practices to respond
to and manage various uncertainties?
Pastoralists’ strategies in responding to uncertainties in northern Kenya
Moral economy practices enhance resource redistribution and foster collective
solidarities and comradeship to help manage uncertainties, including those due
to drought, animal disease, livestock-raiding, and labour deficits. The bonds of
families, religious networks, neighbourliness, and social-economic ties remain
instrumental in facilitating solidarities and redistribution via such moral
economy relations. The following four cases illustrate this dynamic.
Case 1: Uncertainties are everyday business
In February 2020, I met Salado, a 70-year-old female herder, grazing her sheep
and goats in Bibi, a grazing camp, about 16 km from Kinna town in Isiolo
County. Salado was constructing small pens for her goats’ kids, and the thorny
shrubs pricked her hands when she fed the young goats. We sat down and
began our conversation, and Salado started to explain how multiple uncer-
tainties surround animal production. She said:
The frequency of ola (absence of rain) has increased, and in 2017,
we lost 50 goats and were left with 50 goats. The remaining goats
are weak because of the failure of the 2019 rain. Now we are afraid
as the ganna (April rain) might fail. Before the animals recover from
the preceding droughts, disease and subsequent drought affect
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84 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
reproduction. Since 2017, my goat has not reproduced, and multiple
conditions threaten its growth. There are rising cases of gandhi
(trypanosomiasis), and I have lost 18 goats. Sometimes, the disease
outbreak coincides with a severe dry period making life difficult.
In this place [Bibi], there are a lot of hyenas and if the sun sets while
the livestock is not back in the pens, then expect nothing. Both the
sunset and the hyenas compete. We must be actively involved in
scouting pasture, tending to young and sick animals, and staying
vigilant to guard against enemies, wild animals, and livestock
raiders. Since I could not manage all these, I sought help from a
relative, who gave me a herd boy.
Salado describes how she lives every day in fear, requiring persistent alertness.
Her case uncovers the significance of knowledge about and preparedness for
multiple uncertain conditions that arise in livestock production and reduce
the productivity of the animals.
Case 2: Redistribution via clan and mosque
Asha is an elderly widow who lives in Biliqi village on the outskirts of Korbesa
sub-location in Merti sub-county. Her husband Dido passed on 30 years ago.
She currently lives with her elderly mother, her co-wife Raheema, her son
Boru, and five grandchildren. In an interview in the Eman Hotel in Isiolo,
she explained:
In the 1996 ola istaaga (the standing drought), we lost six cattle
and were left with four. My clan member, Barasa, invited our
family to move from Korbesa and live in his neighbourhood, Biliqi.
Barasa then took custody of our livestock and herded them for free
so that I could travel to Isiolo town to seek help from family and
friends. During the 2017 drought, the Samburu raided livestock
from Borana, and we lost 30 cattle and lived on only six milk cows
that survived the raid. To help recovery, I received one heifer from
my clan member, and my co-wife, Raheema, as well as receiving a
dabare (loaned) animal from a relative. Three months after the raid,
during the Islamic month of Muharram [the first month of the Hijri
calendar], the mosque organized a collective zakat [Islamic tax on
wealth] and distributed animals to vulnerable people and victims of
the raids. We received four goats to sustain our family. The mosque
also gave three cattle to orphans’ families left behind by the victims
of the attack.
Although suffering major losses through livestock-raiding, Asha was able
to recover due to support from her clan members, as well as the mosque.
Asha’s case reveals the importance of lineage relationships, mosque collection,
and redistribution in enhancing social support, especially for lower-income
families and widows.
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 85
Case 3: Comradeship and resource pooling
I met Haro, a young male herd-owner, in Merti sub-county in Lakole while
conducting a focus group discussion in January 2020. Haro requested a ride
to Merti to visit his family after spending weeks in Dogogicha, a borehole
in the drought reserve, about 40 km from Merti. While we were travelling,
we talked casually, and he narrated how he had been managing his herd in
the past droughts:
It has not been easy living through a series of dry periods, intensified
insecurities, and livestock burglary from Kore [Samburu]. In 2013,
Ibanded with three of my friends [Molu, Guracha, and Adi] Each of us
hired an extra herder and contributed money to obtain a firearm to guard
the animals. In the 2017 drought, we jointly purchased a motorcycle to
facilitate movement and pasture surveillance in the rangeland. In the
recent adolessa (prolonged dry season), we moved to a place called Qori,
dug shallow wells, and settled with our livestock. When we depleted
the pasture, we purchased feed from Isiolo and managed our animals.
We also stored sufficient dibu (pesticides) and veterinary supplies to
control disease spread. Luckily, we only lost four yabiyye (calves). In a
good season, the four of us manage the animals in shifts, so we get extra
time to spend with families in town. However, in a difficult time, we
all work together by providing specialized attention, digging wells, and
enhancing security. Working together helped us access waheel (comrades)
and resources to manage our animals.
Haro explained how he combined labour resources and technology to survive
multiple dry seasons, and that personal friendships allowed for the pooling
of resources. Young, less asset-rich herd-owners cobble together resources to
manage the increasingly commodified livestock practices. They make use
of modern technologies, including motorcycles and firearms, to protect the
livestock and enhance safe movement. Working with others allows friends to
confront uncertainty together.
Case 4: Diversification and gendered networks
Bisharo is a member of a women’s group in Isiolo town that specializes in the
production and processing of camel meat called nyirinyiri in Somali or koche
in the Borana language. In El Boran Hotel in Isiolo town, I had an in-depth
livelihood interview with Bisharo, who narrated her livelihood trajectory:
I began working as a retail trader bringing clothes and other items from
Nairobi. In 2017, my friend Asha introduced me to the nyirinyiri group
comprising about 15 women who process about 80–100 kgs of camel
meat daily and export it to Nairobi. The members meet daily at the
chairlady’s house in Isiolo town to process the meat. We buy camel meat
from butchers in Isiolo town, or sometimes we purchase live animals
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86 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
and ask the butcheries to slaughter them on our behalf. After slicing and
sun-drying the meat, we cut it into small chunks and oil-fry it. We send
the meat to Nairobi’s Eastleigh market to retailers, hotels, and events such
as weddings and parties. To reduce transport costs, we use a lorry that
belongs to the Anolei camel milk women’s group [a group of women’s
enterprises that export camel milk from Isiolo to Nairobi]. Some members
of the nyirinyiri group are also part of the Anolei group; therefore, the
connection helps us market our products and get customers, especially
for weddings and other events. Every Sunday, we have a weekly meeting
to assess our progress and raise funds to support our members. Every
member contributes KES 500 [US$4] weekly; whenever a group member
faces shortages or the loss of a family member, we contribute from our
savings. We provide loans if a member needs a loan to pay school fees or
for other needs. This group has enhanced our capacity as women, and
we have continued income for food and other necessities. We aim to
expand our production, build a modern kitchen and working space, and
become international camel meat exporters.
Bisharo’s case highlights the importance of trust and networks for connecting
to diverse markets, and so ensuring that a diversified livelihood linked to
pastoralism can address uncertainties. Her case shows the significance of the
gendered network between women in camel meat and milk production and
the importance of savings to enhance social support systems for life-cycle
events such as deaths, weddings, and illness.
Together, the case studies reveal how cascading uncertainties and variable
conditions such as drought, animal disease, and insecurities from wild
animals and livestock-raiding affect pastoral livelihoods. Different pasto-
ralists manage uncertain conditions in a variety of ways but always drawing
on social relations. The form these responses take depends on wealth, kin
connections, religious affiliation and commitments, access to technologies,
and diversification opportunities. Central to responding to uncertainty is
investing in relationships and networks through milo (lineage) and hariyya
(friends). Equally, the pooling of resources as part of collective responses is
essential to community solidarities and helps pastoralists respond to diverse,
uncertain conditions.
How then do these approaches of collective mobilization of social and
economic resources, redistribution, comradeship, and solidarity differ from
the risk-focused approaches of standard external interventions such as social
protection, livestock insurance, and disaster response?
Pastoral practices and external interventions
Building resilience amidst the intersecting uncertainties discussed in this
chapter is a crucial development agenda. But are current development
approaches the answer? As already discussed, most standard interventions focus
on risk (where futures can be calculated, predicted, and therefore anticipated
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 87
and planned for), whereas pastoralists must respond to uncertainties (where
futures are not known, either in terms of likelihoods or outcomes) (see
Chapters 1 and 9). Risk-oriented approaches frequently envision an individu-
alized response to a defined risk (a drought, a disease, etc.), whereby targeted
interventions (an insurance product, a cash transfer, a livelihood project) will
return people’s livelihoods to a stable norm.
Instead, as the case studies show, responding to uncertainty must be a
continuous affair, with intersecting and cascading uncertainties dealt with
together and as part of everyday practices in a highly variable environment.
Multiple responses, suited to different contexts, diverse shocks, and contrasting
personal situations must be combined. So, for example, people may call on
relatives or the mosque, and frequently work together as a group in mutual
solidarity. Such moral economy practices are rooted in cultural identities and
embedded in social relations and are not simple ‘interventions’ as part of a
disaster risk response or social protection programme. The following four
themes emerge from this analysis.
Actively embracing uncertainty
Contrary to the costly humanitarian aid and development projects premised
on early warning systems, anticipation, monitoring, and controlled planning
meant for stable settings, pastoralists live in an unpredictable environment
and must learn to adapt through innovative practices. As shown across the
cases, pastoralists embrace a sense of unfolding, continuous time, expecting
surprises and unforeseen events that could threaten a potentially good season
for their animals. They must always be prepared, ready for the unexpected.
This is normal life. Pastoralists therefore must always stay alert and informed,
always engaging in innovative learning and timely responses.
As Salado noted, the coming rainy season might be accompanied by
animal disease outbreaks or flooding, affecting livestock productivity. There
is therefore a need to embrace uncertainty as a continuous flow of events and
not a one-time shock, represented by a specific risk or disaster. Conventional
risk assessment and the management of project-based interventions, such as
targeted social protection and livestock insurance, miss out on the fluidity of
extended, unfolding time and of contingent uncertainty, and instead measure
risks in terms of exposure to identifiable and predictable events.
For pastoralists’ resilience in the face of unknown events to be enhanced,
it is vital for development policies and humanitarian support to shift their
focus. There is a need to acknowledge uncertainty and how this is actively
responded to by ‘reliability professionals’ in pastoral systems (Roe, 2020).
Reliability professionals must act in real time through learning and sharing
information, and so necessarily embrace uncertainty, managing responses
while avoiding the dangers of ignorance. Development projects and humani-
tarian support could expand their scope and incorporate such local perspec-
tives, instead of imposing standard models. These models assume stability,
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88 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
singular risks, and that resilience can be created through a productivist model
of livestock development in contexts where uncertainty and unpredictability
are central to people’s livelihoods.
Identities, relationships, and collaboration
Investing in multiple relationships based on lineage, friendship, religious
networks, and economic ties through moral economies is essential, whether
through redistribution after losses or providing a coping mechanism during a
crisis, as the cases show. As one Borana saying goes, Hoorin dumansaa naamum
arra qabuut bor daaba (Livestock are like clouds, they can precipitate at any
moment, and those we have today might be lost tomorrow), hence the
importance of sharing. Identities and relationships are paramount for pasto-
ralists who must collaborate to generate reliable support in difficult times.
As shown across all cases, different relations and collective solidarities have
been vital in providing access to resources, offering security in the rangelands
as well as market connections.
By contrast, many development projects aim to support ‘vulnerable’
individuals, dissociated from their social and cultural contexts, through
predetermined metrics used to target distribution in social safety protection
Figure 6.2 ‘Borantiti [being Borana and showing the ideals of the Borana] is all about
showing kindness and solidarity to overcome shortages. Here, women share labour to load
water on the donkey.’
Credit: Bushra (from the photovoice exercise).
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 89
programmes, for example. Too often, such programmes, whether around
cash transfers or insurance programmes, ignore the collective social and
cultural practices essential for managing uncertainties. For instance, Kenya’s
Livestock Insurance Programme aims to provide insurance cover to pre-selected
households based on a certain vulnerability threshold. These projects however
fail to acknowledge the dynamic relationships central to livestock sharing
and redistribution, centred on social, cultural, and religious practices (see
Chapter 7). But, if project-based livestock transfers are combined with forms
of collective redistribution, such as zakat through mosques, reliable livelihoods
and collective ownership could be enhanced.
Adaptive technology
Although pastoralism is perceived by some as a ‘backward’ livelihood and
resistant to change, the cases have shown how pastoralists adaptively use
modern transport and communication technologies to respond to uncer-
tainties. Even in the marginal areas far from town, pastoralists collaborate
and pool resources to acquire motorcycles to enhance mobility and market
connections. The spread of mobile phone communication in pastoral areas
has improved efficiency in sending money and transacting trade. This shows
how pastoral livelihoods are flexible and adaptable to changing political
economy and development, making productive use of technology. Although
access to technology is unequally distributed, pastoralists pool resources and
overcome limitations.
In the same way, development projects and humanitarian support must
incorporate accessible technologies in their programmes to enhance efficient
service delivery in responding to uncertainties in pastoral areas. For example,
mobile phone technologies are vital in disease surveillance in pastoral areas, as
well as in responding to variable fodder and water sources (Ikiror et al., 2020).
Networking, trust, and diversification
As the case of the nyirinyiri group showed, informal groups connect many
people in pastoral areas and have multiple functions. Although focused on
processing and selling camel meat, the group is also engaged in savings, as
well as being linked to camel traders in the market, butchers in town, female
processors of camel milk and meat, transport providers, and final retailers in
Nairobi. Such networking, central to any market engagement that can respond
to uncertainty (see Chapter 5), is enhanced by the availability of transport
and mobile money transfer technologies, facilitating transactions, communi-
cation, and movement of goods.
Networks are nurtured by trust and the web of relationships between the
parties involved. The result is a reliable flow of goods with limited inter-
ruption, even in the face of considerable uncertainties. For example, during
the Covid-19 pandemic, despite movement restrictions and market closures,
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90 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
the nyirnyiri group continued producing meat for their market through their
diversified networks. Aside from the market relationships, the members’
saving club provides women with continued social support and emergency
loans to manage shortages.
By contrast, standard development and humanitarian interventions are
often focused on single projects, which have limited flexibility and fail to
develop trust during implementation, despite the rhetoric about bottom-up
and ‘participatory’ approaches. Styles of implementation, forms of audit
control, and strictly defined protocols and plans in aid bureaucracies can
therefore undermine the capacities to respond to uncertain conditions
(Caravani et al., 2021).
Conclusion
This chapter has shown how pastoral production in northern Kenya is full of
uncertainties and unpredictable surprises that arise due to climate-induced
events such as drought or floods, animal disease, and political and economic
challenges that undermine pastoralists’ livelihoods. Pastoralists respond and
adapt to these uncertainties with multiple practices embedded in social,
cultural, and economic ties, centred on what has been described as pastoral
moral economies.
However, such responses have their limits. First, the responses are highly
stratified and differentiated, especially between the wealthy, well-connected
herd-owners and low-income families. While redistributive and collective
measures help the poor and marginalized, richer pastoralists remain in a
better position than the most vulnerable members of society. It is therefore
crucial to acknowledge the differentiated capacity of diverse social groups,
including the wealthy/poor, women/men, young/old, and pastoralists in
towns/remote areas. Second, when shocks overwhelm – as with recurrent and
extensive drought or a widespread pandemic – local moral economy practices
for sharing, redistribution, and mutual assistance may be insufficient. For this
reason, state-led responses to disasters should complement local responses
and help improve local capacities rather than displacing them.
In pastoral areas with limited infrastructure and weak state capacity,
especially in settings that are insecure, external support is in any case patchy.
Here, supporting local practices and local ‘professionals’ able to generate
reliability is essential if resilience is to be generated. Parachuting in projects
that aim to generate ‘smart’ responses to complex challenges is inadequate.
All responses need to be embedded in local networks, and build on trust and
existing social relationships. Centralized, top-down designs do not work, even
if they are aimed at humanitarian and developmental outcomes. Building
the capacity of local communities to generate resilience through their own
practices, supported by external intervention as appropriate, must accept that
simple plans focused on smart intervention and anticipatory approaches are
unlikely to work.
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THE ROLE OF MORAL ECONOMIES 91
Instead, building resilience and responding to uncertainties in pastoral
areas should build on and help establish relationships and trust entrenched in
everyday moral economies, thereby enhancing reliable and flexible livelihood
amidst surprises. Pastoral livelihoods will continue to thrive and adapt
to turbulent and uncertain times if external intervention invests in these
local collective solidarities, while assisting with the timely redistribution of
resources as well as investing in networks and relationships. Through such
routes, flexible and reliable adaptation to what is always a variable livelihood
production system will be achieved.
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CHAPTER 7
Livestock insurance in southern Ethiopia:
calculating risks, responding to uncertainties
Masresha Taye
Introduction
Pastoralists in the Horn of Africa face a plethora of complex and intertwined
risks and uncertainties (Homewood, 2008). These include climate change,
rangeland fragmentation and privatization, conflict, and shifts in governance
regimes (see, for example, Little et al., 2012; McPeak et al. 2012; Catley et al.,
2013; Lind et al., 2020). In particular, recurrent climate-induced shocks,
exemplified by frequent droughts, have been identified as a key challenge
facing pastoralists (Carter et al., 2007; Barnett et al., 2008). As a result, many
policies and programmes have been developed to address climate-induced
vulnerabilities on pastoral families and communities.
One of the most recent disaster risk finance mechanisms responding to drought
impacts in pastoral areas is Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI). It has been
lauded as an innovative, market-driven technique for managing drought risk for
the most vulnerable pastoralists. Proponents claim that when drought strikes a
region and payouts are distributed, insured pastoralists will respond to the drought
risk by investing in feed, water, and veterinary services to keep insured animals
alive. As a result, it is claimed that IBLI is a ‘pro-poor’ development intervention,
focused on protecting key assets, rescuing pastoralists from further poverty traps
(Barnett et al., 2008; Chantarat et al., 2009).
However, does making such a product available to all pastoralists on a
commercial basis achieve the desired purpose of aiding the poorest and most
vulnerable in a pastoral system? Does focusing on a single peril (drought) with
a mechanism centred on individual owners and animals reflect how pasto-
ralists themselves respond to drought? Based on research from 2019 to 2022 in
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Borana, southern Ethiopia (Taye, 2022), this chapter investigates how pasto-
ralists respond to drought-related uncertainties and asks whether insurance
benefits impoverished pastoralists as intended.
Insurance and its assumptions
Insurance as a mode of social protection emerged as a result of the demise of
cooperative forms of social support in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, as well as an increase in individualization and the market orientation
of welfare. As a result of the expansion of the welfare state during the twentieth
century, insurance became more socialized in state-based support mechanisms
(Ewald, 2020). In recent years, insurance has been governed by the neoliberal
doctrine of regulating at a distance through the market and is part of a larger
trend of financialization, including of disaster risk (Johnson, 2020, 2021). Risk
management through insurance, according to Dorfman (1998: 2), is ‘the art
and science of forecasting probable losses and formulating an efficient plan to
survive them’. It is therefore argued that insurance is an important type of risk
management, benefiting both agricultural production and the economy in
general. However, as the literature on the social and political implications of
insurance demonstrates, such technological, financialized, and market-based
development interventions are never neutral or without social and political
ramifications (Ewald, 1991; Isakson 2014; Johnson, 2020).
Unlike standard insurance, index-based insurance does not directly cover
actual losses caused by a natural disaster such as drought. In traditional
indemnity insurance, risks are identified, measured, anticipated, and calculated,
and a loss is indemnified. As a result, the detected hazard and the damaged/
lost asset/property have a direct relationship. Index-based insurance, on the
other hand, employs an external indicator index (such as rainfall, temperature,
or vegetation cover) to measure, predict, and indemnify a danger (such as
the drought that causes crop or pasture loss). The advantages of index-based
insurance over conventional indemnity-based insurance are threefold: 1) the
transaction costs of verifying damages/losses are lowered; 2) the problem
of ‘moral hazard’1 is minimized or resolved; and 3) the problem of ‘adverse
selection’ is removed2 (Isakson, 2015; Janzen et al., 2016).
For IBLI, satellite technology is used to monitor the availability of pasture
vegetation. Vegetation cover in a given area is quantified and converted to an
index using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The payout
to insured pastoralists in a given area is determined by the value of the index
throughout a season, with measurements made twice during the rainy season
before the dry period begins. IBLI pays individual pastoralists prior to the
occurrence of a drought, when the forage condition falls below an agreed
threshold by comparing it to that in the previous 20 years.
All pastoralists in an insurance cluster pay the same premium per animal and
receive the same rate of payment. The payments (if they occur) are intended
to cover the cost of keeping an insured animal alive during the dry months.
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LIVESTOCK INSURANCE 95
As a result, the payouts are a monetized estimate of feed, water, and veterinary
service expenses per insured animal during that particular season.
Several assumptions are built into the IBLI model:
• First, the model assumes that the distribution of rainfall is highly
correlated with pasture availability and so drought risk. Further, it is
assumed that pastoralists in a specific area have comparable pasture
access, and their mobility is constrained to that area – the satellite
vegetation monitoring is linked to a specific area only.
• Second, it is assumed that all pastoralists in an area are equally affected
by the risk of forage scarcity and so drought. All forms of livestock are
standardized into a single unit known as TLU (Tropical Livestock Unit)
to monetize the effects of drought on livestock; thus, cattle and sheep
(grazers) and camels and goats (browsers) are standardized and presumed
to be equally affected by forage scarcity in a region.
• Third, IBLI is made commercially available to the most vulnerable
pastoralists, and it is assumed that this will help them safeguard their
assets (livestock) from the effects of drought, thereby minimizing the
risk of sliding into poverty. The insurance model therefore assumes that
animals are owned and held individually, that responses to drought are
individualized, and that such responses are assisted through payouts
that help protect an individual’s household assets.
Overall, IBLI assumes a defined risk (a peril), which can be calculated
and marketized with insurance sold as a product to individuals who can
protect their assets if the threshold conditions in a specified area are
met. Insurance, by definition, cannot address uncertainty, where future
likelihoods of events cannot be calculated or predicted, and so products
such as IBLI carry with them certain assumptions about how droughts
occur and how pastoralists respond.
This chapter explores these assumptions with empirical information
from two sites in Borana, southern Ethiopia, comparing the responses to
drought risk and contrasting the socio-economic backgrounds of insured and
uninsured households. The chapter shows how insurance, if purchased, is
always combined with other responses and, in this way, pastoralists are able
to respond to uncertainties, not just defined, calculable risks.
Borana, southern Ethiopia
Pastoralism in southern Ethiopia, as in other dryland areas, is an economic
activity, a land-use system, a socio-cultural system, and a way of life in general
(Coppock, 1994; Bassi, 2005). More than 14 per cent of Ethiopia’s 110 million
people reside in pastoral areas (CSA, 2013). Furthermore, pastoral production
contributes significantly to the national economy by providing 40 per cent
of cattle, 75 per cent of goats, 25 per cent of sheep, 20 per cent of equines,
and 100 per cent of camels (FDRE/MoFED, 2017). Approximately 60 per cent
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96 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
of Ethiopia’s geographical area is considered to be under pastoral production
(Gebremeskel et al., 2019).
IBLI is currently being implemented in a number of pastoral areas in Ethiopia,
including in Oromia Region (Borana Zone, 13 districts and Hararghe Zone,
1 district), Somali Region (10 districts), and Southern Region (1 district). IBLI is
provided as part of the state–donor intervention and offers between 70 per cent
and full subsidy in all areas except Borana where IBLI has been sold commercially
since 2015. Oromia Insurance SC (OIC), the sole underwriter of the insurance
product in Borana, had sold over 20,000 policies by 2021. The total value insured
was 120 million Birr (around US$5 million) (OIC, 2019).
For this study, two insurance clusters were chosen from the 24 in Borana
Zone. These were an extensive pastoral area (Dire) and an agro-pastoral area
(Gomole) (Figure 7.1). The following criteria were used to identify these two
clusters: agroecology (pastoral and agro-pastoral); a substantial number of
insurance sales (insured households more than 5 per cent of total); and the
absence of discounts or insurance subsidies. In both sites, livestock are the
primary source of livelihood and revenue, although farming is becoming
increasingly important in Gomole. A mixed methods approach was used in
the study, combining quantitative (stratified household survey, N = 300) and
qualitative (case studies (72), focus group discussions (12), ethnography (18),
photovoice (18), and elite interviews (16)) methodologies. A total of 530
households and individuals were chosen, based on their insurance interaction
(insured, dropouts, and uninsured), their wealth status (poor, medium-wealth,
and rich), as well as gender, age, and location.
Comparing insured and uninsured pastoralists3
When IBLI was first introduced in Ethiopia, it was assumed that not everyone
would participate, even on a commercial basis. Even though it was offered to
everyone, it was assumed that some of the richer pastoralists would not take
it up as they could self-insure without buying insurance. As a result, it was
viewed as an intervention in support of vulnerable people.
Against expectations, the largest livestock owners (nearly all men)
bought insurance in both locations (see Table 7.1). In Dire, insured families
own twice as many animals (both large and small stock) as uninsured ones.
Similarly, insured households in Gomole own 40 per cent more animals
(both large and small stock) than uninsured households. Furthermore,
insurance policyholders are more likely to own farmland as well as
houses in town, indicating an overall higher socio-economic standing.
The utilization of crop residue for animal feed is related to farmland size,
which is larger among insured households and falls among dropouts and
uninsured households.
Insurance was taken up by richer pastoralists, but how important was it
for others? The data show how the majority of female-headed households are
either uninsured or have dropped out of the insurance scheme. Dropouts are
often under the age of 40, with a higher proportion being female.
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LIVESTOCK INSURANCE 97
Lake Chamo
Sagan
Chew Bahir
(Lake Stephanie)
Yabelo Wildlife
Sanctuary
Stephanie
Wildlife
Sanctuary
Arero
Teltele
Gidole
Jamuda
Tuk’a
Weito
Negele
Borana
Kebri
Mangest
Bitata
Hudet
Wachile
Wadera
Yabelo
Finchawa
Hagere
Maryam
Konso
Mega
El Leh
Moyale
Turbi
Addis
Ababa
Arero
Yabelo
Teltele
Dillo
Dire
Dhaas
Miyo
Dudga Dawa
Moyale
Melka-
Soda
BORANA
OROMIA
S.N.N.P.R.
OROMIA
ETHIOPIA
Zone boundary
Woreda boundary
KEY
Main town
Town
Conservation parks
Area of interest (study site)
Highway
Main road
International boundary
Regional boundary
020 40 60 km
SOMALIA
YEMEN
SUDAN
ERITREA
KENYA
UGANDA
DJIBOUTI
SOUTH
SUDAN
KENYA
Figure 7.1 Study area: Borana, Ethiopia
Wealthy households invested 61 per cent more cash in buying
insurance products than medium-wealth pastoralists and 244 per cent
more than poor insured households. The total sum insured per household
differs across sites, with the average being US$122 in Dire and only US$55
in Gomole.
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98 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Table 7.1 Key features of the population from Gomole and Dire (100 households in each
category)
Selected indicators Gomole Dire
Active Dropouts Uninsured Active Dropouts Uninsured
Female-headed
households (from total
respondents in %)
2.6 11.9 8.3 8.2 17.1 20.0
Gender (0 = male and
1 = female)
0.28 0.42 0.28 0.29 0.41 0.47
Age of household head
(years)
44.0 39.1 41.3 46.6 37.7 43.6
Large stock (cattle and
camels) owned (TLU)
19.9 13.2 14.2 30.3 16.7 14.6
Small stock (goats and
sheep) owned (headcount)
42.1 18.0 26.0 42.8 37.5 27.9
Crop farm area (ha) 2.7 2.3 2.4 0.7 0.5 0.6
Houses owned in town
(count)
0.5 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.2 0.2
% source of livelihood
from livestock
50.6 47.4 38.2 76 73.3 67.5
% income from livestock 53.9 35.6 38.3 86.9 95.1 90
% income from crops 41.0 54.2 51.7 0.0 0.0 2.5
% pasture from kallo
(community)
7.7 11.9 11.7 27.9 31.8 47.5
% pasture from crop
residue
43.6 42.4 33.3 8.2 2.4 2.5
Pastoralists with many livestock have a limited (targeted) source of
livelihood and income, yet multiple pathways to accumulate assets (farmland,
houses in towns, etc.) and secure livestock inputs (pasture and water).
The socio-demographic (gender and age) and economic (source of income
and wealth) patterns suggest that wealthy adult males dominate insured
households. Younger and female pastoralists, on the other hand, are dropouts
with middle-class incomes.
Combining insurance with local responses
In 2019, a severe drought struck Borana, and the insurance underwriter paid
out US$170,000 to 3,000 policyholders. In Dire and Gomole, 200 households
received compensation, half of which were chosen for this study. Because the
payment was made after the primary rainy season (March–June) failed, the
mix of insured and uninsured responses could be determined. How did pasto-
ralists – differentiated by location, wealth, and gender – combine insurance
with other responses in order to offset the impacts of drought? Across the
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sample households, 22 different responses were identified, 12 of them
combined with index-based insurance. The following sections explore some
of the main response strategies, contrasting those of insured and uninsured
households (Table 7.2).
Purchase of animal feed
While insured families spent more than uninsured ones on average, there
are significant variations between income levels and geographic regions.
While low-income households in both locations spent more on animal
feed overall, the spending gap between the insured and uninsured narrows
when compared to those of middle- or upper-income status. The wealthiest
families in Dire showed the largest difference between insured and uninsured
households, with insured individuals spending 20 per cent more than
uninsured families with the same income. In Gomole, insured households
spent substantially more on feed than uninsured households.
Changing daily food consumption (quantity/quality)
Uninsured pastoralists practised this response strategy more than insured
households in both sites; however, the application of this strategy is greatly
determined by wealth status. Reducing food consumption is often used by
low-income, uninsured families (65.6 per cent in Dire and 81.7 per cent in
Table 7.2 Combining insurance with local responses in 2019 (per cent)
Location Insurance
category
Wealth
category
Increasing
the
purchase
of feed
Consuming
less food
(daily) –
either quality
or quantity
Expanding
private
enclosures
Migrating
to common
areas
Starting
farming
Dire Insured Poor 45.7 54.3 32.9 58.6 37.1
Medium 46.7 53.3 34.5 57.3 50.0
Rich 60.6 49.4 35.0 70.6 45.8
Uninsured Poor 42.2 65.6 32.2 43.3 32.2
Medium 37.3 61.3 26.7 62.7 33.3
Rich 40.0 51.4 28.6 74.3 40.0
Gomole Insured Poor 47.1 68.9 25.0 40.0 84.3
Medium 59.6 56.8 32.6 38.5 90.8
Rich 66.4 52.5 33.8 42.4 89.4
Uninsured Poor 40.7 81.7 22.2 34.2 73.3
Medium 42.0 70.0 24.6 51.6 80.0
Rich 50.6 63.7 23.5 48.2 70.6
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100 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Gomole). The rate decreases to 61.3 per cent in Dire and 70 per cent in Gomole
for uninsured, medium-wealth groups. Uninsured wealthy pastoralists are
the least likely to practise consumption-smoothing, although a significant
number still do (51.4 per cent in Dire and 63.7 per cent in Gomole).
The money from payouts received by medium and poor households in
2019 was spent on food more than anything else. Those most likely to report
this were the medium wealthy in Dire (27.7 per cent) and poor households in
Gomole (28.9 per cent). Combining insurance payouts with food purchase,
however, follows a different rationale. Poorer insured pastoralists bought
grains for food once the payout had been made, with rice being the most
common food item. A family of 10 can be fed with a kilogramme of rice,
which costs $0.4. ‘Rice is simple to prepare. You boil it, add salt, and serve it.
You can save the milk you’re selling by doing so. A litre of milk costs the same
as a kilo of rice, yet serving 10 people requires nearly three litres’, Negele –
a young, insured poor pastoralist in Gomole – explained in September 2020.
Although the payouts to the poor and some middle-class pastoralists were
modest, they went a long way towards acquiring food because they insured a
limited number of their livestock. In August 2020, Qaballe Dida from Gomole,
who received US$15, said she was able to fulfil her food needs for over 17 days
with the money she received.
Expanding private enclosures
The expansion of private land for grazing is an important response for some
pastoralists. Particularly in Gomole, the form of ownership has shifted dramat-
ically from communal to private holdings in recent years. Poor, uninsured
households in Dire (32.2 per cent) and Gomole (22.2 per cent) are the least
likely to expand private enclosures compared to the other two wealth groups.
The wealthy in Gomole violate local rules by incorporating community land
into their private plots, and insurance payouts incentivize pastoralists to
expand private enclosures ahead of the rainy season.
Migration to common areas
Migration is an important strategy for pastoralists in Borana (Coppock,
2016). When pastoralists perceive pasture conditions to be deteriorating,
they move their animals to common areas. More poor insured households
(58.6 per cent) migrate to common areas that are closer to their basecamp
than uninsured households (43.3 per cent). However, insured medium
(57.3 per cent) and wealthy (70.6 per cent) pastoralists in Dire practise it
less than uninsured households of the same wealth groups (62.7 per cent
and 74.3 per cent respectively). The trends are similar in Gomole. However,
when a comparison is made among the three wealth groups within each
cluster, in both sites, migrating to nearby areas is more often practised
by insured wealthy pastoralists (Gomole, 42.4 per cent and Dire, 70.6 per
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cent) than the rest, as gaining access to land in other areas requires good
connections and sufficient labour to move herds.
Although mobility is an inherent part of drought response (see Chapter 3),
insurance payouts discourage pastoralists’ movements. Rather than investing
in collective responses – pooling livestock and labour for movement over
longer distances – they instead seek to purchase water and feed, establish
their own enclosures, or invest in farming through more individualized
responses. In so doing, they undermine the community-level responses to
drought centred on mobility, affecting other pastoralists’ ability to respond
to uncertainty.
Expanding farming
Despite the fact that farming is not common in Dire, with the average
landholdings being less than a hectare, the expectation of low rainfall
increases the likelihood of cropping among insured households compared to
the uninsured. Medium-wealth groups combine farming with insurance more
than the other two groups. In Gomole, wealthier households combine farming
at a higher level than the other two: 89.4 per cent compared to the 70.6 per
cent of uninsured households.
Figure 7.2 A pastoralist fencing grazing land. When it starts raining, pastoralists enclose
areas that are closer to their villages to improve grass growth for livestock feeding in
the dry season.
Credit: Galmo (from the photovoice exercise).
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102 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
In sum, Borana pastoralists combine insurance payouts with a range of
diverse responses. This changes according to wealth and location. Insurance
payouts are used in a variety of ways. For some, they provide additional cash
to purchase feed (or water, or veterinary services) and preserve their livestock
assets, as intended by insurance promoters. Such responses, however, are
concentrated among the wealthier pastoralists, particularly in the more
pastoral area of Dire, where other options are limited.
Insurance payouts may also provoke unplanned-for actions, such as
triggering investments in expanding private enclosures or the withdrawal
of commitments to collective movement of herds. These may have negative
knock-on consequences for others. For poorer households (and indeed for many
others), the dominant drought response is to reduce food consumption, and
insurance payouts may help offset this by providing households with cash to
buy food. While this offsets the need for distress sales of livestock, the payouts
are not focused on protecting livestock assets in advance of drought mortalities
as intended. For insured pastoralists, insurance payouts are seen as part of a suite
of responses, and often not the most important one. Shifting to non-pastoral
livelihoods – including farming or trading – is often more important, especially
in sites such as Gomole where other options are available.
For both richer and poorer pastoralists without insurance – indeed the
majority of households in both Borana sites – it is this juggling of different
options over time that is important. As a drought unfolds (and they are all
different, affecting pasture, water sources, and livestock in different ways), pasto-
ralists must combine responses so as to confront uncertainty. This cannot be
defined in advance and requires skilled adaptation, drawing on long experience,
collective knowledge, and networks of support. Insurance may be part of this
portfolio of responses for some, but it is far from a silver-bullet solution to the
challenges of drought response in the pastoral drylands of Borana.
Conclusion
According to its promoters, livestock insurance is supposed to strengthen
the resilience of the most vulnerable pastoralists against drought, with the
payouts intended to help keep core breeding livestock alive during climate-
induced droughts. While insurance is strongly associated with the purchase
of feed during drought periods, it is more important for richer, male pasto-
ralists who are able to combine insurance with other responses. Wealthier
pastoralists invest in productive responses that protect their herds and flocks,
even enhancing their asset holdings during drought periods by selling older
animals and purchasing younger ones.
Those few poorer and medium-wealth households who take out
insurance are able to reduce distress sales, and do not reduce meals as
much as those who do not have insurance, as the cash payouts can be
deployed to purchase food for human use. Other poorer pastoralists
may not be able to afford the commercial premiums for insurance and
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with fewer assets of their own must rely on other responses to drought,
including more collective responses based on redistribution and sharing
(see Chapter 6).
Most poorer pastoralists do not have access to individualized enclosed
pastures to the extent that richer households do, so they must move animals
during drought as part of a collective response. However, some medium-wealth
households with insurance are buying water and feed during extreme stress
periods, and many have also diversified into farming, especially in Gomole,
reducing incentives to move and engage in collective responses, a shift in
strategy which especially affects the poor.
Multiple factors therefore influence how pastoralists respond to drought,
including economic status, gender, age, and location, as well as how insurance
is combined with other responses. If insurance is purchased, it fits into a wider
set of responses, which differ across households and locations. Insurance is
not the ‘pro-poor’ solution to drought risk that some envisaged, although it
can help in different ways if combined with other strategies, and become part
of a wider portfolio of responses.
However, as the study showed, the assumptions underlying index-based
insurance are not upheld in the Borana context. Insurance is directed to
individual animals and households, but there are more collective responses
that are also important, including movement. Insurance assumes that risks
can be calculated in advance of drought onset based on indices of vegetation,
but droughts affect different livestock in different ways, and people make use
of rangelands in flexible ways that go beyond a delineated area.
Pastoralists’ responses must take account of how droughts unfold over
time and space, and how they affect animals in different ways. These impacts
cannot be predicted, and so pastoralists must always adapt incrementally
through a season. A single payout may help, but it must be combined with
other responses – whether management of animals, or diversification of
income sources, or changing food consumption patterns. In other words, it
is uncertainty – where the likelihood of events is unknown – that is being
addressed, not risk. As a market tool for addressing a singular peril, insurance
is a risk management tool and cannot address uncertainty. Instead, local,
contingent, adaptive responses, often rooted in collective responses, must
come into play to complement or replace insurance if drought challenges are
to be addressed (see Chapter 6).
Technocratic assumptions in insurance design are based on static derivatives,
which are especially problematic in areas where land use, agricultural production,
and socio-institutional systems are constantly changing, making forecasting
difficult (see Chapter 1). Insurance instruments like IBLI must therefore be
integrated within such social, cultural, and economic environments (cf. Ewald
1991, 2020), avoiding the dangers of such individualized market instruments
displacing or contradicting more social forms of support.
Insurance must become embedded in wider social relations (such as gender
dynamics), institutional arrangements (such as mobility and pastoral resource
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104 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
governance), economic livelihood strategies, and political dynamics in
pastoral systems. As a market-based, individualized approach, insurance is not
in any way superior to what are deemed ‘traditional coping mechanisms’, as
is sometimes suggested. Indeed, quite the opposite: it is such embedded local
responses that make it possible for insurance to function as a complement to
collective, communal forms of response grounded in forms of local solidarity
and moral economy.
Notes
1. Moral hazard can be understood as the incentive of an insured person to
make unusual risk ventures.
2. Adverse selection is a situation when only one of the parties (seller or
buyer of insurance) has knowledge or information about the risk to be
insured. In other words, it is information asymmetry/failure.
3. Insured/active policyholder – a pastoralist/household with active insurance
coverage during 2019/2020 and for one whole year before the time of the
study. Dropout – a pastoralist who had purchased the nsurance product
and then left the insurance scheme during the study period. Uninsured/
non-policyholder – a pastoralist with no history of investment in livestock
insurance.
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CHAPTER 8
Confronting uncertainties in southern Tunisia:
the role of migration and collective resource
management
Linda Pappagallo
Introduction
Parts of the southern drylands of Tunisia in the region of Tataouine, bordering
Libya and Algeria, are like inhabited lunar-scapes. These dry, highland
areas have low and variable rainfall, yet hundreds of villages populate this
challenging environment. The jbeili (or djebalia, jbaliya, mountain people)
identify as Amazigh, or Arabized Berbers, and until the late 1990s largely lived
in trogloditic abodes carved deep into the walls of the rocky canyons within
the ksours, or fortified villages. Douiret is one of these villages. It is found on
the crest of the Dahar ridge, where a plateau of 80 km rises gently towards the
east at the edge of the Djeffara Plains (Figures 8.1 and 8.2).
Encountering this particularly harsh landscape may give the impression
that these villages are isolated and marginal communities. However, the long
migration history of the jbeili reveals how mobility through particularly strong
family ties allow Douiris to remain at the centre of much wider and complex
relationships that have been established across space and generations.
Today, the link between human migration, livestock-keeping (mostly of
sheep), and territorial management (of grazing) in managing uncertainties
is an important one. The socio-economic options generated through this
networked community allow the inhabitants of Douiret to live with unfolding
uncertainties linked to variable precipitation, unemployment, inflation, and
wider challenges of food insecurity. This chapter therefore discusses how
human migration and collective resource management are an integral part
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Chott
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Figure 8.1 Map of the study area
of the adaptive strategies pastoralists use to meet changing conditions in this
frontier economy.
Over centuries, the jbeilis have managed uncertainties with great skill.
Geographically, Douiret is surrounded by wadis (dry valleys that become
riverbeds during the rainy season), marked by south-west facing jessours, a
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Figure 8.2 The old town of Douiret, with its troglodytic abodes, became largely unpopulated
by the late 1980s as villagers moved to ‘new’ Douiret or elsewhere.
Credit: Linda Pappagallo.
series of terraces formed behind tabias (water and soil catchment barrages
built from earth and stone). (Figure 8.3).
These ingenious structures domesticate a difficult terrain to increase
livelihood options. The jessours increase soil moisture for crops, ensure
groundwater recharge through the infiltration in the terraces, and protect
downstream infrastructure by flood control. For Douiris, better pastures, olive
tree plantations, and partially cultivated cereals in the jessours remain key for
their livelihoods.
For livestock owners, the jessours offer high-quality grazing in the mosaic
of grazing options. By relying on a spectrum of relations and land tenure
regimes, from open pastures and commons belonging to and managed by
clans (called arch) to more private (but unfenced and accessible) land like that
in the jessours, livestock owners are continuously finding ways to manage
their flocks’ nutritional requirements by tracking patchy rainfall distribution.
This chapter asks how livestock owners in Douiret overcome the challenges
posed by multiple uncertainties linked to shifting environmental, economic,
and socio-political conditions in a highly challenging terrain.
Two key aspects emerge. The first is the long and particular migration history
that marks Douiret’s socio-economic establishment outside of the village, and
the second is the evolution of collective herding arrangements such as the
khlata described below. Migration and the resulting ‘absences’ of various family
members, combined with the pooling of resources, are therefore two strategies
that pastoralists in Douiret use to manage uncertainties (Pappagallo, 2022).
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Migration and ‘absence’
Today, Douiret has a total population of around 90,000, but only between 700
and 1,000 live more permanently in Douiret. The majority (around 20,000) are
in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, some 500 km away, specifically in the Medina
(the old part of the city) where ‘little islands’ of Douiret have developed over
time in specific neighbourhoods such as Hafsia, Baba Jezira, and Bab Jedid
through processes of aggregation and spatially stretched social relations
(Prost, 1955). As Ali, a Douiri who grew up in Tunis noted in a February 2020
interview, ‘We are not in the village, we re-create the village so we are not far
from the village’ and this is a specific trait that marks the historic relationship
between Douiret in the south and Douiret in the north, in Tunis.
The migration patterns of the jbeili to the north are longstanding, with
particular rhythms. Each village has typically (though increasingly less so)
operated in a well-defined and established economic space. In the case of
Douiret, for example, this has developed especially through Douiris working as
porters in the central market, bakers, and newsagents. In the 1960s, migration
corridors evolved to France, Libya, and recently to Canada. The enduring
significance of these networks is particularly crucial in such harsh environ-
ments where networks and the extended family continue to form the social
Figure 8.3 The jessours help with water and soil management in order to increase livelihood
options.
Credit: Linda Pappagallo
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MIGRATION AND COLLECTIVE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 111
architecture through which Douiris outside Douiret remain connected and
support livelihoods and incomes inside.
Migration is therefore one of the ways by which Douiris have compensated
for the economic and environmental uncertainties of their territory; by
creating a differentiated and ‘pluriactive’ socio-economic landscape where
non-farm work, informal markets, migration, and remittances remain central
to rural transformations, and where the household is an economic institution
straddling multiple localities (Fréguin-Gresh et al., 2015).
Since a significant part of the population are scattered in different places
and therefore ‘absent’ from Douiret, the agrarian political economy must
be assessed by who is present and absent over time. This relationship is
key to understanding how people deal with uncertainties in drylands and
highlighting what patterns of accumulation of livestock (and other resources)
are possible – and for whom. For livestock owners, for example, absence
influences how social networks around livestock management operate, how
identities and subjectivities around livestock husbandry are formed and
maintained, and how remittances from outside the area provide the basis for
investment in local flocks. In fact, in Douiret, having a flock is an extended
family project: various members contribute to the survival and growth of the
flock at different moments. As Hedi explained in March 2021:
I was herding on my own. I cannot afford to pay a herder 1,000 dinar
[US$325] while I sleep at home. I had to herd on my own for the first and
second year and make some sacrifices. My brother helped me financially
to be able to afford the herding costs later. I have two siblings who work
in Tunis. In the beginning, you need to have someone who can help and
support you financially, otherwise you cannot make it on your own due
to the increasing costs and forage prices.
For young livestock owners like Hedi, the absence of various family members
therefore also acts as collateral against inflation in the local economy along
with other uncertainties. External flows of cash – such as remittances – help
to support the flock and ensure that expensive feed can be bought during
long periods of drought so that part of the flock does not need to be sold.
Remittances also help to regulate the fast-paced changes in livestock and
meat prices. In Douiret, livestock owners are operating in a border economy,
a context where livestock markets are highly dynamic due to frontier trading
with Libya. Douiris benefit from arbitrage in these interstitial spaces by
acquiring animals cheaply from Libya, especially when there is conflict, and
selling to Libyans when things are better there. Access to informal credit
through family networks also allows livestock owners to buy cheaply and sell
for a profit, and so address market uncertainties. In this sense, the absence of
family members cannot be seen as a void but must be understood as including
various forms of connection to the territory.
The gendered and age-specific aspects of absence are also important.
Absences define trust relations across networks; they change divisions of
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112 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
labour and so redefine notions of femininity and masculinity and the organi-
zation of split households. One reading, for example, is that for every man
that leaves, there are (several) women who stay in order to support and enable
different departures. Sisters, wives, mothers, and other female relatives stay in
Douiret to support social reproduction, to allow for dislocated accumulation
possibilities, and also to continue to sustain agricultural production – either
directly or through the management of people.
Zoglem, an elder who worked a lifetime in the central market as a porter in
Tunis, affirmed this:
If it wasn’t for women, we wouldn’t be able to do anything; women are
everything. When I was in Tunis, I had a lot of livestock here and I relied
on my wife. She ran the business, she bought hay for the sheep and
managed the flock, and spent from her own money to keep things going.
If I were to do it alone, I couldn’t have achieved that. My daughters
helped her as well; without the help of my daughters and my wife, I
couldn’t have raised livestock.
This is the story of many individuals who, leaving Douiret for work, have
depended on elders, women, and children who remain behind for agricultural
work, such as herding and olive-picking. However, times are changing. Zoglem
is of a particular generation in which women were more involved in pastoral
labour. But today, aspirations related to ideas of modernity and concepts of a
‘modern woman’ mean there is a certain stigma attached to women taking care
of the flocks. As the roles and responsibilities of elders, women, and children
shift, and as external family support is not accessible to all, livestock owners
in Douiret have to find other ways to manage livestock that are less reliant on
family labour and networks. In these cases, the role of social institutions in
mediating alternative arrangements of herding labour become key.
Pooling resources and collective herding arrangements
Young, cash-strapped livestock owners, without migrant networks sending
remittances, build their flocks by tapping into collective livestock management
arrangements such as the khlata. The khlata literally means ‘mixing’ in Arabic.
It describes a pooling process whereby different livestock owners pool their
flocks (or mix them together) and at the same time share herding labour
costs, as well as pooling other endowments, such as pastureland and water.
Other aspects of the collective management of the flock – such as transpor-
tation, fodder, and water costs – are negotiated along with access to tractors,
boreholes, or markets. The khlata is managed by a herder who, apart from
herding, watering, and tending the animals, may also be accountable for
tracking costs and revenues, negotiating access to resources such as veterinary
services, feed, land, and water, and consulting with owners around decisions
on the sale of livestock by following fertility rates, calving seasons, and
fluctuating market prices for meat.
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The benefits of entrusting a private flock to a khlata arrangement are
therefore particularly evident for individuals who do not have access to family
labour, credit, remittances, savings, or capital to pay for herding labour costs.
Through the khlata, labour costs are negotiated and shared amongst associates.
Usually, the khlata is composed of 8 to 15 members, and the khlata herd can
reach up to 700 head. Through the khlata, the collective flock has the right
to access to pasture that ‘belongs’ to each of the members’ clans. This means
that if there are 15 members, each with different endowments or access rights
(including some with no access to land), the collective herd has access to a
variety of grazing options through the khlata.
By pooling different and dispersed land endowments, livestock owners can
use the khlata to overcome the requirement to individually negotiate resources
and relationships that are important for the flock, and so address uncertainties.
As Ben Brahim explained when interviewed in March 2021, ‘For instance, if
I want to go herding in Ouara, they would kick my flock out, they wouldn’t
allow me to grazethere […] If I want to get access to it, I will have to make a
khlata arrangement with someone there.’ The Ouara are pastures in the plains,
so to gain access Ben Brahim would have to build relationships and reciprocal
arrangements through the khlata.
The khlata thus legitimizes access to land, and such pooling arrange-
ments can also expand rights and subvert certain social expectations and
rules about getting access to land. For example, the khlata alleviates the
emotional pressure for younger siblings (constrained by gerontocratic
power relations) or landless herders (constrained by the legacy of patron–
client relations) to negotiate access to land, given the current place they
hold within society. There are still tacit social pressures, norms, and expec-
tations (such as trustworthiness) that determine whether you are able to
enter a khlata arrangement and with whom, but these relationships are
simplified by productive objectives and reciprocal interests. In this sense,
the khlata does not simply guarantee access to land and resources, but it
subverts customary rules that limit the capacity for individuals to obtain
a degree of autonomy. This is another way in which collective pooling
mechanisms and reciprocal arrangements not only address uncertainties in
a resource-constrained setting but also act to redistribute unequal distribu-
tions of pasture or other endowments.
The heterogeneous qualities and patchy distribution of pasture in the
Dahar, with changes within and between seasons, means that negotiating
access to pasture and water is highly complex. For example, when certain
rangelands are depleted, especially during dry spells or droughts, access to
other rangelands must be negotiated within the farming community, a point
highlighted by Ben Brahim:
Everyone is struggling in their own way in Tataouine, and everyone
knows each other. It’s a small state. For example, as we know each other,
you can come to ask me if you could herd in a specific part of my land
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since drought hit yours and not mine. I would then tell you to go ahead
and I hope the best for them […] It’s only the farmer who would feel the
struggle of another farmer […] The farmers here know each other and
deal with each other, that’s it.
Although access to pasture depends on the bundle of social relations and
the power of negotiation that the individual has within the community,
when management is collectivized, the expertise and connections required
to track pasture and rainfall are considerably simplified. This is because
access to land becomes a collective problem with collective solutions.
For those who need it, pooling access rights through the khlata can be a
strategy to gain access to more and better land, therefore stretching the
rainy season (Krätli, 2016) and helping to synchronize access to pasture
with patchy rainfall distribution.
Since the early to mid-2000s, there has been a revival of the khlata,
in part fuelled by returning migrants’ decisions to (re)constitute flocks
after having accumulated sufficient capital elsewhere, and in part as
‘absent’ workers in the city aspire to own livestock in their rural homes.
These individuals are often labelled ‘absentee livestock owners’, although
they remain very much connected and so are ‘present’ in the territory
socially and economically. For example, by negotiating their presence in
the pastoral system through the khlata, these individuals use the flock
to claim a sort of territorial visibility. By entrusting their flocks to the
khlata, and by paying a fixed price per head, they can ensure that their
flock is being looked after and can access pasture through the collective
flock – even though they may have lost their access rights in their absence
and with time. The khlata model is convenient for absentees when flocks
are relatively small – for example, less than 60 head – since hiring an
individual waged herder would be too expensive, and it would require
livestock owners to be more physically present.
In order to achieve faster rates of accumulation, optimal nutrition is
important to support higher lambing rates, even during drought. Initially,
maintaining low costs and building territorial knowledge and experience
through the khlata can be beneficial, although it is widely recognized that
collective arrangements may not result in the best nutrition for the animals.
However, as flocks grow and the operation becomes more commercialized,
some livestock owners may prefer to hire individual herders, as they can focus
on the flock and manage its nutrition in a more highly attuned way. As the
flock continues to grow, a young livestock owner wanting to establish himself
will therefore often decide to leave the khlata arrangement. Size does matter
and larger flocks are not suitably managed through a khlata. Interviewed in
April 2021, a young livestock owner, Mousoud, stressed this:
It is not profitable to engage in khlata when you have a large number
of livestock. For instance, if I have 300 head and I mix it in the
khlata, I would be spending the same amount as if I were to hire a
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herder, but in the khlata, my livestock isn’t eating that well since it’s
among a large number of other sheep. With a khlata of 700 and 800
head, my flock will not be eating that much. They can’t even enter
some private lands, while when my flock is on its own, it’s always
full [in terms of feed …]I realized that I harmed my own livestock
by mixing […] even the flock will not be at ease as they would be
following each other. In herding, they always say kallel w dallel [that
the less the better]. Khlata is difficult, sometimes you can mix with a
non-trustworthy person.1
To summarize, the harsh context of Douiret – with multiple, intersecting
environmental and market uncertainties – dictates how resilience is built
through migration, and the relationship between presence and absence.
This allows for the taking of opportunities for accumulation elsewhere while
remaining connected to one’s territory of origin through collective pooling
mechanisms, such as the khlata. Combining migration with collective pooling
explains how pastoralists in Douiret navigate the uncertainties associated with
such variable socio-ecological landscapes.
As the types of uncertainties shift with changing environmental and
political-economic conditions, so the strategies and forms of institutions shift
to respond to the new conditions. Understanding institutional adaptation
and the evolution of the khlata thus further highlights the importance of
adaptable and informal collective resource management.
The evolution of informal collective resource management institutions
in southern Tunisia
The khlata is an institution that is responsive to the dry, uncertain conditions
of the south of Tunisia, where rainfall is variable, services are limited, and the
costs of purchasing fodder and water are high. Resource scarcities are therefore
compensated for by reciprocal and collective arrangements.
It is the relative abundance or scarcity of resources that dictate livestock
production and determine how collective pooling mechanisms are used.
Changes in the politics of access to rangelands in the Dahar, and land fragmen-
tation and privatization in the plains, for example, continuously reconfigure
patterns and pressures of access to pastureland in the mountains, and conse-
quently the configuration and use of the khlata.
While associates of the khlata in the past were typically from the same family
(arch) or based around kin ties within Douiret, khlatas today are composed of
a more diverse group of individuals, increasingly including members that are
from outside Douiret but who have ties to the village. The trend of increasing
heterogeneity in membership composition is a sign of institutional adapt-
ability. The khlata increasingly includes relatives, neighbours, or strangers,
people with different identities (non-Douiri), or non-kin (non-family
members). It also includes a broader representation of classes, different forms
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116 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
of absence, different rationales and strategies, and different asset endowments.
This adaptive mechanism relies on the flexible bundling and unbundling of
social relations as Jalloul explains:
The composition of the khlata has changed. Before the 1950s, flocks from
Douiret could not mix with the flocks from other villages. Each village
had their flocks and their rangelands. As the rangelands became less
productive and patchy, the membership to the khlata began to evolve by
including livestock owners fromother communities. This was to enable
more extensive access to rangelands, which included ‘poorer’ as well as
more fertile rangelands to feed the flocks better. This has happened since
the 1980s (interview, April 2021).
Jalloul’s reflection suggests that, as resources become more scarce or
competitive, and as ties become more tenuous, extending beyond the narrow
circle of the family or arch, the khlata arrangement, as a more collective form
of associateship, becomes more important for accumulation. This seems to
contradict two views: the view that suggests that increasing resource scarcity
results in trends towards individualization and privatization (themselves
seen as more efficient modes of production); and the view that collective
action is most efficient only with small, homogeneous groups (Baland
and Platteau, 1995). Instead, what pastoral production in Douiret shows
is that migration coupled with collective forms of associateship, ones that
are adapting to become increasingly heterogeneous, provides solutions to
various forms of uncertainty.
Conclusion
Understanding how livestock-keepers in Douiret confront uncertainties
requires using a larger spatial scale and looking at how forms of ‘presence’
are negotiated in the village territory and how ‘absence’ through migration
generates connections and options. These connections provide links that
support patterns of livestock accumulation in Douiret by, for example,
sending remittances. But other less visible forms of connections are revealed
by looking at, for example, how relationships vary with different age- and
gender-specific roles, how rhythms of mobility influence the types of
connections, or how types of networks that link the village and the site of
migration influence patterns of mobility and engagement with territory. All
these aspects clarify how absence entails various forms of connection that
influence pastoral production. Practically, the next step is understanding
how absence is mediated by individuals and families to ensure that livestock-
keeping is maintained. What pastoralists in southern Tunisia teach us is that
the khlata is an example of a collective institutional mechanism that helps to
manage variability by sharing risks and options.
The adaptability of the khlata comes from its organizational framework:
it is informal, negotiated, and depends on the mix of pooled endowments
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brought in by the different associates. It is in this sense that the khlata
takes its strength from its collective structure. By having a heterogenous
membership, with varied endowments (access to land, trucks, water, admin-
istrative connections), more options are created for the management of an
individual’s flock to deal with various climatic and socio-political uncer-
tainties. The khlata is therefore an example of a collective institution and
adaptive mechanism that provides the basis for resilient livelihoods in the
drylands, at least for smaller flocks and especially for young, cash-strapped
entrepreneurs, the landless, retirees, and absentees.
References
Baland, J.M. and Platteau, J.P. (1995) ‘Does heterogeneity hinder collective
action?’ Cahiers de La Faculte Economique et Sociales 146.
Fréguin-Gresh, S., Cortes, G., Trousselle, A., Sourisseau, J.-M. and Guétat-
Bernard, H. (2015). ‘Le système familial multilocalisé. Proposition
analytique et méthodologique pour interroger les liens entre migrations et
développement rural au Sud’, Mondes En Développement 4: 13–32 <https://
doi.org/10.3917/med.172.0013>.
Krätli, S. (2016) ‘Discontinuity in pastoral development: time to update the
method’, Revue Scientifique et Technique de l’OIE 35: 485–97 <https://doi.
org/10.20506/rst.35.2.2528>.
Pappagallo, L. (2022) “Partir Pour Rester?”: To Leave in Order to Stay? The
Role of Absence and Institutions in Accumulation by Pastoralists in Southern
Tunisia, doctoral thesis, Sussex University <https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/
eprint/109122/>.
Prost, G. (1955) ‘L’émigration chez les Matmata et les Ouderna (sud Tunisien)’,
Les Cahiers de Tunisie: Revue de Sciences Humaines 3: 316–25.
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CHAPTER 9
Living with and from uncertainty: lessons
from pastoralists for development
Ian Scoones and Michele Nori
Introduction
As we have seen across the cases explored in this book, the framing of much
development policy in pastoral areas is centred on control, stability, and
directed management towards a vision of modernization, usually associated
with settlement and an agrarian or urban lifestyle. This runs counter to
how pastoralists must live and produce in highly variable environments:
by managing uncertainty, avoiding ignorance, and generating reliability.
Contexts are fast-changing, and so are sources of variability and drivers of
uncertainty, but pastoral practices remain rooted in the core principles of
pastoralism discussed through the chapters (see also Nori, 2019).
This chapter offers a brief survey of pastoral policies across the regions
where the case studies come from, drawing out the themes that are both
common and contrasting. Unfortunately, the majority of existing policies run
counter to the principles of pastoralism discussed throughout this book (see
Chapter 1), acting to undermine pastoral practices rather than support them.
Of course, development policies and interventions are not uniform, and there
are many projects scattered across the world that do offer a perspective drawing
on principles of openness, flexibility, and adaptation to generate reliable,
robust, and resilient livelihoods in the pastoral rangelands. But these remain a
minority. A World Bank report from 1993 reported that the pastoral sector had
experienced the greatest concentration of failed development projects in the
world (de Haan, 1993), and sadly the situation has not improved much since
then. As we discuss below, what is essential, if an alternative development
vision is to be realized, is to reverse the framing of standard, mainstream
policy and so begin to ‘see like a pastoralist’ (Catley et al., 2012).
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120 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
The chapters have examined various principles of pastoralism in different
contexts, looking in turn at mobility, resource use, markets, insurance, moral
economies, and the collective pooling of resources as a way of assuring
accumulation even if herders are physically absent. These insights suggest
a very different approach to framing policy for development. This chapter
aims to pull these threads together, offering a future agenda for pastoral
development that genuinely takes uncertainty seriously. And, as we argue
in conclusion, this may offer some clues as to how everyone confronting a
turbulent world can navigate uncertainty more successfully, requiring us all
to abandon some of our long-held precepts about stability, control, and a
particular form of linear, modernizing development (Scoones, 2019, 2022a;
Scoones and Stirling, 2020).
Pastoral policies: a regional overview
What are some of the recurring themes of contemporary pastoral policy across
a selection of world regions?1 While there are obviously contextually specific
differences relating to particular histories and political economies, there is
a remarkable convergence across regions (see Nori, 2022 a–d for details of
specific national and regional policies).
Pastoral policies in China and the former Soviet republics of
Central Asia have been deeply affected by the shifts from state control and
collectivization to an engagement with the market economy and individual-
ization of tenure in the rangelands. Former state farms have been redistributed
and cooperatives abandoned, and there is a commitment to investing in
household-based livestock production, around which a set of modernization
policies are promoted. In central Asian countries, public investments have
faded in the transition to a market economy, giving rise to new patterns of
territorial and social polarization (Kerven et al., 2021; Nori, 2022a).
China’s high-profile Belt and Road Initiative has focused on developing
transport and energy infrastructure, which in turn helps promote other
investments including mining and crop-farming. While the shifts between
regimes have been dramatic, in practice, pastoralists have always had to
negotiate a way through centralized policies. In the state-controlled, collective
era, there were elements of private and communal management and today,
collective forms persist in new forms of hybrid rangeland governance that
are compromises between centralized policies and local contexts (Tsering,
2022; Gongbuzeren et al., 2018; see also Chapter 4). Despite major changes
in governance, the necessity of managing highly variable resources persists
across regimes.
In South Asia, similar patterns of investment exist with, for example,
huge industrial investments occurring in Kachchh in Gujarat, India following
the 2001 earthquake. This comes on the back of longer-term development of
irrigation infrastructure, including the contentious Sardar Sarovar Dam and
canal system (see Chapter 3). As elsewhere in the region, state policy focuses
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almost exclusively on the intensification of agriculture, with pastoralism
generally neglected. This echoes the Green Revolution period in India
from the 1960s, when promotion of high-yielding crops were invested in.
Negotiating access to increasingly intensified farms and brokering arrange-
ments with crop producers, while moving across landscapes that are being
transformed through industrial development and transport infrastructure,
presents many challenges for pastoralists as they continue to respond to high
environmental variability but now with new uncertainties combined (Maru,
2022, see Chapter 3).
In Europe, a different dynamic is evident. Peripheral mountainous and
hilly areas inhabited by pastoralists are of interest to policymakers mostly
for their environmental values, including biodiversity protection, but also
as sites for solar and wind energy generation. On paper at least, pastoralists
are appreciated as environmental managers of natural habitats and offered
subsidies accordingly. In practice, however, the European Union’s CAP
favours consolidated farms with high input production systems and tight
integration into markets. As a result, pastoral people have migrated, and local
skilled herding labour has become short and been replaced by an immigrant
workforce. Small farms close and many grazing lands are being abandoned as
a result. Talk of subsidy reform has dominated policy debates across Europe
over decades, but political allegiances, market interests, and commitments
to certain classes of rural producers means that policy change has been slow
(Simula, 2022; Nori, 2022b; see also Chapter 5).
In the Middle East and North Africa, subsidy regimes again affect
pastoral systems. Policy efforts have been aimed at intensifying and stabilizing
livestock production so as to serve the needs of a growing population.
Subsidies for fodder importation, water development, community settlement,
and market engagement combine to change pastoral production. This results
in the uncontrolled growth of herd and flock sizes, the intensification of
production, and patterns of over- and under-grazed areas, often resulting
in serious land degradation (Nori, 2022c). High population growth and the
development of urban economies in the region, accelerated through the
oil boom, have triggered migratory flows to towns and cities and also to
other countries, including to Europe and the Arabian Peninsula. Remittance
money and hired herders are now integral parts of local livestock systems.
This link between migration dynamics and pastoral production is important
(Pappagallo, 2022; see also Chapter 8). As people migrate and become
absentees (in many different forms), livestock and labour take on new roles,
with significant implications for socio-political dynamics, including in class,
gender, and generational terms.
Finally, in sub-Saharan Africa, many of the same patterns occur –
constraints on mobility, rural depopulation, infrastructure investment,
livestock commercialization, the increase in absentee owners/hired herders,
and the diversification of livelihoods.2 However, policy regimes differ
across the continent. For instance, in Eastern Africa the African Union and
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the Intergovernmental Authority on Development have confirmed the
importance of pastoralism for regional economies and the need for pastoral
development.3 Meanwhile, transhumance protocols have affirmed the
importance of mobility, even if such frameworks focus on the control of
movement and allow limited flexibility.4 Regional and pan-African policy
positions on pastoralism are increasingly positive, but this is not always
reflected in national policies, which are much more mixed. National
governments often see pastoralism as challenge for state-building, especially
when pastoral areas are in borderlands where conflict is rife. However, where
decentralization has taken place, local governments are more likely to be
staffed by those from pastoral backgrounds and a more sympathetic position
towards pastoral development may be adopted.
Many African countries are highly reliant on external investments and
donor aid, particularly in the dryland pastoral areas where national funding
is often limited. Policies encouraging external commercial investments have
been encouraged as state resources decline. Investments in pastoral areas have
included mining, alternative energy, conservation, irrigated farming, tourism,
and more. Policies governing such investments have often been lacking,
resulting in land, water, and green grabs in pastoral areas, and growing
grievances among pastoral populations, along with disputes over land (Lind
et al., 2020a; Nori, 2022d; Robinson and Flintan, 2022). Aid policies increas-
ingly focus on humanitarian assistance, often resulting in a dependency on aid
flows in some pastoral regions where drought strikes frequently, despite the
rhetoric around resilience building, livelihood security, and social protection
(Mohamed, 2022; Taye, 2022; see also Chapters 6 and 7).
While conflict has long been a feature of East and West African drylands,
the intensity has increased, especially as conflicts have become bound up
with global political-economic interests, and the availability of small arms
has also increased following the wars in Libya and Somalia, for example
(UNECA, 2017). This has resulted in a range of policy interventions to
bring ‘peace’ and prevent the expansion of ‘terrorism’. These militarized,
securitized interventions, supported by international forces and heavily
influenced by global geopolitics, are reshaping sub-Saharan African
drylands. Pastoralists find it increasingly difficult to navigate such an
uncertain and sometimes violent terrain, and may be forced to take sides
(Benjaminsen and Ba, 2019). With pastoral areas deemed to be contributing
to the ‘fragility’ of states and wider regions, restrictive interventions that
undermine key pastoral strategies, notably movement and cross-border
exchanges, are frequently implemented.
Narratives and policy change
Across these regions, there is therefore a remarkable convergence in policy
thinking and practice, despite local particularities. We see a huge diversity
of political systems – communism and state-direct capitalism, autocratic
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kingdoms, liberal democracies, and many variations in between – yet there are
striking similarities in the way pastoral and dryland areas are viewed and how
a future is envisioned within policymaking. In almost all cases, pastoralists are
seen as threats to state stability, destroyers of the environment, and followers
of ‘backward’ forms of production. They are therefore deemed to be in need
of modernization and development of a particular type (Gabbert et al., 2021;
Garcia et al., 2022).
How can a more positive view of pastoralism emerge? A first task is to
address the misleading narratives that construct the current debate. Despite
much accumulated evidence, such as that presented in this book, they are
difficult to dislodge. They persist in institutionalized forms in government
procedures, and the biases are frequently reiterated even by new generations
of government officials and policymakers. This makes formal institutions
and development agencies ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of
pastoral systems. Bringing the themes discussed in the preceding chapters
together, in the following sub-sections we briefly outline seven dominant
narratives that frame contemporary policy in pastoral areas and highlight
an alternative perspective that is more rooted in the uncertain, complex
realities of pastoralism.
Environmental degradation
Many policies focus on the assumed patterns of environmental degradation
in rangeland areas. A heavily grazed rangeland at the end of the dry season or
during a drought may look in terrible shape to the untrained eye, but as soon
as the rains come, the grassland bounces back. While this is not always the
case – such as in the ‘sacrifice zones’ around watering points or near markets
and towns – the ability of grasslands to recover is remarkable (Briske et al.,
2003). However, too often, degradation and desertification assessments are
derived from snapshot views. True degradation happens in rangelands where
areas that act as key resources – such as wetlands or riverbanks – are removed
from use, and the flexibility of movement and use of diverse areas is reduced.
However, the frequent reaction to seeing rangelands is to proclaim them
‘wastelands’ in need of restoration. The assumption is that grasslands are a
sub-climax vegetation type and if managed ‘correctly’, they would become
covered in trees (Bond et al., 2019). However, tree planting in rangelands
rarely makes sense. These are open ecosystems, maintained over millennia
through a combination of grazing and fire (Bond 2019). Where environments
are especially variable, they show non-equilibrium dynamics, never reaching
a stable pattern, and with animal populations always below any fixed carrying
capacity (Behnke et al., 1993; Swift, 1996).
‘Degradation’ in such a setting is less easy to define and requires an accurate
assessment of baselines, time frames, and dynamic patterns (Scoones, 2022b).
If livestock production on a rangeland declines over time, degradation may
be occurring and restoration will be needed; but if grass species change and
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bare patches appear but livestock are still producing over the long term due
to a range of practices responding to variability, the system is clearly resilient.
By maintaining such open ecosystems, with transhumant routes connecting
biodiverse areas, grazing preventing fire events by controlling biomass,
and animals dispersing seeds to encourage plant diversity, pastoralism can
contribute to conservation, enhancing ecosystem services (Yılmaz et al.,
2019).5 Taking account of these dimensions is therefore important in seeing
pastoralism as a positive generator of environmental integrity and biodi-
versity, rather than as a source of degradation and desertification.
Climate change
Ruminant livestock – including cattle, camels, and smallstock – produce
methane as part of the digestive process. Methane is a climate forcing gas
that causes global warming, even if (unlike carbon dioxide) it breaks down
in the atmosphere over around a decade. A strong narrative exists suggesting
that all livestock production, including extensive livestock systems, needs to
be reduced if the imperatives of the challenges of climate change are to be
addressed (Steinfeld et al., 2006). This, it is argued, requires a major shift in
global diets away from meat and milk towards plant-based products, or even
lab-manufactured alternative proteins and the products of precision fermen-
tation of bacteria.
However, different livestock systems have very diverse impacts and
lumping them all together makes no sense (Houzer and Scoones, 2021).
As governments, aid agencies, and environmental campaigners adopt a
generalized anti-livestock message, often in the desperate scramble to meet
targets and show climate-change commitments, the unintended impacts can
be huge. Pastoral systems produce very few greenhouse gases compared to
intensive, contained livestock systems; indeed, by some calculations, they are
actually carbon neutral, as manure and urine is dispersed and incorporated in
soils, sequestering carbon and nitrogen, and any emissions are not additional
to pre-existing, natural baselines.6
If supported to do so, pastoralists are well suited to thrive under conditions
of climate variability (Scoones, 1995; Davies and Nori, 2008; Goldman and
Riosema, 2013; Pollini and Galaty, 2021; Rodgers, 2022; Marty et al., 2022),
as they can generate livelihoods and produce high-quality protein in areas
where other forms of agriculture are not feasible. This is especially important
for poorer people, pregnant or lactating women, and young children. Arguing
for reductions in livestock in pastoral areas in favour of arable agriculture or
‘rewilding’, including the mass planting of trees, may undermine livelihoods
and would do little for the environment. A much more sophisticated, evidence-
based approach is required, one that respects the diversity of livestock
production, environmental dynamics, and dietary and livelihood needs.
Simplistic interventions can do more harm than good. It is not the product
(milk, meat, etc.) but the process of production and its material conditions of
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labour, capital, and environmental relations that matters (Houzer and Scoones,
2021). As much research now shows, low-impact pastoral systems can be good
for livelihoods, the environment, and the climate (Köhler-Rollefson, 2023).
Mobility
People who move are often seen as a problem by those in charge. They cannot
be controlled and are hardly ever taxed; their ways of life seem alien to settled
populations and to state structures. This applies to pastoralists as it does to
Travellers, Roma Gypsies, and others.7 Movement is seen as disruptive to
an ordered approach to development, and solutions often centre on highly
regulated systems of movement corridors and designated areas for temporary
settlement (FAO, 2022). Yet, as discussed at length in Chapter 3, flexible
mobility is central to pastoral production systems, as well as pastoralists’
connections with landscapes, their sense of identity, and their relationship
to others.
Movement has an emotional, experiential dimension and is vital for
confronting uncertainty and making use of variability. As we have discussed,
pastoralism relies on the productive use of geographical and seasonal
variability to maximize the opportunistic use of dispersed, often poor quality,
grasslands. This involves the deployment of skilled labour to scout the
environment and move animals, as well as negotiating access to resources.
While boosting production through enhancing the nutrition of animals, such
mobile practices can help offset disasters (such as drought, diseases, or conflict)
by being flexible and so increasing reliability. Thus, movement cannot be just
along strictly defined pathways but has to include an element of opportunism
and responsiveness.
Too often, the mantra of increasing productivity through intensification
is focused on a standard vision of settled forms of agriculture – by stabilizing
production inputs and boosting output through irrigation, mechanization,
and so on. But this model of intensification makes no sense in highly variable
rangelands. In fact, it would have the opposite effect – settling down, while it
may have benefits in terms of education, health care, and so on, will reduce
productivity and undermine pastoralism. A ‘sedentist’ bias runs deep in policy
thinking, rooted in a long history of what a ‘modern’, ‘civilized’ life should
be, and reinforced by the agrarian and urban-focused thinking that dominates
most policy arenas and methodologies (Pappagallo and Semplici, 2020).8
Such framings are difficult to shift, but a simple reflection highlights
how important mobility of different forms is to contemporary life. People
these days are increasingly mobile and connected; they move for work
and leisure and rarely live in one place for their whole lives. Migration is
central to the networked global economy, with people moving from country
to country, place to place, to seek new opportunities – and so facilitating
flows of information, goods, finances, and so on. In many ways, migrants
must follow a lot of the same practices as pastoralists (Maru et al., 2022).
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And, indeed, as Chapter 8 shows, migration and pastoralism are intimately
connected through flows of people, finance, and information, in a flexible,
‘liquid’ form of modernity (Bauman, 2007). Appreciating this requires a
rethink of the outmoded and inappropriate sedentary visions that dominate
policy, recognizing the possibilities of mobility as the basis for production
and a way of life. Pastoral policies need to facilitate mobility, managing the
challenges – including conflicts between different land users – in the process
(Davies et al., 2018).
Conflict
Pastoralists are often seen by outsiders as the source of conflict. The mythical
images of the pastoral warrior claiming victory in raids over other groups or
being a source of terror for settled populations – as the Huns or the Mongols
were in the past – are difficult to dispel. Cross-border mobility makes pasto-
ralists difficult to control by national state structures and laws. The response
from centralized states, where political power is centred on the settled, agrarian
heartlands, is typically a stabilization, securitization approach that aims to
control populations by settling them (Bocco, 2006; Babalola and Onapajo,
2018), reducing the risks of secessionist insurgencies from the margins.
A project of suppression alongside incorporation has long been part of state
policy in pastoral areas.
A particular focus of much media and policy attention is herder–farmer
conflicts, but herders and farmers have long had peaceful, symbiotic
relations as manure, labour, and fodder are exchanged (Moritz, 2010; Krätli
and Toulmin 2020). So what changes result in new conflicts? Conflicts may
emerge because of increasing pressure on resources, as land is grabbed and
removed from pastoral and small-scale agricultural use. This means that
flexibility is removed from the system and tensions rise. Conflicts may arise
because the nature of both farmers and herders has changed. With many
large herds held by absentee owners, and managed by hired labourers, the
intimate relationships that are central to managing resources jointly may be
upset, while small-scale farmers may increasingly rely on chemical fertilizers
rather than manure and so are less dependent on pastoralist inputs. In the
past, pastoralist raiding was seen as a functionalist adaptation to localized
resource scarcity, allowing restocking after a drought, but today, with an
increasing prevalence of small arms, raiding is more wrapped up in local
political contests (McCabe, 2010).
In other words, conflicts intensify when the social and political relations
of production change, and this is the case across pastoral areas. This is added
to by the dynamic of investment on the pastoral frontiers, with various
forms of land, green, and water grabbing, alongside economic speculation,
adding to resource competition and social tensions, while also providing the
basis for the assertion of authority by pastoral elites (Fairhead et al., 2012;
Lind et al., 2020a). Elite pastoralists may have strong alliances with the state,
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but others may feel abandoned and left behind by development efforts.
The neglect by the state and the fragmentation of authority, combined with
a waning of a sense of pastoral territorial identity as societies become increas-
ingly unequal, results in a very different political dynamic in the rangelands
(Korf et al., 2015). These tensions and the related grievances can be easily
manipulated by factional politicians or by insurgent groups with their own
interests and agendas. Pastoral youth can in turn be easily attracted by the
lure of the weapons, wages, and power that smuggling networks or externally
funded radical militias may offer (UNECA, 2017; Nori, 2022d).
Rather than seeing conflicts arising from the way of life of pastoralists on
the periphery, the complex causes of conflicts have to be better understood.
The solution is not to impose strategies of pacification, securitization, and
control through a combination of military and developmental interven-
tions. It is to build peace and security through an understanding of the often
very long-term origins of conflicts, addressing their root causes, and drawing
on ‘vernacular’ forms of peacebuilding that are compatible with changing
pastoral livelihoods, and adapt institutions accordingly (Luckham, 2018;
Lind et al., 2020b). Pastoralists are in fact the best allies to manage and create
peace in vast dryland territories, but they have to be included in national and
regional socio-economic and political agendas.9
Markets
A standard critique of pastoralists is that they are resistant to markets, that
they have a ‘cattle complex’, and irrationally hold on to animals despite their
market value. The response is the investment in various forms of market infra-
structure – building marketplaces, roads, veterinary facilities, abattoirs, holding
pens, and so on. Too often, such interventions fail; not because pastoralists are
not market oriented but because the understanding of the pastoral market
economy is inadequate ( Mahmoud, 2008; Ng’asike et al., 2021). Pastoralists
are of course deeply embedded in markets and have been for centuries. Look
at the long-distance caravan trade in products across the Sahara or the focus
on wool production and trade in Europe in the Middle Ages. Highly organized
transnational trade networks also exist today: for example, Sahelian countries
supply animal products to coastal countries to the south and Horn of Africa
countries export millions of head to the Arabian Gulf each year. These generate
very significant revenues for pastoral populations and for national states
through taxation, while also serving the dietary needs of urban consumers, as
well as supporting the regional integration of economic infrastructure (Catley
and Aklilu, 2012).
As the middle class expands and urban centres boom, the demand
for livestock products grows, and this results in the expansion of market
networks, connecting producers on the margins to more established hubs
where aggregation and bulk transport can be organized. Their operations
have improved with the expansion of transport infrastructure (small trucks,
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motorbikes, and roads) and communication facilities (mobile phones and
payments), which allow an adaptable, flexible form of marketing that responds
to variability. With mobile herds and flocks, a single marketplace fixed in a
certain site may not be appropriate, and instead, pastoralists sell in a network
of more informal, temporary markets that pop up when the need arises.
Not all markets lead to a formal, terminal market (for example, the export
of high-quality meat) and those with which pastoralists engage may be much
more varied, with different products sold to different people across seasons
(Roba et al., 2017). Camel-milk marketing in sub-Saharan Africa and the cheese
trade in Sardinia (Chapter 5; Sadler et al., 2009) are good examples. They emerge
through individual entrepreneurs or cooperative groups linking themselves to
wider milk value chains, with benefits generated at all levels. These are ‘real
markets’, not the result of abstract balances of supply and demand, but spaces
where values are created through social relations and market connections
embedded in social and cultural institutions. Understanding such pastoral
markets is essential if pastoralists are to be supported in increasing income
from their products. It is not that pastoralists are resistant to markets, but they
often reject market interventions that are inappropriate.
Investments
Pastoral areas are often seen as the last frontier for investment. They are
constructed as ‘backward’, empty, and remote, in need of ‘development’ (White
et al., 2012). As a result, there are huge investments in irrigated agriculture,
road infrastructure, urban developments, alternative solar and wind energy,
tourism facilities, and conservation areas across these regions. The argument
runs that such investments will reduce poverty in these areas, encourage
pastoralists to settle, offset the problems of depopulation and emigration, and
provide greater contributions to the national economy, while also improving
the management of natural resources. As these areas have long been neglected
by the state, private investors, and other development efforts, there is some
value in such arguments. But the question remains whether these are the right
sort of investments, compatible with providing adequate support to pastoral
production and livelihoods.
As discussed above, it is not that pastoral production has no value –
indeed, in some economies, it is a very significant and increasing part of
the national food security and (export) economy (Hesse and MacGregor,
2009). As pastoralism diversifies and differentiates, some pastoralists follow
a trajectory of animal commercialization, while others drop out of direct
production of animals but support a service economy linked to pastoralism
(transport, veterinary care, fodder supply, etc.), while still others get involved
in processing (producing cheese and other milk or meat products, hides and
skins, for example) (Catley et al., 2012). Such diversification has resulted in
the growth of small towns in pastoral areas, which in turn attract people and
businesses as part of a virtuous cycle of investment, growth, and improved
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service provision (Fratkin, 1997; Little, 2012). This dynamic is barely
recognized and is poorly studied, as the assumptions that remain so prevalent
are that pastoralism is dead and alternatives must be found.
External investments that are compatible with pastoralism can support the
ability of pastoralists to live with and from variability. Some may have low
land take and do not grab key resources (this includes some forms of energy
investment but usually not irrigated farming); some may be able to benefit
from working with pastoralists (in schemes where herders can become rangers
and sustain conservation efforts alongside animal production); and some
might provide support to existing activities to diversify and expand livelihood
from livestock (such as processing and marketing animal products).
Experience attests that investing in transport and communication
facilities and in provision of basic services (including animal health) can
magnify socio-economic potentials in pastoral areas. But most investments,
as currently conceived, are not thought about in this way. The dislocation
of pastoralists through exclusionary forms of investment is growing – and
some of this is designed as part of ‘environmental’ initiatives tagged as biodi-
versity conservation, green energy, or tree planting for carbon sequestration,
as discussed above. As we have seen through the case studies, pastoralism can
be part of a resilient, vibrant economy in marginal areas, but this requires a
different approach to investment, which crucially means involving pastoral
communities in identifying and designing investments suited to their own
needs and contexts ( Gomes, 2006; Krätli et al., 2013).
Disasters
Dryland pastoral areas are often portrayed as sites of recurrent disasters,
where extreme poverty and destitution result from the failure of pastoralism
to support a fast-growing population. The result is the disaster, relief, and
dependency cycle, where former pastoralists continue to be reliant on human-
itarian aid and where large refugee settlements are established (Catley and
Cullis, 2012; Catley, 2017). The alternative, it is argued, must be migration
away from drylands to other more productive areas, or investment in
alternative, non-pastoral livelihoods. Such a narrative, however, lacks a
complex understanding of how disasters strike and how they can be averted.
The huge investments in early warning systems, cash transfers, insurance
schemes, assisted migration, and alternative livelihood investments are
often misplaced. Too often, such programmes assume that the problem is a
singular disaster (such as drought) affecting an area uniformly and that better
information (through early warning) and effective finance (via insurance, for
example) will offset a crisis. But disasters emerge through the convergence of
multiple factors, acting concurrently and with cascading effects, and so have
deep uncertainties. They cannot be predicted, anticipated, and planned for in
the standard way that current systems assume. Instead, a disaster and humani-
tarian approach must take account of uncertainty (and ignorance) and build
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on pastoralists’ own capacities as ‘high-reliability professionals’, accepting
that informal redistributions through social institutions are effective (Caravani
et al., 2022; Lind et al., 2022).
Humanitarian assistance in the form of transfers of food, cash, or assets is
often based on ‘targeting’ what are assumed to be fixed, settled households
organized as individual entities. The collective forms of solidarity and
networked arrangements that are a central part of the local moral economy
are often overlooked. As Chapter 6 describes, among the Boran pastoralists
of Isiolo in northern Kenya, intersecting forms of moral economy allow for
collective support and redistribution when disasters strike. This includes
the ability to restock animals after loss, support those in need of labour,
and the provision of food and income. All of these involve collective forms
of organization and solidarity, with connections across family and clan
vitally important. As Chapter 7 explains, insurance schemes are increas-
ingly seen as part of the social protection portfolio, but a market-based
instrument focused on the individualized ownership of animals and targeted
at offsetting the risks of a single peril – drought – may not work across all
forms of uncertainty and must be combined with other forms of coping and
reliability management.
This is not an argument for halting humanitarian assistance, social
protection, and livelihood support. Instead, it is one for making such
approaches more attuned to pastoral settings, with diversification
approaches compatible with the support of the wider pastoral economy,
including opportunities to return to pastoralism later.10 Increasing
resilience in the face of recurrent crises requires generating reliability,
and this means supporting ‘high-reliability’ pastoralists – as individuals
who are embedded in networks – to scan the horizon for future threats
as well as opportunities; to network amongst each other and with others,
including aid agencies and the state; to facilitate support; and to develop
a flexible system of response that is not reliant on standardized risk
assessment approaches (Roe, 2020; Konaka and Little, 2021; Tasker and
Scoones, 2022). Some responses may indeed mean moving away from
pastoralism and seeking alternative livelihoods, but for many, such
alternatives are viewed as only temporary, a route to getting back into
pastoralism. Having the flexibility to move in and out of pastoralism is
therefore important as a long-term response to variable, disaster-prone
conditions (Catley, 2017).
Table 9.1 offers a very brief and necessarily grossly simplified summary of
the shifts in narratives that are required to reframe pastoral policy so that
it is more attuned to variability and uncertainty across the seven themes
just discussed. This suggests a new agenda for policy advocacy and research
in pastoral areas, where uncertainty is central, seeing a shift from control,
planning, and directive management to a more flexible, responsive, caring
approach (Scoones and Stirling 2020).
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Table 9.1 Reframing pastoral policy
Theme Existing narrative New narrative
Environmental
degradation
Rangelands are degraded
through overgrazing resulting in
desertification; they are in need
of restoration, such as through
destocking and tree planting.
Rangelands are open, non-equilibrium
systems where variability is inherent
and mixed grass–tree combinations are
maintained by grazing and fire. Pastoralism
supports diverse ecosystem functions,
including biodiversity protection.
Climate
change
Livestock-based greenhouse
emissions cause climate change
and livestock production should
be curtailed through diet
change and/or shifts to other
forms of protein production.
Different livestock systems produce
different impacts. It is not the product
but the process that matters. In contrast
to industrial contained livestock
systems, pastoralism is a low-impact
system with potentials for carbon/
nitrogen sequestration.
Mobility Mobility is disruptive,
‘backward’, and unproductive;
pastoralists should be settled
and become ‘modern’, adopting
a sedentary, civilized way of life.
Mobility is essential for making
productive use of variable resources,
whether through movement of grazing
animals or people migrating. Flexible
mobility of people and animals should
be facilitated, not curtailed.
Conflict Conflicts caused by pastoralists
trigger instability and
violence. Pastoral areas need
to be stabilized and pacified
through militarized security
interventions.
Conflicts are the result of long-term
neglect of pastoral areas by the state,
the fragmentation of local authority,
increasing social stratification, and
resource grabbing, exacerbated by the
instrumentalization of grievances and
the availability of small arms.
Markets Pastoralists are resistant to
market-based development.
They need to be incorporated
into modern, market systems
through new investments.
Pastoralists have long been engaged
with markets and trade, and continue
to be so through diverse, networked,
nested arrangements compatible with
pastoral production systems.
Investment Pastoral areas are remote and in
need of investment. Investments
will have trickle-down growth
effects on the economy,
encouraging pastoralists to
settle, modernize, and move
away from pastoralism.
Investment to support pastoral
production is much needed, but it
should invest in pastoralism’s future
and enhance its reliability, including
diversifying and expanding the pastoral
economy.
Disasters Recurrent disasters plague
pastoral areas, resulting in
long-term reliance on aid. Early
warning systems and disaster
risk management systems,
including insurance, are
required alongside encouraging
alternative livelihoods outside
pastoralism.
Pastoralists have many existing
responses to variability, including
sudden shocks. These are embedded in
social networks and rely on caring moral
economy practices, which respond to
unfolding uncertainties. Support for
high-reliability professionals and their
networks should be central to building
local resilience and more effective
responsiveness.
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An agenda for policy action
What then would a policy agenda that is centred on ‘seeing like a pastoralist’
rather than a state planner or policymaker – or even an aid or humanitarian
agency worker or an urban environmentalist – look like? In the above sections,
and indeed throughout the book, we have outlined some of the changes
that are needed. Accepting that variability – and therefore uncertainty – is
central to pastoral settings is the starting point. Variability is a source of
production and an opportunity, not something to be suppressed, controlled,
and eliminated. Instead, support for mechanisms to generate reliability, and
therefore resilience, in response to high levels of variability is required. This
requires very different ways of thinking, which contrast with the standard
views of modernization and development centred on control and stability.
Such an alternative narrative about pastoral development, in turn, means
a fundamental recasting of debates about environmental degradation and
restoration, around climate change and biodiversity, and around development
interventions in support of market integration, infrastructure investment,
migration governance, disaster risk management, and humanitarian
assistance. As the discussions in this book have shown, the consequences are
far-reaching, with major changes required in the way people are trained, insti-
tutions are designed, policies are made, and funds are deployed. This will not
happen overnight, as the existing biases are so entrenched.
However, rethinking some approaches through pilot efforts – for example,
supporting pastoralists as reliability professionals in social protection and
humanitarian assistance programmes, or redesigning resilience and livelihood
interventions with variability and reliability in mind – could begin to make
in-roads into constructing practical alternatives. In the same way, decision-
making around the global debates concerning climate and biodiversity needs
to be recast so as to avoid a simplistic one-size-fits-all anti-livestock narrative.
Equally, as plans for investment in drylands areas are developed, these must
assess the compatibility with pastoral systems, without assuming such areas
are empty and unused, and recognize that there are no better alternatives
in such areas in terms of food production, environmental management, and
territorial control than pastoralism.
None of these urgently needed changes will happen unless pastoralists
are involved in such debates, with the confidence to articulate an alternative
view and confront the structural, political-economic biases that limit pasto-
ralists’ room for manoeuvre. Pastoralists’ voices in international debates are
important, but too often elite pastoralists on international platforms are
co-opted into mainstream positions. Developing grounded, evidence-based
alternative narratives to support pastoral organizations to mobilize around an
alternative view is a central task, and we see this book as a very limited part
of this struggle.11 Supporting forms of solidarity and organizational capacity
among pastoralists is challenging, as pastoralists are dispersed and highly differ-
entiated. Avoiding the pigeonholing of pastoralists in a romantic construction
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LIVING WITH AND FROM UNCERTAINTY 133
of an ‘indigenous’ people is important: pastoralism, as we have explained, is a
highly modern form of production. The United Nations International Year for
Rangelands and Pastoralism, which has been announced for 2026,12 will be an
important moment for such mobilization of both ideas and action, and this
book hopefully provides some empirical foundations as well as conceptual
support for such efforts.
As we have hinted at throughout this book, the argument for pastoralism
must be made on its own terms – pastoralism is a low-impact, productive
system supporting marginal livelihoods in often challenging areas where
alternative forms of use are limited – but there is also a bigger argument
for taking pastoralism seriously. And this is the very basic connection
between uncertainty and development highlighted in Chapter 1. As shown,
pastoralists are well practised at responding to uncertainty, in converting
high variability into reliable services, and therefore livelihoods, in harsh
settings.
Such conditions of uncertainty are faced by many people across the world
today; this is not just a challenge for those living in the periphery, on the
margins. If we are to respond to climate change, market volatility, changing
environments, migratory flows, more frequent pandemics, and rising conflict,
we can and must learn from those who have developed the capacities to
live with and from uncertainty (Scoones, 2019, 2022c). Thinking about how
pastoralists respond to uncertainty can be important, whether thinking about
pastoral mobility when constructing human migration policies (Maru et al.,
2022); designing social assistance and humanitarian relief approaches that
avoid centralized risk-based approaches ( Caravani et al., 2022); fostering
market integration dynamics that build around local practices and networks
(Nori, 2023); supporting knowledge networking and exchange as part of
extension efforts to increase reliability (Tasker and Scoones, 2022); redesigning
insurance schemes to support a more varied response (Johnson et al., 2023);
thinking about preparedness for pandemics (Leach et al., 2022) or disasters
more generally (Srivastava and Scoones, forthcoming); or even rethinking
banking, finance, and economic policymaking itself (DeMartino et al.,
forthcoming; Scoones, 2020).
In our turbulent world, where uncertainties affect us all, insights from
pastoralism can be enormously helpful. Perhaps, above all, this is why linking
pastoralism, uncertainty, and development is such a central challenge for
our times.
Notes
1. We have not looked at the Americas, Australia, or southern Africa where
different policy regimes exist and different policy dynamics occur, but
similar narratives framing policy emerge (see Scoones, 2021).
2. See, for example, a review of the East African context and associated
policy challenges (Muhereza, 2017).
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134 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
3. See https://au.int/en/documents/20110131/policy-framework-pastoralism-
africa-securing-protecting-and-improving-lives; https://icpald.org/wp-
content/uploads/2021/05/Legal-Policy-and-Institutional-Frameworks-in-
IGAD-Region.pdf.
4. Such protocols were first implemented in West Africa (https://ecpf.
ecowas.int/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/CrossBorder-Transhumance-
WA-Final-Report-1.pdf) and have more recently been agreed in Eastern
Africa (http://www.celep.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-IGAD-
protocol-on-transhumance-final-endorsed-version.pdf).
5. See www.pastres.org/biodiversity
6. https://pastres.org/livestock-report/; Manzano and White (2019).
7. https://pastres.org/2022/02/25/the-last-nomads-proposed-new-law-
undermine-gypsy-traveller-communities-nomadic-lifestyles-uk/
8. https://pastres.org/2022/03/18/how-sedentist-approaches-to-land-and-
conservation-threaten-pastoralists/
9. As with the governmental declarations issued in 2013 in N´Djamena
and Nouakchott (http://www.pasto-secu-ndjamena.org/classified/N_
Djamena_Declaration_eng.pdf; https://rr-africa.woah.org/wp-content/
uploads/2000/11/nouakchott-1.pdf).
10. See https://au.int/en/documents/20110131/policy-framework-pastoralism-
africa-securing-protecting-and-improving-livesSee the Livestock Emergency
Guidelines and Standards initiative, https://www.livestock-emergency.net/
11. See also the Pastoralism primer produced in collaboration with the
Transnational Institute and available in multiple languages, https://www.
tni.org/en/publication/livestock-climate-and-the-politics-of-resources.
12. https://www.iyrp.info/
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Index
agriculture
diversification 67
European Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) 67, 121
expanding 101
genetically modified crops 40, 42,
76–7
migration for work 112
and pastoralism 15
Amdo Tibet, China 10–11, 22–3,
26, 51
adaptation in Amdo Tibet context
55–6
Amdo Tibet map 52
lake expansion 28–9, 53–4, 55–6,
59–60
negotiating solutions for adaptive
responses 60–1
pluralist resource governance 59–60
role of monasteries in resource
governance 57–9
seeing and concepts of
uncertainty 52–4
state governance and hybrid
arrangements 56–7
animal feed/nutrition 68, 71–2, 75,
76–7
insured and uninsured families 99
assemblage practices and processes
57, 60, 61
‘backward’ narrative 6, 41, 67, 69,
89, 123, 128
Belt and Road Initiative 10, 120
biodiversity crisis see environmental
degradation
Borana, southern Ethiopia 13–4,
95–6
insurance and its assumptions
94–5
insurance and local responses,
combining 98–102
insured and uninsured pasto-
ralists, comparing 96–8
locust plague 27–8
Buddhism
concept of change in motion 53–4
role of monasteries 57–9
camel meat and milk production
85–6, 89–90
cheese making see Sardinia, Italy
China and Central Asia: pastoral
policies 120
class divisions see wealth differences
climate change 1, 3, 6, 12, 16, 29,
35, 41, 51–60, 79, 93, 124–5,
131–3
extreme weather events 66
lake expansion 28–9, 53–4, 55–6,
59–60
nature-positive contribution of
pastoralism 6–7
collaboration
identities, relationships, and
88–9
negotiating solutions for adaptive
responses 60–1
resource pooling 85, 112–6
collective herding arrangement
see Douiret, southern Tunisia
collective vs individual responses
101, 102, 116
colonial perspective 6, 7
common, commoning etc. 62, 67,
99–101
comradeship and resource
pooling 85
conflict 122, 126–7
cooperative dairies 66, 74–5
Covid-19 pandemic 23–4, 28,
89–90
critical infrastructure 3–4
crops see agriculture
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142 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
development
challenges for 8–9
efficiency and productivity
narrative 68
and humanitarian support
87–8, 89
Kachchh, Gujarat, India 42–4,
47–8
local conditions and external
interventions 4, 86–90
reframing 2–4
state policies 56–7
World Bank report 119
see also pastoral policies
disasters 129–30
diversification 15, 67, 75, 85–6,
89–90
documentary photo/video 26–7
Douiret, southern Tunisia 14, 27,
31–2, 107–9
conceptions and management of
uncertainty 31–2
evolution of informal collective
resource management 115–6
Douiret map 108
khlata (collective herding
arrangement) 14, 109, 112–7
migration and ‘absence’ 32,
110–2
pooling resources and collective
arrangements 112–5
droughts 5, 8, 21, 66, 31, 79, 83–5,
93–5, 101–3, 113–4, 122–6
livestock insurance see Borana,
southern Ethiopia
elders 24, 30, 55, 112
environmental degradation 7–8,
123–4
grazing ban 59, 60
European Union 67, 121
extreme weather events 66
see also droughts; hailstorm
Facebook 23–4, 32
fire
and extreme weather events 66
nature-positive contribution
of 7–8
food consumption, changing 99–100
food crises, Kenya 83
gender 13, 15, 22, 23, 103, 116, 121
insurance 96, 98
migration and absence 111–2
see also networks
genetically modified crops 40, 42,
76–7
governance 4, 16, 22, 120, 132
resource 2, 57–9
see also hybrid rangeland
governance
grassland 5, 28, 39, 55, 101, 123, 131
grazing 5, 10–4, 30–1, 44, 46, 77,
83, 109
ban see environmental
degradation; subsidies
and fire, nature-positive contri-
bution of 7–8, 123–4, 131
land, private 100, 101, 121
hailstorm: Kachchh, Gujarat, India
39–40, 44, 45–6
‘high-reliability’ individuals and
practices 3–4, 130
Hinduism 42, 44
humanitarian aid 87–8, 89, 122,
129–30
hybrid rangeland governance 11, 15,
51–62, 120
income
diversification 15, 67, 75, 85–6,
89–90
remittances 111
technology treadmill trap 69, 72–4
see also milk production; wealth
differences
insurance see Borana, southern
Ethiopia; gender; livestock
insurance; local responses and
insurance, combining; younger
generation
investments 128–9
Isiolo, northern Kenya 12–13, 23, 24,
79–84
actively embracing uncertainty
87–8
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INDEX 143
adaptive technology 89
identities, relationships, and
collaboration 88–9
Isiolo Kenya map 82
networking, trust, and diversifi-
cation 85–90
pastoral practices and external
interventions 86–90
redistribution and resource
pooling 84–5
role of pastoralist moral
economies 80–1
wildlife attacks on livestock
29–30, 84
Islam and role of mosque, northern
Kenya 84
Kachchh, Gujarat, India 9–10, 23,
26, 39–41
embracing uncertainty 44–7
limits to adaptations 47–9
Kachchh map 117
mobility 30–1, 42, 43, 44
Rabari: context and practices 42–4
lake expansion 28–9, 53–4, 55–6,
59–60
land
access, negotiated 11, 67, 76,
113–4
degradation 5, 7, 12, 56, 121
grabbing 1, 6–7, 12, 16, 122, 126
reform 4, 67, 71
tenure 15, 57–8, 79, 109
see also hybrid rangeland
governance; grassland; grazing
leadership role (mukhis) 46
‘liquid modernity’ 48, 126
livelihood diversification 15, 67, 75,
85–6, 89–90
livestock insurance
Kenya 89
see also Borana, southern
Ethiopia
livestock management 15
pastoral vs industrial 6–7
see also specific case studies
livestock-raiding: northern Kenya
84, 85
local knowledge and experience 46,
52–3
see also visual methods
local responses and insurance,
combining 98–102
locust plague: southern Ethiopia
27–8
markets 127–8
Middle East and North Africa:
pastoral policies 121
migration see mobility/migration
milk production
and cheese making, see Sardinia,
Italy
price fluctuations 33, 68
wealth differences 25
mineral water factory 57–8
mobility/migration 4, 11, 14–6, 8, 65,
89, 95, 115–6, 125–9, 131, 133
and ‘absence’, southern Tunisia
32, 107, 109–12
Gujarat, India 30–2, 39, 41–48
Middle East and Africa 120–2
restriction during Covid-19
pandemic 23–4, 28, 89 –90
southern Ethiopia 100–1
see also agriculture; gender
monasteries, role of 57–9
moral economies, role of 2, 13,
79–91, 104, 120, 130–1
mosques, role of 84, 87, 89
narrative
anti-livestock, colonial 6, 77,
129, 132
development 3, 68–73
policy 131–2
see also pastoral policies
nature-positive contribution to
climate and biodiversity
crises 6–8
networks 74, 75, 77, 88–9, 110–11
gendered 85–6, 89–90
religious see monasteries;
mosques
social media/Facebook 23–4, 32
transnational 32
newspapers 34–5
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144 PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
non-equilibrium environments 5
Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index (NDVI) 94
pastoral policies
agenda for action 132–3
narratives and change 122–30, 131
regional overview 120–2
pastoralism and rangelands 1–2
challenges for development 8–9
characteristics of pastoral systems
15–16
definition and importance of
4–6
nature-positive contribution
to climate and biodiversity
crises 6–8
reframing development 2–4
see also hybrid rangeland
governance
PASTRES programme 21–2
photo elicitation 24–6
photographs
documentary video and 26–7
rephotography 24
see also visual methods
photovoice 22–3
feedback sessions 29, 52, 55
political economy 16
Gujarat, India 42–4, 47–8
southern Tunisia 111
private enclosures, expanding
100, 101
Rabari see Kachchh, Gujarat, India
rainfall see droughts; hailstorm
reliability 3–5, 10–3, 46, 69, 80,
87–90, 119, 125, 130–3
religion see Buddhism; Hinduism;
Islam
remittances 111
rephotography 24
resilience/resilient 9, 13, 60, 80–3,
86–91, 115–7, 119, 122, 124,
130–2
resource competition, consequences
of 9
resource pooling 85, 112–15
rewilding 7
Sardinia, Italy 11–12, 25, 26, 33, 65–7
common uncertainties 66–7
conceptions and management of
uncertainty 33
development narrative: efficiency
and productivity 68
flexibility of small-scale and direct
sales 74–7
living with uncertainty 68–9
Sardinia map 70
semi-intensive and sedentary
livestock production 69–74
satellite technology 94
Seeing Pastoralism exhibition,
Sardinia 35–6
semi-intensive and sedentary
livestock production 69–74
sheep see Douiret, southern Tunisia;
Kachchh, Gujarat, India;
Sardinia, Italy
sheep-shearing 25, 26, 32
small-scale pastoralists and direct
sales 74–7
social media/Facebook 23–4, 32
social networks see networks
social protection 4, 13, 79–81, 86–7,
94, 122, 130, 132
social and political relations 15–16
South Asia: pastoral policies 120–1
state governance and hybrid arrange-
ments 56–60
sub-Saharan Africa: pastoral policies
121–2
subsidies
EU 67, 121
grazing ban zone and 59, 60
Middle East and North Africa 121
Tataouine see Douiret, southern
Tunisia
technology
adaptive 89
and labour resources 85
milking machines 68, 69
satellite 94
smartphones 48
social media/Facebook 23–4, 32
treadmill trap 69, 72–4
temporality 48–9
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INDEX 145
temporal and spatial flexibility 4, 42,
44–7, 48
tourism/tourist 6, 11, 56, 59, 66, 74,
78, 122, 128
township relocation 59, 60
transnational networks 32
tree-planting campaigns 7
uncertainty
definitions and conceptions of
1–3, 12, 21–2, 33–4, 37, 53–6, 61
see also Amdo Tibet, China;
Douiret, southern Tunisia;
Isiolo, northern Kenya;
Kachchh, Gujarat, India;
Sardinia, Italy; visual methods
United Nations International Year
for Rangelands and Pastoralism
(2026) 133
variability 7–8, 11–3, 15, 22, 41, 69,
119, 131–3
high 3–5, 9, 16
managing 45–6, 66, 116
veterinary/medical services 71–2,
77, 112
visual methods 21–2
afterlives and circulation of
material 34–6
conversations around uncertainty
27–33
research design and method-
ological reflections 22–7
summary and conclusion 36–7
water resources 13, 24
water and soil management:
southern Tunisia 108–9, 110
wealth differences 8–9, 25
insured and uninsured pastoralists
96–102
wildlife attacks on livestock 29–30, 84
younger generation 48, 71, 73, 74,
85, 111, 112
insurance 96, 98
Copyright
Copyright
PASTORALISM,
UNCERTAINTY AND
DEVELOPMENT
In the drylands and mountains where pastoralists live, uncertainty is everywhere.
In these settings, negotiating access to resources, navigating volatile markets, making
political dynamics is essential if livelihoods are to be generated. Pastoralism – the
globally. Rangelands cover more than half the world’s land surface, supporting many
pastoral mobility is sustained, how resources are managed, how markets are combined,
how social protections are provided, and how patterns of accumulation and investment
are sustained in a more globalized, interconnected world. Focusing on the attributes
the rigid modes of planning, management, and control.
Edited by Ian Scoones
PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
‘A timely and much needed window into the resilience of pastoralists
anachronism, but a sustainable solution for both people and the Earth.’
Maryam Niamir-Fuller, co-chair of International Support Group for the
United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, 2026
Jarso Mokku, CEO, Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative,
Nairobi, Kenya
‘A critically important and timely book. It explains why pastoralists are
Andy Catley, Tu�ts University, Boston
PASTORALISM, UNCERTAINTY AND DEVELOPMENT
Edited by Ian Scoones
Copyright
