Key figure of mobility: the nomad

Ada Ingrid Engebrigtsen,

First published: 15 February 2017
This article discusses the relationship between nomadic people and the figure of the nomad in a European context.
Based on a discussion of the presence of the figure of the nomad in European folk imaginary and in the social
sciences, from Pierre Clastres's (1977. Society against the state. New York: Urizen) work on stateless societies, to
Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy of Nomadology (1986. Nomadology. New York: Semiotex(e)) and Braidotti's
(1994. Nomadic subjects. Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. New York: Columbia
University Press) nomadic feminism, the article employs a ‘nomadic’ perspective on ethnographic work of mobile
people. It argues that ideas contrasting the nomadic and the state can be put to use for epistemological purposes.
Those scattered beyond the boundaries of the city have long been the subject of puzzlement and fantasy by those
within its walls, as well as a metaphor for ways of being in the world. (Peters 2006: 141)
Introduction
Much of the founding ethnography in anthropology is about nomadic peoples: the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1940), the
Basseri (Barth 1965), the pastoral Fulani (Stenning 1969) and the Iban of Borneo (Freeman 1955). Despite the interest
in nomadic peoples, the anthropology of nomads did not differ much from ethnographies of sedentary peoples; they
concentrated on kinship and social organisation, hierarchy, power relations, religion, rituals, etc. The limited interest
in nomadic life as a form of mobility was indicative of the research agenda at that time, influenced by the ties between
colonial economies and anthropological research (Noyes 2000), associations between the nomadic and the ‘primitive’
and a general value placed on state formation and functional analysis in British anthropology.
Despite this initial lack of interest, the nomad as figure plays an important role in present-day heroic
conceptualisations of mobility. The Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth (Eriksen 2013; Barth 1965) tells his
biographer that of all his field experiences, his travels with the Basseri of South Persia were his happiest and most
satisfying. Barth describes the Basseri as the most harmonious people he has lived among. His memories play into the
imaginative relationship between movement and freedom, notions at the core of the contemporary figure of the nomad
in the social sciences (Salazar and Smart 2011; Noyes 2004; Peters 2006). However, early ethnographies of nomadic
people did not make this association between mobility and freedom. Despite his fond memories, Barth's book on the
Basseri nomads (Barth 1965) is a sober analysis of social organisation, power relations and economic strategies,
although he does write about the joy and expectancy of breaking up camp and moving on. Barth's rather romantic
memories of his time with the Basseri are a product of his reflections through the seventies, eighties and nineties with
its celebration of movement and freedom. So how did the nomad transform from ethnographic object to the heroic
figure of mobility and post-modernity (Peters 2006)? With this paper, I want to discuss whether and how the nomad as
figure can play a role in contemporary social analysis of mobile people.
In the following, I discuss the relationship between nomadic people and the figure of the nomad and nomadology in a
European context. I first discuss the presence of the nomad and the figure of the nomad in folk imaginary and in the
social sciences, from Pierre Clastres's (1977) empirical work on stateless societies, to Deleuze and Guattari's
philosophical discussion in Nomadology (1986), and Braidotti's (1994) nomadic feminism. Through such analyses, it
becomes clear that the figure of the nomad is a product of European obsessions with understanding, encapsulating and
excluding ‘the other’. What is more, such obsessions map onto conceptual shifts within Europe, from colonialist
modernity to post-modernity. Originally conceived as the ultimate ‘other’ to modernist concepts of territory and the
nation-state, as a figure the nomad has become celebrated as Europe moves towards new figurations of territory and
state, exemplified in concepts such as ‘freedom of movement’ within the European Union and critiques of
‘sedentartist metaphysics’ (Malkki 1992: 31) in mobility studies. However, the figure of the nomad has also faced
critical opposition because of the way its European origins tend towards exoticising, romanticising and increasing the
separation of the conceptual figure from the living nomad. Despite these problems, I will argue that Deleuze and
Guattari's nomadology still bears much fruit as an approach to analyse and understand the relationship between mobile
people and the state. By analysing my own and other ethnographers' work on Roma and migrants from a ‘nomadic’
perspective, I demonstrate how nomadology can be put to use for epistemological purposes; how the figure of the
nomad may relate to the living nomad.
Mobility and ambiguity: nomads and nomadic representations
Nomads have, as long as we know, represented a threat and a source of wonder to settled populations (Peters 2006;
Cresswell 1997). There is no clear, precise definition of nomads, but the term is generally used for pastoralists and
people who depend on mobility for their livelihood and shift dwelling places according to their movements; people
without fixed settlement (Keesing 1975). But the boundaries between sedentarism and nomadism are not neat. Some
form of mobility has always been a part of settled life, and seasonal settlement is part of the mobility patterns for most
peoples termed nomadic (Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013; Kabachnik 2012; Favell 2001; Piasere 1992;
Keesing 1975). Wars and conflicts have scattered people over vast territories. Peasants and fishers have been
dependent on spatial mobility for their economic activities. Wandering merchants, expatriate experts, preachers,
beggars, migrants, tourists and other drifters have always been part of the lives of settled populations (Cresswell 1997;
Kabachnik 2012). The tension between mobility and stasis, in terms of freedom and security, and the fantasies of an
independent, free-floating existence, have perhaps always been part of European settled populations' understanding of
themselves (Peters 2006) and the ‘other’. The figure of the nomad as the embodiment of freedom and irresponsibility
and a challenge to the order of things is thus deeply embedded in European understandings of mobility and stasis. The
threatening image of mobile peoples as destroyers of order and progress is as old as the romantic fantasies. In Europe,
Gypsies and vagabonds are the most prominent representatives of ‘wandering threats’ who have been treated like
kings and pilgrims and as criminals and outcasts by shifting political regimes (Kabachnik 2012; Vitale 2009;
Fraser 1995; Deleuze and Guattari 1986). Although seldom nomads in the pastoral sense and even after having been
settled for long periods, people called ‘Gypsies’ have been regarded as nomadic and have been subject to forced
settlement and persecution by governments (Vitale 2009; Achim 2004; Noyes 2000; Fraser 1995; Deleuze and
Guattari 1986), which gained force during modernity and nation-building processes. This nomadic figure is
consequently a trope used to frame life-worlds that do not fit into European concepts of territory and the nation-state;
a form of othering or framing of the other. Such assumptions echo descriptions by colonial observers of ‘natives’ and
mobile people in most parts of the world (Noyes 2000; Cresswell 1997). These cases illustrate how the connection
between a specific mode of production and a mental state – ‘the relationship between subjectivity and landscape’
(Noyes 2000: 48) – is not an invention of post-modernity. As Peters notes: ‘The concept of nomadism, in short, was
born metaphorical’ (2006: 151).
However, as several researchers show, nomadic adaptations and settlement, mobility and stability have also formed
parts of authorities’ political strategies in different periods and places (Noyes 2000; Urry 2000; Glick Schiller and
Salazar 2013). From the 14th to the late 19th century, parts of the enslaved Gypsy population in Romania were
nomadic; more or less forced to travel in groups, without fixed settlements, and served the inhabitants of their owners’
territories as artisans and workers (Achim 2004; Fraser 1995). Forced settlement of nomadic people all over the world
was, however, intensified and systematised in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were connected to industrialisation
and labour demands, to nation-building and the idea of the relationship between the soil and the person, and to
modernisation with authorities’ increased interest in the control of populations.
In Norway the government launched forced settlement programmes for Sami reindeer-herders in the 19th and 20th
centuries, and Norwegian Travellers were forcibly rounded up, placed in correction camps and their children forcibly
removed from their families and placed in Norwegian fostering. In the late 20th century, a new settlement programme
was developed for Norwegian Roma (Engebrigtsen and Lidén 2010; Lidén and Engebrigtsen 2010; Hvinden 2000;
Høgmo 1986). Even today, when certain forms of spatial mobility are celebrated as the broad road to social mobility,
regimes of forced settlement are still with us, and the threat to stability, progress and order by the unregulated mobile
subject (migrants, refugees, jihad warriors) is a growing concern.
Pierre Clastres's Society against the state (1977) has formed a basic empirical argument for the later post-modern
development of the figure of the nomad. Clastres's claim is that many of the stateless societies of the world today have
survived, not as reminiscences of a primitive past where people do not know how to develop or run a state apparatus.
On the contrary, stateless societies are the result of social mechanisms that are developed and reinforced to prevent the
concentration of power. The difference, says Clastres, between chiefs in stateless society and the state is that:
The state is defined by the perpetuation or conservation of organs of power. The concern of the state is to conserve.
The chief is more an honorary leader or representative or a star, than a man of power, and is always on the verge of
being disgraced by his people. (1977: 11)
The resistance to the concentration of power is what makes stateless society a threat to state control and incorporation.
The political philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1986) uses Clastres's work as its point of departure,
founding ideas that are crucial to the development of the post-modern figure of the nomad. Deleuze and Guattari's
‘Nomad’ stands for the stateless subject and habitus that Clastres discussed. They developed their philosophy on the
idea of difference as the shattering of classification. They argue that classification is the controlling force at the basis
of hegemony and sovereignty. Instead of overcoming differences by generalising them and rendering them subjected
to control, Deleuze and Guattari develop a notion of difference that one must embrace and acknowledge as the
possibility for transformation. They thus reject dialectics that see the negative as the power of change and instead
install difference as a negative/positive force that always has an element of what it differs from (Kristeva 1982). By
rejecting and shattering classification, difference also rejects incorporation into ‘common ground’ and thus evades
being made the object of a discourse that forces one to seek agreement or consensus. Thus, difference is fluid, it
dissolves the notion of the ‘centre’ by changing and being unpredictable.
Difference and becoming are closely interconnected as that which is not classified, that which is always becoming on
the verge of stabilising, but then differing into a new becoming. In this sense, their nomad is difference and ‘a war
machine’ against the state (classification, fixation and stability), but always has elements of the state inherent in her
being. The state then stands for stasis, for unity, for conservation and for control, but always has the nomadic element
present in its being. By being exterior to the state, and thus being defined as impure, the nomad challenges state
control by shattering classification, occupying un-striated space and by embracing difference as a principle (Deleuze
and Guattari 1986). The figure of the nomad, then, borrows features from ethnographic nomads, archaic or modern,
but is developed to imagine the mentality of movement, a mobile habitus. The nomad in this sense does not
necessarily move, because movement is her mode, just as Peters (2006) notes metaphorically that nomads’ desire is to
be at home everywhere. Nomad and state, nomad thought and state thought are thus interdependent; the one wants to
control, the other to destroy or evade control. As the nomad is ‘becoming’, she is always possibly controlled and
although the state is ‘stasis', it always has inherent nomad elements.
Rosi Braidotti (1994) has taken up this philosophy of difference. She writes: ‘Historically, the notion of difference is a
concept rooted in European fascism that has been colonized and taken over by hierarchical and exclusionary ways of
thinking’ (1994: 147). However, instead of waging war on the concept or distancing herself from it, Braidotti (1994)
builds her feminist philosophy by appropriating it for her own purposes. This position is inspired by poststructuralist
feminists like Luce Irigaray (1987), who recommended a shift away from what she saw as reactive criticism of
hierarchical difference, and a turn towards affirming positive counter-patriarchal values. In opposition to what she
sees as a hasty and superficial dismissal of sexual difference for the understanding of gender relations, or as a utopian
idea of a society beyond gender, Braidotti develops a feminism that valorises sexual difference as project. She calls it
a nomadic political project ‘because this emphasis on the difference that women embody, provides positive
foundational grounds for the redefinition of female subjectivity in all its complexity’ (1994: 147).
Here, the nomadology of Deleuze and Guattari is the inspiration. By embracing and acknowledging difference as
central to female subjectivity, hierarchical classification is exhausted as a way to control women. Nomadology, in
Braidotti's philosophy, is a feminist philosophy based on women as different, becoming rather than being, not subject
to universalism and thus subversive and outside state/male control. To Braidotti, the nomadic figuration is a politically
informed account of an alternative subjectivity (1994: 100). Masculine and feminine subjectivity cannot be reduced to
‘sameness’. By feminising the nomadic figure, Braidotti challenges both the traditional view of the nomad as male and
the gendered critics of male supremacy by rejecting any ideas of such supremacy and hierarchical difference between
men and women and instead valorising sexual difference as nomadic and female.
John Urry's Sociology beyond society (2000) follows up this new openness to mobility, not only as a way of living, but
also as a way of thinking. Urry's quest was to develop a concept that could overcome the limits of bounded categories
such as the sociology of migration, tourism and nomadism, and develop a category that could embrace all movements
of things, people, images, information and their interdependencies and consequences. He claims that the social should
no longer be seen as society, but as mobility, and that the concept of society in the future will be a powerful national
force to control and moderate mobile forces that undermine its boundaries. Moreover, Urry concludes his discussion
on society and sociology by urging for the development of a sociological metaphor that ‘focuses upon movement,
mobility and contingent ordering, rather than upon stasis, structure and social order’ (2000: 18). Thus Urry's concepts
of mobility and society and Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the nomad and the state may both be seen to further
new ways of thinking about the social, about movement and stasis, and about place.
Critique of the figure of the nomad
With the re-instalment of ‘imperial powers’ in Europe in terms of globalisation and the so-called free movement of
resources across boundaries, the post-modern development of the nomadic figure advanced as a new leading
paradigm. Although fantasies of mobility and nomadism always seem to have been present in sedentary populations in
Europe (Noyes 2000; Cresswell 1997), the idea of movement and mobility became in many fields a leading metaphor
and antithesis to the boundary keeping, classification and identity-obsessed, and unifying ideology of the modern era.
Thus mobility as a liberating way of being and the nomad as a liberating figure and an agent of change fit hand in
glove with the new political ideology of globalisation in the West. The notion of sedentary metaphysics (Malkki 1992)
is an expression of this necessity to see beyond the blind spot of sedentarism in anthropology. The nomad became a
figure that condensed the feelings and thinking of the era, and thus a hero of post-modernity among European and US
intellectuals (Peters 2006). Fredrik Barth's 21st-century recollections of his 20th-century fieldwork may be an
expression of this Zeitgeist of nomadism as freedom. However, this popular nomadic figure is not subversive to the
new era of state-instigated globalisation, which it embraces, but rather to the old era of modernity with the nation-state
as static power.
Social scientists have pointed to the mismatch between the idealised idea of mobility and the nomadic figure, and the
actual regimes of mobility and settlement that both forced populations to move and restricted the movements of others
(see, for example, Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013; Salazar and Smart 2011; Noyes 2004; Favell 2001; Cresswell
1997). Others have discussed the ethnographic mismatch between conditions and political organisations of living
nomads and the figure of the de-territorialised free, modern nomad (Kabachnik 2012; Cresswell 1997). Migration
researchers have pointed out that most of the labour and refugee mobility of our time is the outcome of unequal power
relations and not at all a result of rebellious nomads attacking the walls of ‘the polis’ (Büscher 2014). Moreover, it is
worth adding that mobile subjects, as for instance refugees, are actually seeking a livelihood protected by a state
apparatus, are happy to, and seek to, be incorporated into that state. Those refused as illegal migrants may, however,
have no other choice than to join the hordes of vagabonds outside state control (Papadopoulos and Tsianos 2007).
Critics have also pointed to the severe restriction on mobility of unwanted categories of people such as the mobile
poor populations in Europe and elsewhere (Engebrigtsen et al. 2014; Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013; Noyes 2004;
Vitale 2009; Cunningham and Heyman 2004). Just like nomads and mobile groups in all times, they are seen as
threats to state stability today (Miller 1993 in Bogue 2010).
As John Noyes has noted, one of the problems of the concept of the nomad today lies with the dual productivity of
mobile subjects: ‘mobility casts subjectivity between the ideal freedom of the disembodied wanderer and the brute
reality of the refugee’ (2004: 160). Noyes's point seems to be that the nomad as an analytical concept is too far
removed from the reality of empirical nomads to be analytically valid. However, the figure of the nomad is not
without ethnographic grounding. Deleuze and Guattari indeed built their nomadology on historiography, myth and
ethnographic knowledge. So, the question we need to ask with John Noyes is: ‘How do we take the conceptual model
of a lifestyle, a socio-economic regime, a mode of production, such as nomadism, as a model for critical thought?’
(2004: 164). In other words, how closely must the figure of the nomad and the concept of nomadology represent an
ethnographic reality in order to have analytical power?
Nomadology and living mobile people
The critique of romanticising nomadism is closely connected to the critique of the lack of correspondence between
living nomad populations and figurative nomads. In Nomadology, Deleuze and Guattari (1986: 15–17) write that one
of the problems they see in Clastres's discussion in Society against the state (1977) is that he misinterprets the formal
exteriority of ‘primitive’/nomadic peoples from the state into a real independence. A similar misinterpretation is also
the basis of much of the critique of the romanticising of nomadic life and of the figure of the nomad and nomadology.
However, Deleuze and Guattari never claimed that the nomad is free. It is precisely because she is exterior and
dependent on the state apparatus that she represents a war machine against the state; or in other words a figure for
critical thought. Deleuze and Guattari's Nomad is the subject that, in line with Michel de Certeau's (1984) ‘tactical
pedestrian’, ‘resides on the territory of the other, and always is subject of the law of the other’ (1984: 37), but without
subsuming to its power. The figurative nomad is not defined by travel of physical movement, but in Braidotti's words
‘by the subversion of conventions’ (1994: 5). Being a war machine means being an agent of change by challenging the
conceptual ‘walls of the polis’, the concepts and classifications that state power rests on and must preserve. Deleuze
and Guattari's nomad is neither good nor bad, neither free nor bonded, she is both; a destructor of perfect order. She
can be seen both in the gangs of street children in Bogotá, in the offshore economies described by John Urry (2014),
in mobile and stateless jihad warriors and in peaceful nomadic groups evading incorporation in states (Scott 2009).
The conceptual gap between the figure of the nomad, mobility, the ethnographic reality of living nomads and mobile
people can best be bridged by thorough anthropological work. In the following, I will discuss the relationship between
the figure of the nomad as it is developed in nomadology, with two cases of mobile people. My claim is that
nomadology and the figure of the nomad can enlighten our understanding of mobile people and their relations to the
state apparatus.
Without referring to nomads and war machines, Scott's accounts of different forms of resistance to state power are
vivid exemplifications of Clastres's ideas and of the nomadology of Deleuze and Guattari. His book The art of not
being governed (Scott 2009) is a historical account and political analysis of the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia
as a sanctuary for state-evading peoples. This account ranges from the expansion of the Han Dynasty in 202 BC–
AD 220 to the People's Republic of China in the 20th century. Apart from being involuntarily displaced by wars, the
burdens imposed by expanding states that made people flee, include control of labour, taxation, access to populations
for recruitment of soldiers, servants, women and slaves (Michaud in Scott 2009). These expansions made vast
numbers of people seek salvation in remote areas. Scott's argument is that all over the world we find people, groups,
populations, ‘zones of insubordination’ (2009: 132) that defy simple description and classification, that are shuffled
together in a common search for sanctuaries from state control. Scott's is a broad overview of the consistent past and
present process of people who for different reasons flee from the centres to the margins such as mountains, forests and
deserts to resist state control, with Southeast Asia as his core case. Scott's book is an account of the ongoing social and
mental process of the battle between control and resistance, of stasis and metamorphosis and between centre and
periphery, nomadic organisation and state control.
One of Scott's examples of people evading state control is the European Gypsies (Roma and Travellers). Although
most Roma and Traveller populations have been, and still are, settled, they have been regarded and treated as
threatening nomads throughout their history in Europe, as today (Achim 2004; Fraser 1995; Vitale 2009). As already
noted however, the boundary between settlement and nomadism is not clear-cut and populations that have been settled
for a long time may, for economic necessity or other reasons, become dependent on more or less permanent mobility
for their livelihood. I am not claiming that Roma per se can be seen as Deleuze and Guattari's Nomads, but that their
nomadology opens up new understandings of the Norwegian state's efforts to integrate the Roma living in Oslo today
and of the Roma's tactics (de Certeau 1984) to avoid incorporation (Engebrigtsen and Lidén 2010).
The small population of approximately 700 Norwegian Roma have lived permanently in Oslo since the 1950s. Their
ancestors travelled between Norway and central Europe between the 1870s and the Second World War. They left
Norway around 1930 when a harsh assimilation programme that targeted Norwegian Travellers threatened to include
the ‘foreign’ Roma in their programme. This programme comprised forced settlement in training camps, removal of
Traveller children to Norwegian orphanages and foster homes, and sterilisation of Traveller women. When trying to
re-enter Norway some years later because of increasing persecution in Germany, their Norwegian passports and birth
certificates were rejected and they were sent back to Germany. Almost all were killed in the Nazi camps. The
survivors and their relatives, around 50 people, were gradually admitted and granted Norwegian citizenship after
several lawsuits between the early 1950s and the 1970s. Today they make up a tight-knit group of about 700, all
related by family or kin. Their mother tongue is Romanes of the Vlach type, which shows that their ancestors probably
left Romania/Hungary after the abolishment of serfdom and slavery in the 1860s. They have their own legal system
based on ideas of collective guilt; they have their own marriage rituals and their own cosmology. They make up a
strong moral community based on ideas of personal autonomy and collective solidarity, and combine strong values of
autonomy with perpetual conflicts for power and domination. They form a community of family and kin, without
leaders, their ‘kings’ have little or no legitimate power among the people (Kaminski 1987). They represent and
perpetuate a widespread form of nomadism that is based on fixed winter quarters (Kabachnik 2012; Piasere 1992).
The majority travel extensively, as families, during spring, summer and autumn to the rest of Europe. They travel for
business, to religious gatherings and to visit their kin networks. In addition, they travel in Norway for business, and
move incessantly between flats in Oslo. As many families are rejected by neighbours, or do not pay rents punctually,
they are regularly expelled and constantly on the move between dwelling places. From their arrival, the Roma have
consented to all programmes presented to change them, but rejected or avoided them in practice. After 20 years, the
last programme was shut down and assessed as a failure; two children had completed secondary school, most were
still illiterate, no adults were employed and most families still travelled.
The authorities see the Roma as a backward, conservative group that does not know what is best for them. Seeing
them as Deleuze and Guattari's Nomads, however, opens up other interpretations; they are struggling to keep the
mental sanctuary they have developed through the centuries, in spite of malevolent and controlling states. They are
waging a silent but insistent war against state control by consenting to it verbally and defying it in praxis. The Roma
agree that wage labour is a good thing and that they really want it, but as they are illiterate, they are not eligible. As
their real earnings are by more or less ‘shady’ business ventures, they generally do not pay taxes. To evade taxation on
their earnings, they register as unemployed and most adults are thus on social welfare. They speak Norwegian, but
they speak it broken, although most adults can speak it without an accent. They arrived in Norway as Catholics, then
converted to Pentecostalism and have now a separate Pentecostal community in Norway. They send their children to
school, but only sporadically, and find reasons to take them out as much as possible. Their ongoing internal conflicts
over respect, morality and influence make any centralised institutions of power impossible. They only sporadically
have any permanent relations with Norwegians, and as most children only occasionally go to school, this segregation
is perpetuated. They are economically dependent on Norwegian society, but from a ‘nomadic’ perspective, they
struggle to maintain political, social and mental independence. It is important here to note that parts of the Roma
population in Norway are poor and are living a life in some sense at the fringes of society, but they are still insisting
on their autonomy, language and way of life as better than that of the non-Roma. This complex amalgamation of
consent and avoidance, of adaptation and resistance, of dependency and autonomy is what makes these Roma difficult
to control: their psychological remoteness, not their physical remoteness. They see themselves as free from state
control and consciously guard what they see as their freedom. In Deleuze and Guattari's (1986) sense, this is ‘the
battle’ between the nomad and the polis, and in de Certeau's (1984) sense between the strategies of ‘the powerful’ and
the evading tactics of ‘the powerless’ (see also Vergunst 2017, this issue).
Thus the living and struggling Roma in this case present themselves in much the same romantic image as the criticised
image of the nomad; they see movement as freedom from state power, see education and wage labour as threats to
what they see as their freedom. Applying nomadology to analyse their relations to state authorities further illuminates
their position as war machine; not by waging a war, but by subtle actions of evasion and resistance woven into their
habitus and way of life. Being a living nomad means struggling to evade extinction or territorialisation, ‘by playing
along and exploiting the cracks in the enemies’ armour’ (de Certeau 1984: 37). Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the
nomad and the state are thus salient for the anthropological interpretation of the social, political and cultural
relationships between the Norwegian Roma and the state.
The migrant as nomad?
So what about other mobile groups, such as migrants? Can nomadology shed light on their situation? Deleuze and
Guattari claim that migrants are not nomads in their sense, because they move between places and stay; they move in
order to be re-territorialised. Contrary to Deleuze and Guattari, but inspired by their nomadology, Dimitris
Papadopoulos and Vassillis Tsianos illustrate how the figure of the nomad can illuminate the fate of
illegal/undocumented migrants who actually never arrive to stay. In ‘The autonomy of migration: the animals of
undocumented mobility’ (2007), they write about the increasing flows of undocumented mobility as a ‘Deleuzian
force’. Not being documented, defined and individualised, and by being more or less forced to endless becoming, they
represent the nomadic war against sovereign control. The claim is that by perpetually changing identity and shape, by
force, necessity and/or will, illegal migrants escape control by becoming ‘nobody’, imperceptible. Papadopoulos and
Tsianos give the example of one of the interviewees they met in a refugee camp in northern Greece. He was Chinese
by birth and on his way to France. On his route, he was forced to stay in Romania where he married and received a
residence permit. He then applied for an EU visa, and was first rejected, but later got a 3-month work permit and
travelled to Paris where he overstayed his visa by over 12 months. He was caught and sent back to Romania. There he
changed identity and gender, married again, now as a woman, and applied again for an EU visa. She travelled to Paris
again, changed identity again, married once more and finally got a residency permit. The researchers later received a
letter from her from Canada.
Their other examples are refugees in Calais burning their identity documents and becoming ‘no-one or everyone =
imperceptible’. Given animal nicknames such as ‘coyotes’ (USA/Mexican border), ‘snakeheads’ (China), ‘sharks’ (by
British sailors), ‘ravens’ (Greek/Albanian border) and ‘sheep’ (Turkey), the traffickers/guides across national borders
signify the de-humanisation of the undocumented migrant (Papadopoulos and Tsianos 2007). The authors underline
that their intention with the paper is to counteract what they call ‘the discourse of migration as a humanitarian scandal
or as a deviation from the evolutionist human rights doctrine of western modernity, that also supply both the
humanitarian discourses and the xenophobic and racist politics of forced repatriation’ (Papadopoulos and
Tsianos 2007: 6). Instead, they employ a nomadic perspective to ‘approach migration as a constitutive moment of the
current social transformation, a moment which is primarily sustained by cooperation, solidarity, the usage of broad
networks and resources, shared knowledge, collective anticipation’ (Papadopoulos and Tsianos 2007: 6).
Concluding discussion: a nomadic science?
Considering the European origins of territory and its relationship with the modern nation-state (Elden 2014), and how
these conceptualisations feed the ‘methodological nationalism’ (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003) still inherent in
many studies of mobile people, the alternative European figure of the nomad creates space for different
understandings of identity, movement and stasis, thus providing perhaps the best foil to our own conceptual
limitations. However, the figure of the nomad, as a conceptual tool, does require careful ethnography to function as
more than a superficial trope. Careful ethnographic attention allows us to complicate a reductionist notion of the
nomadic figure by illustrating the relevance of mobile people's life-worlds as challenges to state and territory-centred
understandings of humanity. Braidotti's (1994) subversive analysis of gender relations, based on the celebration of
difference as a means to destroy hierarchical classification, the strategic situation of the Norwegian Roma as a ‘war
machine’ against incorporation by the Norwegian state, and Papadopoulos and Tsianos's (2007) ‘animals’ of illicit
migration, are only three examples of the analytical fruitfulness of nomadology and the figure of the nomad as
analytical concepts.
Nomadology is also relevant for analysing the epistemological underpinnings of social science itself and thereby the
foundations of anthropology. I close here by discussing Deleuze and Guattari's (1986) notion of state science and
nomadic science, and how this analytical pair can parallel notions of migration and mobility. Deleuze and Guattari
discuss state science as interested in theorems, the rational order, while nomadic science is about the problems that are
affective and ‘inseparable from the metamorphoses and creations within science itself’ (1986: 19). This distinction has
direct bearing on general problems concerning research today. Several critics have pointed out that social scientists are
becoming increasingly dependent on competition for funding from private and public institutions. As funding is
progressively organised through government institutions, and research is increasingly being modelled on the interests
of states or private institutions in labelling, surveilling and controlling the population, the researcher may become a
political agent for the powerful. Thus, the possibility for independent research is threatened and research may become
a continuation of administration more than expressions of wonderment (Lithman 2004).
Seeing this development as a turn towards state science questions science's ability to serve as a critical ‘force’ against
the individualising, unifying and preserving forces of public administration. This is especially the case in what is
known as ‘migration research’. I see the concepts of the migrant and of migration as products of state science. These
concepts are based on a specific political view of the world where nation-states make up the foundational ethos. In
general, migration means movement between nation-states. Of course, the concept also implies internal migration, but
in this era of globalisation it is transnational migration that is in focus. The concept thus presupposes that the nation-
state, its borders and thus control of it, is the frame of reference. This frame further implies the preoccupation with
crisis, with difference and labelling, with legality, with control and documentation; it presupposes ideas of ‘them and
us’, and questions about this relationship (Lithman 2004; Favell 2001; Audebert and Doraï 2010). In migration
politics, as in migration studies, integration becomes the key concept to understand this relationship, together with
concepts of identity, racism, ethnicity, discrimination, etc. Integration in this epistemology means one-way
incorporation into the core; the nation-state and its values. When the social sciences are enmeshed in the interests and
concerns of the political-administrative system, as they are for instance in Norway, researchers are more or less driven
into accepting the premises, definitions and concepts handed down to them through this dependency. This has led to
waves of similar analyses of ethnic minorities and their ways into majority society, in integration studies and studies
of different aspects of otherness.
While some illuminating research has been published inside this epistemology, the majority only feeds into political
demands without contesting them. The article on forced migration and exile in this issue (Hackl 2017) argues for
transgressing the idea of exile as bound up in territorial displacement and suggests instead seeing the exile as ‘a
certain interplay of power and identity in space and over time’. In contrast, movement analysed from a nomadic and
mobility-centred perspective, as developed by Urry (2000), Deleuze and Guattari and others, can illuminate the
relationship between state and nomadic science, between mobility and stasis as power relations in Deleuze and
Guattari's sense. Nomadic perspectives stand for continued wonderment of social phenomena that take social,
inductive processes as their point of departure.
Based on ethnographic exploration of nomads and on nomadic life, the nomad as figure may both enrich and explore
our understanding and analysis of the social world. Not by any romantic vision of freedom and independence, but by
making visible and insisting on the subversive possibilities of social life and science. In this vein, I see the concept of
mobility as a nomadic tool that has opened up new fields of inquiry and new perspectives on today's social world.
However, as with nomadic forces, the concept of mobility stands in a perpetual interdependency with state science and
is always on the verge of being incorporated. In order to keep their character of becoming, mobility studies should be
inspired by nomadic science by developing its critical potential as a multi-layered, vague and indefinitely becoming
concept

Representations of Nomadism
Written by Ariell Ahearn, Giulia Gonzales, Greta Semplici
On Wednesday 10 March 2021, the Commission on Nomadic Peoples (CNP) hosted a two-sessions panel during
the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) virtual Inter-Congress ( Coming
of Age on Earth: Legacies and Next Generation Anthropology), titled Lost in Representation: Changes and
Paradoxes in Nomads’ Life. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the panel was well-attended and
involved a wide range of papers covering in-depth case studies. The full list of the papers and authors (in order
of presentation) is reported at the end of this blog.
The panel was chaired by Giulia Gonzales and Greta Semplici, while Riccardo Ciavolella, director of   l’Institut
interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain (IIAC Paris), acted as discussant. The panel was inspired by
an earlier article by Ciavolella titled “Alteropolitics or alterotopies: A critique of nomadology with reference to
West African Fulbe” (2016) which sought to question contemporary representations of “nomads” as trapped in
the exoticized image of anarchists, barbarians or evaders of overarching political systems. The conveners
opened the panel with reflections on the past several years of efforts to address epistemological approaches to,
and representation of, mobile pastoralists and mobile peoples as “nomadic”, including the recently published
special issue (volume 24, number 2) “Methodological Mess: Doing Research in Contexts of High Variability” in
the journal of Nomadic Peoples.  Deleuzian Nomadology studies were introduced as a provocation for the
panellists to reflect on while exploring representations of “nomadic groups” by drawing on ethnographically
informed cases. Many were the themes challenged by the contributors to the panel.
As a pivotal point of nomadism, mobility takes great prominence in the public imagination of the nomads’ lives.
The panelists questioned mainstream narratives of mobility as representative of the nomads’ lives. They showed
how forms of spatiality cannot be reduced to the simple categories of nomadism or sedentarism (Maru), nor
their mobility can be essentialised to a livelihood need or trait of their identity (Fotta and Chritoiu). Rather,
mobility can take many forms and be also expressed in terms of connections (Gonzales, Ancey et al., Lunacek),
modification and re-articulation of everyday practices, knowledge (Grasso) and ritual life (Marmone).
The panelists in different ways also questioned assumptions about nomads’ isolation from “the outside world”
(Khazanov 1994). Fotta and Chiritoiu for example compared the case of Romani populations in Romania and
Calon in Brazil. They showed that the use of the term nomad or nomadism reflects different types of state
actions, such as protection in Romania and segregation in Brazil. At the same time, the authors showed how the
communities themselves engage and respond to political, social, and economic changes that revolve around
those actions. Often such interaction occurs through the role of “mediators” who may originally be from the
communities but have married outside and present themselves as representatives of both realities, within and
without the community.
A similar role of mediation is played by elite and professional associations in Burkina Faso, who serve as
political brokers for youth migrants from pastoral communities. Véronique Ancey, who presented the paper co-
written with Sergio Magnani and Charline Rangé, unraveled normative narratives about youth migration,
including resource depletion and climate change and the notion of idle pastoralist youths at the core of insurgent
groups. Their paper highlighted the ways in which youth mobility, rather than an exit from pastoralism, is an
important part of the wider pastoral economy and networks of relationships that span multiple locations, in
contrast to stereotyped representations of isolated nomads living in remote areas.
Challenging views of pastoralists as passive victims of state actions, Maru’s paper showed, through the case of
the Rabari in the Katch district of Gugarat, the dialectical nature of their relationship with the state. The
households described by Maru have diversified livelihoods beyond pastoralism and occupy multi-ethnical
villages without a discrete territorial autonomy. Maru demonstrated that, despite recent major development
projects including private industry and commercial agriculture, pastoralist households were nonetheless able to
benefit from emerging opportunities by mobilising various identities, including caste, to selectively act and
interact with the state.
Lunacek’s presentation also showed the proactive ways emplaced by pastoral communities to interact with the
State and benefit from emerging opportunities. She probed the connection between the growth of administrative
villages in Niger and local politics of control and access to resources such as schools. These forms of local
politics are rooted in the histories of pastoral practices and typologies of land’s appropriation in the region,
 recently affected by uranium mining concessions, private ranching, urbanisation, and goldmining. The paper
highlighted the heterogeneity of such practices and paths that communities take in negotiating with the state,
hindering simple categorisations of such acts as “nomadic”.
Gonzales’s paper similarly investigates the complex relationship with State apparatuses. Through the case of
Kel Tamasheq in Mali, she showed the co-existence between a nomadic identity, and the willingness of her
interlocutors to be integrated into the State, rather than evade it, through educational institutions and
employment in state bureaucracies. By considering vernacular translations of the term “nomad”, which do not
properly correspond to the latter, local politics and growing inequalities, the paper argues that by leaning on
‘nomadology’ it would be possible to observe only emic representations of nomadic peoples, while emerging
realities of integration into state’s structure and growing multiscaled marginalisations would pass unnoticed.
Isolation and distinction between nomads and the urban world are challenged by Marmone’s ethnomusicologist
reading of pop performances among the Samburu of Northern Kenya. He showed the harmonisation of educated
young men into traditional performance spaces. In the 2010s, Samburu pop musicians began to employ
traditional techniques, choreography and the Samburu language in their work. Marmone explained that with the
adoption of cell phones, a new type of music circulation was enabled allowing for wider sharing of ritual
musical practices across generational cohorts and diverse social worlds.
Finally, Grasso’s paper showed the existing efforts put in place through a multi-disciplinary health project in
North Kenya to integrate scientific meteorological knowledge with indigenous understandings of the
environment and weather conditions. Despite difficulties emerging from different languages (English, Swahili
and Gabra) and different worldviews, the outcome of these efforts is to strengthen existing relationship, improve
development practices, and contribute to the re-articulation of knowledge of both development experts and local
communities, both benefiting from the incorporation of the respective perspectives and point of views.  
Overall, the panel covered several interrelated themes which included a range of dualities (inside/outside;
traditional/modern; mobile/fixed; urban/rural) rooted in the nomadology heritage. In each talk these dualities
were deconstructed or unpacked to reveal nuanced and complex socio-spatial dynamics in the lives of mobile
peoples today. The panelists brought evidence of the many different existing relationships that exist between
states, market institutions, and, “nomadic peoples” and showed the relevance that such connections have for
today’s analysis of the world. At the core of such relationships lies, then, the art of negotiation: the possibility
to have access to different connections and the ability to navigate them properly. Such art, as Ciavolella noted,
is an act of translation, of mediating between different worldviews and of changing them accordingly.
Understanding such transformations is essential to comprehend contemporary worlds. To do so, lasting
representations of the “nomad” can shed light over patterns of collective self-representations but they do not
suffice to comprehend different types of mobilities and current relationships with the state or the global market.
Panel 1:
 Reflections on Anthropological Productions and Representations of ‘the Nomad’: The case of Kel
Tamasheq in Bamako, by Giulia Gonzales
 A Comparative Anthropology of Circulation: the Sociality of ‘Nomadism’ Among Brazilian Calon and
Romanian Rom by Martin Fotta and Ana Chiritoiu
 The Alter-Temporalities of Pastoral Mobility: The Case of Rabari Pastoralists of Western India  by
Natasha Maru
Panel 2:
 Sedentarisation, Decentralisation and Access to Resources: Administrative Villages in the North of
Niger by Sarah Lunacek
 Pastoralist Youth in Towns and Cities: Mobility Patterns in Times of Crisis and Governance in Burkina
Faso by Sergio Magnani, Charline Rangé, and Véronique Ancey
 From Marginality to Ritual Authority: How Pop Music is Transforming the Status of Young Educated
Men Among the Samburu by Giordano Marmone
 Observation, Measurement and Knowledge: Operationalising One Health Among Nomadic Pastoral
Communities in Northern Kenya by Erika Grasso

Theories of Nomadic Movement: A New Theoretical Approach for Understanding the Movement Decisions of Nenets
and Komi Reindeer Herders
 M. J. Dwyer & K. V. Istomin Human Ecology volume 36, Article number: 521 (2008) Cite this article
Abstract
It is known that the relationship between humans and their animals is important for understanding many aspects of
nomadic pastoralist systems, including nomadic movement. However, to date, these complex human–animal relations
have not been analyzed in a way that has led to an explanatory model of nomadic movement capable of producing
testable hypotheses. Based on ethnographic material collected amongst Komi and Nenets nomadic reindeer herders of
the Russian Arctic, we argue that nomadic movements can be best understood as a product of the interplay that exists
between animal behaviour and the herders’ skilful actions to (a) maintain herd cohesion and (b) avoid hazards, whilst
deploying the minimum amount of resources (i.e., human/animal effort and use of equipment) on rounding up the
herd, stopping and turning it. Ecological factors affect movement through their influence on animal behaviour,
whereas non-ecological factors do so by influencing the herders’ skilful actions. We demonstrate that, based on these
assumptions, it is possible to build a testable model explaining the movement of some nomadic groups.
Statement of the Problem
Movement of both animals and people is an inherent aspect of nomadic pastoralism and research into why and how
movement takes place has formed a substantial part of anthropological studies of nomadism (see Irons and Dyson-
Hudson 1972; Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980; Salzman 2003, 2004). Although many of these showed that
nomadic pastoralist movements, including migration patterns, were influenced by a number of biotic and abiotic
factors (see Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980 for a review), it appears that no model – be it general or specific
– has been formulated to explain how various types of factors interact to produce a particular type of movement. In
fact, it was claimed that a general explanatory model of nomadic pastoralist movements would be impossible to build,
since nomadic pastoralism did not represent a “coherent phenomenon” (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980:51–
56)Footnote1.
We believe, however, that local or regional scale analytical models of nomadic pastoralist movement would be
possible if a more general approach, expanding on existing research, was employed. This paper, therefore, aims to
identify and evaluate the shortcomings of previous approaches to nomadic movement. In so doing, the ways in which
these approaches can be combined and improved are explored using the case study of arctic reindeer herders, and a
refined model that explains their movements is subsequently presented. Three steps are taken to achieve this aim:
firstly, previous approaches to building explanatory models for nomadic movement are reviewed and ways of
improving them are suggested; secondly, ethnographic material collected amongst the Komi and Nenets nomadic
reindeer herders is presented; thirdly, a new analytical model is proposed based on steps one and two – which enlarges
on the previous explanations – and its applicability to other nomadic groups is discussed.
Methodology
Ethnographic data were collected during fieldwork conducted by both authors in the Inta region of the Komi Republic
and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (northeastern part of the European Russian Federation) as well as in the Yamalo-
Nenets Autonomous Okrug (northwestern Siberia) – see Fig. 1.
Fig. 1

Map locator
Three expeditions took place amongst the Komi reindeer herders of Sovkhoz (reindeer herding enterprise) Bol’shaya
Inta, who migrate mostly in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug: 2001 (September–November); 2002 (June–December);
2003 (January–February). A total of 12 months was spent migrating with the herders throughout these periods.
Between August 2001 and February 2003, over 6 weeks was spent interviewing retired reindeer herders in small
remote villages: The Nenets herders in the village of Kharuta (3 days); The Komi herders in the villages of
Adz’vavom (2 weeks), Kosyuvom (1 week), Petrun’ (3 weeks), and Rogovoy (3 days). A further three expeditions
were carried out during autumn–winter 2005, summer 2006, and spring 2007 in the region of the River Taz – the
southern part of the Gydan Peninsula which, administratively, represents the Tazovsky district, Yamalo-Nenets
Autonomous Okrug – which focused on the Taz group of Nenets reindeer herders. During these expeditions, around
4 weeks were spent interviewing retired reindeer herders in the village of Tazovsky (October–November, 2005) and
7 months migrating with herders of the Tazovsky Sovkhoz. The research included participant observation together
with interviews conducted in the Komi and Russian languages. The interviews were informal and no specially
designed questionnaires were used. Komi and Nenets terms were translated into Russian and English for the purpose
of analysis and the interviewing process was repeated several times with different individuals and groups of herders in
order to cross-reference data.

Review of Anthropological Explanations of Nomadic Pastoralist Movements

Possibly the oldest, most obvious and most ubiquitous explanation of nomadic pastoralist movement in popular
literature is that nomads move to new pastures to find fodder and water for their herds. Explicitly worded in the 16th
century by Rashid Al-Din, this explanation dominated nomadic studies in both geography (e.g., Semple 1933;
Forde 1934) and anthropology (e.g., Evans-Pritchard 1940; Myers 1941) up until the late 1960s. It was not, however,
until the beginning of the 1950s that anthropologists became interested in constructing more detailed explanatory
models based on this general explanation (Dyson-Hudson 1972:6Footnote2 see also Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-
Hudson 1980; McCabe 1994).
By the 1960s, two basic modelling approaches had crystallized (see Paine 1972:77). The first one utilised the notion of
the existence of homeostatic relations between nomadic pastoralists and their environment and viewed mobility as a
basic mechanism for maintaining this homeostasis by levelling the fluctuations (seasonal, etc.) in the supply of
resources (mainly fodder and water) in any particular place (e.g., Barth 1961). The second approach – attributed by
Paine (1972, 1994:14) to Evans-Pritchard (1940) – denied the homeostatic relation between pastoralists and their
environment. Instead, nomadic movements served to maximize the supply of resources, which could vary rather
significantly from season to season, for the herds at any particular moment of time.
However, it also became evident in the 1950s–1960s, that animal resources (fodder and/or water) were not the only
factor influencing nomadic movements; there were also a number of other biological factors (e.g., tsetse fly—
Stenning 1958, 1959) as well as nonbiological factors including economic and social relations with other groups
(nomadic and settled), national governments, and social relations between individuals within a nomadic group
(Lattimore 1940; Stenning 1958; Barth 1960, 1961; Bates 1972, 1973 to name just a few from this period). Although
resource (ecological) factors were generally regarded as being the main consideration until the end of the 1960s
(McCabe 1994:72), the urge to incorporate further factors into explanatory models was observed. According to
Gulliver (1975), pastoral nomads obviously moved in response to ecological (resource) factors, however, the manner
in which they did so left open many “opportunities of roughly equal pastoral advantage” (1975:372). In other words,
pastoralists had “a degree of freedom of action” where sociocultural considerations could (when ecological conditions
were more or less equivalent) determine their course of movement (1975:372–373). An essentially similar approach
was proposed by Neville Dyson-Hudson (1972). For adherents of these models, ecological and non-ecological factors
affected movement on different scales of precision: ecological factors determined the general features of the migration
patterns (such as seasonal migrations from one ecological zone to another), while non-ecological factors determined
the concrete details of movements and schedules.
However, these models attracted severe criticism in the 1970s (see Bates 1973; Irons 1974; Burnham 1975;
Elam 1979). Ecological studies demonstrated that the relation between nomadic pastoralists and their environment
could generally not be viewed as being homeostatic and thus the theories of Barth (1961) and Spooner (1972), which
had been based on this premise, were undermined. The anthropological studies showed that in certain nomadic
pastoralist systems (see Irons 1974; Elam 1979) there were no ecological reasons for nomadic migrations; these
nomads moved exclusively for political, economic or social reasons, which suggested that both ecological and non-
ecological factors could be of equal importance in causing and shaping nomadic pastoralist movement, and that this
movement could be caused and shaped by all or any of them (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980).
Consequently, the very concept of nomadic pastoralism was also being questioned (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-
Hudson 1980).
In the second half of the 1980s, a new stage of anthropological research took place, primarily undertaken by the well-
known Turkana project researchers (see Little and Leslie 1999). This new research was marked by applying what
Orlove (1980) named a ‘process-approach’ using ‘actor-based models’ as opposed to the previous ‘pattern-oriented
approach.’ Generally, this meant a change of research agenda that now focused on the factors and processes involved
in shaping the individual behaviour of an actor, most often represented in the form of decision-making models, rather
than on explaining abstract patterns, such as those of migration (Orlove 1980:246). As a result, explanatory models of
movement began to be perceived as those explaining movement decisions and two approaches in model building
crystallized. One focused on the factors influencing these decisions, which left the actual process of decision-making
outside the scope of its analysis (“microeconomic models” Orlove 1980:246–247). Early anthropological publications
of the Turkana Project (e.g., Dyson-Hudson and McCabe 1985; McCabe 1994) which calculated the relative numbers
of ‘migratory’ decisions made for ecological, economic, social, and political factors to understand their relative
influence on nomadic pastoralists’ movement, serve as a good example. Many studies of this kind (e.g., De Boer and
Prins 1989; Sieff 1997; Robbins 1998; Turner 1999; Coppolillo 2000; Schareika 2001; Adriansen and Nielsen 2002)
belonged to different branches of Human Environmental Ecology (sociobiology) (see Cronk 2000). Some of them
used models developed in animal ecology, i.e., the optimal foraging model (e.g., De Boer and Prins 1989), whereas
others (e.g., Sieff 1997) used dynamic optimality models to explain and predict movement choices (by maximizing
certain ‘proxy currencies’Footnote3 (see Mulder and Sellen 1994)). Outside of Human Behavioural Ecology,
microeconomic models were exemplified by the economic defendability model, first applied in anthropology by
Dyson-Hudson and Smith (1978), and further developed in Casimir’s (1992) study of land property rights which was
partly based on the biological optimality matrix.
The second approach focused on the actual process of decision making with a view to building up its cognitive models
(Orlove 1980: 246–247). Some studies using this approach were also Human Environmental Ecology related (e.g.,
Schareika 2001; see also Erdenebaatar 1996) and endeavoured to explain the decision-making process by formulating
a set of decision rules, supposedly transmitted from one generation to the next through the process of enculturation.
The theoretical assumptions upon which these attempts were built have recently been criticized (see
Ingold 1990, 1996, 2000). Other studies, which were much more numerous (e.g., McCabe 1994; Beach 1990), were
related to more traditional branches of anthropology.
Neither approach has resulted in a coherent explanatory model for nomadic pastoralists’ decision making in relation
to movement. This is probably because both approaches have significant shortcomings. Although the microeconomic
models – based on optimality theory – can generate testable hypotheses regarding which factors influence nomadic
movement, their abstraction from the decision-making process seriously hinder their ability to explain exactly how
these factors work together to produce specific decisions. As theorists of the optimality models themselves accept
(e.g., Smith 1983), these models do not explain how movement decisions are actually made, let alone predict them in
detail. They would be better viewed as either shortcuts or credible guides to developing such an explanation.
Furthermore, even the function of optimality models in relation to nomadic movement is often ambiguous since most
models do not base their analysis on the supposed decision-making agents per se, but rather on the nomadic pastoralist
system in general treated as a single black box. This approach, in simplified form, is graphically represented by Fig. 2.
Fig. 2

The approach for applying optimality models to nomadic pastoral movements

This approach may have been adequate if a single locus of decision making existed in a nomadic pastoralist system
(represented, for example, by nomadic herders) capable of producing decisions that optimized the influence of the
factors, and if the resulting movement depended exclusively on the decisions made in this locus. However, as studies
representing the second approach (cognitive models) clearly signify, both these assumptions would be wrong. A
nomadic pastoralist system is not a coherent unit. It consists of at least two basic elements – humans and animals –
between which interrelations are rather complicated and need to be taken into consideration in any theoretical
generalization:
Understanding a pastoral society involves understanding its herding operations. Understanding the herding operation
in turn involves understanding the species herded. In short, for pastoral societies “social significant phenomena”
comprise a far wider category than “social phenomena”, and the present unsatisfactory state of nomadic studies must
in part be attributed to the slowness with which social anthropologists have come to terms with the results of
veterinary and pasture research (Dyson-Hudson 1972:14).
In fact there are a number of pointers in existing literature that indicate that nomadic movements result not only from
decisions taken by the herders, but also from the behaviour of animals over which herders have little influence. For
example, Erdenebaatar (1996) mentioned that the Mongol nomads were forced to make very frequent movements
between seasonal pastures because the animals tried to return to abandoned pastures and that frequent movement was
the only way to deter them from doing so. Similarly, Turner (1999) mentioned that cows became quite ‘picky’ over
grass species during some periods and were, therefore, calmer in more diverse pastures. Furthermore, Coppolillo
(2000) noted that larger herds of cows tended to walk further distances than those that were smaller (“…ten steps
without a bite”) and thus moved faster (2000:555). He also presumed that this could explain why larger herds had
longer migration routes than those of smaller herds, and also why nomads tended to divide their herds.
A number of accounts of this kind can be found in literature on reindeer herding nomads. For example, in the second
half of 19th century, Maksimov (1868) argued that rather than pasturing reindeer the Nenets herders followed them.
However, even the extreme idea that there is a single locus of movement decision-making, which, however, rests with
animal behaviour is strongly opposed by some scholars (see Beach 1990; Ingold 1988 [1980], 1986). For example,
Beach (1990) states that:
“Although the nomad’s common explanation of his own movements is ‘the reindeer decide’, this is a truth with
modification. There is great flexibility in the decisions that the reindeer can adopt as customary and the reindeer
nomad greatly assists in helping the reindeer make up their minds… In effect the reindeer come to decide what the
herder (within bounds) has decided for them” (1990: 269–270).
In other words, the herders “know the possible range of behaviour of the reindeer under different climatic conditions”,
“predict reindeer behaviour during the shifting interplay of climate, grazing and landscape” and “adapt herding to
these conditions” (Beach 1990:268). Paine (1994) put essentially the same idea in even stronger terms arguing that
“reindeer pastoralism rests upon the successful deciphering of herd behavior by herders” (1994: 31).
This suggests that existent complex human–animal relations should be considered in order to understand the herders’
actions/decisions with respect to movement. On the other hand cognitive models, although emphasizing the role of
these relations, are inadequate in providing either a theoretical argument or testable hypotheses on how various
external factors influence nomadic movement. Therefore, a general explanatory model of nomadic pastoralist
movement could seemingly be achieved only by building upon a combination of elements of microeconomic and
cognitive actor based models.
Movement and Reindeer Pasturing Technology: The Cases of the Izhma Komi and the Taz Nenets
The Izhma Komi
The Izhma Komi reindeer herders of the Bol’shezemel’skaya Tundra (henceforth referred to as Komi herders) live in
teams usually consisting of six to eight males and several females. All the members of a team cohabit in one nomadic
conical shaped tent (chom in Komi) and are normally related to each other by blood or marriage. These teams
(brigada Footnote4) each pasture from 2,000 to 4,000 reindeer; the larger proportion of these animals is the property of
reindeer herding enterprises (former sovkhozes Footnote5), and the remainder belong to the reindeer herders themselves.
The animals controlled by each brigada are divided into two herds: one consists of castrated male reindeer used for
transportation (byk), and the other incorporates female and non-castrated male reindeer as well as calves (kör).
The byk herd, usually numbering between two and four hundred animals, is always pastured in close proximity to the
tent so that the nomads always have a means of transport at their disposal. The kör, which includes 80–90% of the
total number of animals, can be as far away as 10–15 km from the camp. In spring and summer, each herd is
permanently observed and controlled by one reindeer herder (working a 24 h shift) with a reindeer sledge and between
two and four herding dogs. In autumn and winter, when the long dark nights make 24 h observation impossible,
control over the animals is loosened. The herds are, nevertheless, visited and rounded up every day.
The migration pattern of Komi herders is linear and meridian: each year, a brigada completes a return journey from
the forest–tundra zone in the south through to the tundra zone on the coast of the Barents and Kara seas in the north.
This migration follows an established path called vörga. Two brigadas generally share the same path (although they
do not camp together except when near the sea coast in the summer) and pasture their reindeer on different sides of it.
Considering that vörgas run parallel to one other from south to north – the distance between two neighbouring paths
ranging from between two and 12 km at any given location – a pasturing corridor typically has to be shared by
two brigadas (see Dwyer and Istomin 2006). The current length of the paths can reach at least 450–500 km, so that the
Komi travel up to 1,000 km per year; there is evidence that this figure was considerably larger in the recent past
(Dwyer and Istomin 2008). Along the vörgas, established camping sites (chom mesta) are situated at a distance of 10–
13 km from one another; this distance is known as lunkost (daytrip), and the brigadas’ migration usually consists of
moving from one camp site to the next.
The Komi herders showed that their movements heavily depended on the movement of the larger kör herd and
asserted that it should always be behind the camp (e.g., to the south of it when migrating northwards), since when the
animals graze they gradually move towards the camp. Once the kör herd is close to the camp, the herders move to the
next camp site and the distance between the camp and the kör is re-establishedFootnote6. The movement of the kör,
therefore, appeared to be the key factor determining the movements of the herders and should be discussed in some
detail.
As mentioned, both the kör and the byk herds are observed constantly in spring–summer, or during the days in winter,
by duty herders with sledges and several dogs. It transpired that a duty herder has three basic tasks: a) to keep the herd
coherent and prevent it from dispersing and separating into smaller groups of reindeer (palakh), some of which can
easily slip from under the herder’s control; b) to protect the herd from environmental hazards, such as predators and
dangerous terrainFootnote7; c) to avoid his herd mixing with those of other brigadas. His failure to perform these tasks
will inevitably result in the loss of reindeer. Study of the actual herding process showed that performing these tasks
depends firstly on the ability of the herder to perceive and react to the herd’s behaviour. The herders reported a
number of factors influencing this behaviour, such as quality, quantity and accessibility of fodder, air temperature,
mosquitoes, micro-landscape, ground humidity, etc. For example, low quantity and/or insufficient quality of fodder
tends to cause the herd to disperse; harassment by mosquitoes forces reindeer to group together and move with greater
speed against the wind; reindeer move more slowly when temperature is low, etc Footnote8. The responsive strategies of a
duty herder to these different kinds of reindeer behaviour could be grouped into two types: Firstly, the herder can
influence the behaviour of the herd directly by travelling around it on his sledge with or without his herding dogs to
round up the dispersed herd again; to return a group of reindeer that have become separated from the herd; or to
redirect a herd moving too fast or in the wrong direction (towards a dangerous terrain or in the direction of another
herd) due to mosquitoes. Secondly, the herder can attempt to change reindeer behaviour by moving with the herd to a
new location. Thus, if a herd tends to disperse in a particular place (e.g., as a result of intensive pasturing in one
location), one solution can be to move to another place which has more vegetation or vegetation of a different kind; if
the herd moves too fast (in the case of intense heat or mosquitoes), it can be moved to a windier or cooler place, etc. In
addition, the factors influencing reindeer behaviour can be balanced against one another through movement. For
example, taking the herd to a place rich in fodder can decrease the speed of its movement (and make the tasks of a
duty herder easier to perform) even on a warm mosquito-ridden day. Moving the herd (or allowing it to move itself) to
a new place is also the most efficient way to avoid dangerous terrain as well as to decrease the risk of herd mixing. It
should be noted, however, that these manoeuvres with the herd are rather restricted in space: the duty herder cannot
approach the neighbouring migration paths with his herd and cannot cross his own vörga in the case where it is used
by two brigadas. In fact, this manoeuvring is always directed roughly towards the camp, since the land in the opposite
direction (from where the herd had just come) would already have been used and moving back would increase the risk
of herd dispersal.
It was observed that all Komi herders used both types of pasturing strategies. However, touching (vörz’ödny)
[interfering with] the herd too often to round it up, stop it or change its direction is inadvisable, as this disturbs the
process of reindeer grazing and exhausts the duty herders’ draft reindeer and dogs. On the other hand, a lack of
herding intervention can result in the herd approaching the campsite too quickly forcing the brigada to move to the
next encampment. Moreover, too frequent movements are not always in the interests of the herders, since they exhaust
the draft reindeer and leave too little time for important subsistence activities, such as processing hides, sewing
clothes, sledge building and repairing, fishing, etc. In short, the real art of reindeer herding primarily consists of
accomplishing the herding tasks (i.e., keeping the herd coherent, protecting it, and avoiding mixing with others) with
both minimal direct influence on the herd using a sledge and dogs, and the minimal exploitation of the territory
between the herd and the camp in the process of manoeuvring; thoughtful observation and evaluation of reindeer
behaviour and balanced application of both direct influence on the herd and spatial manoeuvring can achieve this.
The Taz Nenets
A Taz Nenets (henceforth named Nenets) herding camp consists of four to seven families, each living in its own tent.
In contrast to the long linear and meridian migration pattern of the Komi, the Nenets move in a circular pattern within
a given territoryFootnote9, but without any established migration route. Each camp manages a reindeer herd numbering
from 1,500 to 3,500 animals, not divided into groups, but pastured as a coherent whole and left to graze unobserved
most of the time. The only exception is the calving period (end of April to the end of May), when pregnant and newly
calved female reindeer (yahadey) together with their newborn calves are pastured separately from the rest of the herd
(ty). The herds are rounded up once a day in winter or twice in spring and autumn and driven to the campsite to check
whether all animals are present; choose new animals for harnessing; slaughter some for food and hides, and allow
state-sponsored zootekhniks (veterinaries) to treat any sick reindeer. Finding and rounding up the herd typically
involves a joint effort of two herders in winter and four in spring and autumn, each with a reindeer sledge and team of
two to four herding dogs. Knowledge of typical reindeer behaviour is used to find the animals, which have usually
dispersed into several separate groups by the time rounding up occurs Footnote10. The periods of calving and mosquito
abundance (end of June to the beginning of August) represent exceptions to this model: the yahadey herd during the
former period and the entire herd during the latter are observed permanently by two duty herders working on a 24-h-
shift basis. The manner in which this observation is performed, however, differs from that of the Komi. For example,
in the calving period, the herders are very careful not to influence the calving herd in any way, as this can scare the
pregnant females about to give birth and increase their risk of miscarriage. They simply observe the slow-moving
females and return any that try to disperse (usually those that have still not given birth). In contrast to the Komi who
do not separate pregnant females into a separate herd, the main activity in the calving period consists of keeping the
productive herd in one place by preventing the younger animals and males from leading it farther towards the north.
The main factor triggering the Nenets’ movements was when the herd was difficult to find and round up at a particular
camp. The herders stated that they often had to move because the reindeer that had been released from the campsite
could quickly become dispersed and wander too far away from the camp by the time of the next rounding up.
Therefore finding them and driving them back to the camp became time-consuming and demanding for the herders’
draft reindeer and dogs, and the risk of losing track of some smaller groups of reindeer increased. This reindeer
behaviour was provoked by the deterioration of fodder (in quantity and/or quality) near the camp and movement to a
new location was therefore required. Considering that a new campsite should have a large area of fresh pastures, the
longer the herders stay in one place the longer their subsequent move has to be Footnote11. Similarly to the Komi, Nenets
herders, despite their knowing that reindeer behaviour is influenced by the quality/quantity of fodder, made their
movement decisions in relation to reindeer behaviour per se, rather than any assessment of fodder.
Taking into account that the pattern of Nenets migrations is circular with no established migration routes, it is
important to understand how they select the direction of their migrations. It emerged that two basic models of
migration exist. The first – which can be called the ‘double loop’ – consists of two circles of migration: the winter
circle (from November to the beginning of June), made in the forest and/or forest–tundra zone and the summer circle
(from June to November), made in the tundra. The circles are connected at one point, situated not far away from the
tree line, where the herders leave their winter equipment (e.g., winter tents covered by reindeer hides and warm winter
clothes) in June and pick it up in late autumn (November). The second model of migration consists of three circles:
winter – from November to the beginning of June; spring/summer – from June to August; summer/autumn – from
August to the beginning of November. These circles are also connected at the equipment storage place. In this model,
the winter circle is also made in the forest/forest–tundra, the spring/summer circle is performed along watersheds,
covered by willow stands (neros’a and payu) and the summer/autumn circle is made in the open tundra (lapta). The
herders return to the winter equipment storage place twice – once in summer (usually in the middle of August) and
once in late autumn – which allows them to reduce the number of items they carry during their movements. Concrete
locations in which the migration circles are made change every year: the same territory should not normally be used
throughout two consecutive years, since lichen (n’ado in Nenets) grows very slowly. This does not apply to the land
along watersheds used in the middle of summer. As the herders put it: “reindeer do not need lichen in summer, as
grass and leaves grow back every year.”
The migration route is determined in spring and is mainly related to where the equipment storage place is located. If it
is situated between the watershed and the area of open tundra, on land which has not been in use for some time (a
minimum of 2 years), the three-circle model is chosen. The herders consider this to be the most appropriate, since it
greatly decreases the burden of draft animals. It is, however, not always possible to perform, since the open tundra
areas in proximity to the watershed may already have been used during previous years. In this case, the double loop
model is opted for, in which the herders go to the open tundra across the watershed and return back in late autumn
performing only one summer circle.
The explanations herders gave for these migration patterns were sometimes contradictory and, probably, simplistic.
What is important, however, is that these explanations more often than not referred to expected reindeer behaviour in a
particular territory and the workload needed to cope with it. Thus, the herders explained that making the winter circle
in the forest/forest–tundra zone is mainly due to its softer snow cover, which makes it easier for reindeer to dig out the
lichen and, in turn, means a more cohesive herd and a decrease in herd dispersal (the other popular explanation was
that good availability of firewood can be found there). Similarly, in the first half of summer, willow stands are used to
decrease the speed of herd movement, since they provide cooler pastures and thus some relief from mosquitoes, and
make dealing with the herd easier. Herders who attempted to pasture reindeer in the open tundra during the mosquito
period often lost their herd because their draft animals became tired of the heat, mosquitoes, and permanent workload.
Similarly, moving into the open tundra after the mosquito period is explained by the herders for two reasons: firstly,
dispersed groups of reindeer are easier to find and round up in the open tundra than in the forest and willow stand;
secondly, there are fewer mushrooms in the open tundra compared to the forest or willow stands; reindeer are fond of
mushrooms (which start to grow in the tundra in August) and disperse extensively in search of them.
As can be seen from this description, choice of a migration pattern indeed involves some simple ecological
considerations on the part of the Nenets herders, particularly the tendency to avoid a grazed territory for several years
in order to allow it to recover. However, it would appear that the main factors influencing choice of distance,
direction, and length of time of their movements are (a) the need to cope with and react to reindeer behaviour; (b) to
do this in such a way as to retain control over the animals with reasonable disposal of resources – including time – and
human, draft reindeer and dog power. In this respect, the technology of Nenets herders is strikingly similar to that of
the Komi. The main distinction is that Komi endeavour to control their animals constantly, whilst the Nenets, for most
of the time, take control of the reindeer and release them regularly. This distinction, however, in relation to our
research seems to be rather in form than in principle.
Reindeer Behaviour and Herding Technology
The short description of Komi and Nenets pasturing technologies and patterns of movement decisions confirms the
observations of Beach (1990) and Paine (1994) that the ability of herders to forecast, interpret and react skillfully
towards the behaviour of reindeer is the central element of reindeer herding. As is the case amongst the Saami, for the
Nenets and Komi, “reindeer pastoralism rests on successful deciphering of herd behavior by the herders” (Paine 1994:
31). Paine mentions, however, that this deciphering and reaction in reindeer herding is actually a two-way process—a
phenomenon which he names ‘reciprocal learning’: “Animals learn about their herders’ order of things, as well as
herders about their animals.” (1994:31).
The comparison of observations made among Komi and Nenets reindeer herders confirm that reciprocal learning such
as this indeed takes place. It was observed that reindeer from Nenets herds, if not found by the herders during the
course of the daily round-up, tended to return to the campsite of their own accord after some time. The herders
reported that these reindeer tended to return to the same campsite that they were driven to by the herders during the
previous round-up. When the herd is rounded up and moved to a new campsite, those animals that are missing will
most likely return to the previous campsite. It was also reported that this behaviour depended on the number of times
the animals had been driven to a particular campsite. For example, if the animals were ‘lost’ immediately after
movement to a new place or if they were rounded up and driven to this place only once or twice, they would likely
return to the previous campsite. In addition, stray animals tended to return to the campsite if either attacked by
predators or harassed by mosquitoes.
It was observed that Nenets herders relied heavily on this behaviour. For example, in spring and early autumn, when
the pasture conditions were good and reindeer did not wander far away from the camp for long periods of time, the
herders tended to accept the much larger dispersal of the herd before moving on to a new place than in summer and
winter. Their explanation was that reindeer had ‘learnt’ to return to this particular place for long enough and,
therefore, the danger of losing them was low despite difficulties finding and rounding them up every day: the animals
that the duty herders failed to find were likely to return to the camp by themselves. In one particular case (June, 2006)
it was observed that after a 22-day period in one place, the herd became so dispersed that the duty herders only
managed to round up around 1/3 every day. The brigada did not move, however, since the herders expected all the
reindeer to return to the campsite of their own accord when harassed by mosquitoes at the start of the biting insect
season. This expectation turned out to be justified.
On the other hand, the Komi herders’ reindeer could not return to a campsite of their own accord. Consequently, a
herd needed to be observed constantly. Apparently the contrast between the two groups is due to reciprocal learning.
For example, the return to a campsite, by the Nenets reindeer must have been the product of their instinct (i.e., the
tendency to rejoin the herd) modified by their experience with a particular herding technology (i.e., the campsite is the
focal point where other animals are most likely to be met). However, Komi reindeer herding technology does not
create such focal points and, Komi reindeer do not demonstrate the same behavioural pattern. This example is unlikely
to be unique. The older Komi herders described the problems they had with reindeer that were bought for them in the
Yamal Peninsula at the end of the 1950s, when they experienced huge losses due to foot-and-mouth disease. They
described the new animals as being ‘wild’, and that they soon became lost.
These findings suggest that animal behaviour can partly be the product of a particular herding technology, which
reaffirms the idea put forward in many anthropological works that an animal herd is not only a biological but a social
phenomenon.

New Proposed Model of Pastoralist Movement

The Concept of Herd Control
The ethnographic material presented in this paper confirms that reindeer herders’ movements are the direct result of a
relationship that exists between herders and their reindeer, whereby the actions of the herders depend largely upon the
behaviour of the herd. Consequently, to develop an explanatory model of reindeer herding movement, focus should be
placed on this relationship. ‘Herd control’ comprises ensuring the herd’s cohesion and manageability, its protection
from predators and dangerous terrain, and prevention from mixing with other herds. As demonstrated, ‘herd control’
can be regarded at best as a product of the interplay, including reciprocal learning, between reindeer behaviour and the
actions of the herders. During the process of this interplay, reindeer behaviour can be modified by the herders’ actions,
but by no means determined by them. Importantly, in their dealings with the animals, the herders, understandably, aim
to act in such a way that expenditure related to their actions, in terms of time, labour, and draft reindeer and dog
power, are kept to a minimum. Hence, herd control can be best understood as a result of herders’ attuning their actions
to reindeer behaviour that has been partly produced by these very actions. There appear to be various ways of
achieving this; e.g., permanent observation of the animals, regular rounding up, and leaving them to graze freely most
of the time.
Ecological factors influence reindeer herding movement through their impact on reindeer behaviour, which is very
sensitive to even the slightest change to the environment. Thus, when making movement decisions, the herders, rather
than constantly assessing an incalculable number of environmental factors and moving accordingly, generally attune
their actions to environmental variability by responding to changes in reindeer behaviour alone. For example, the
amount and quality of fodder is one of the basic factors influencing reindeer herding movement. However, from a
reindeer herder’s point of view, movement is not determined by whether or not a pasture has become ‘exhausted’;
rather movement is made according to (albeit not solely) the degree of effort that is required by the herders Footnote12 to
keep his animals under control on this pasture. The herders move when reindeer no longer want to stay on the pasture.
The abundance of forage (i.e., a biotic factor) influences the ‘willingness’ of reindeer to stay on the pasture: the less
abundant the forage, the more willing the reindeer are to move. However, the herders react to the behaviour of
reindeer rather than to the abundance of forage.
So far, we have discussed only how the reindeer herders’ movements are influenced by the ecological requirements of
the reindeer. However, the requirements of the reindeer herders themselves are also important determinants of
reindeer herding movements and reflect mainly the non-ecological factors influencing them. Firstly, reindeer herders
need to exploit the resources that are available in the natural environment (e.g., wood and bark for fuel, water, fish,
game and wood for making objects). The abundance and availability of these resources, of course, vary temporally
and spatially. Secondly, the herders’ need to trade with the settled population, as well as other nomads, which is
possible only in certain places. Thirdly, they need to make/repair material objects, such as sledges, tent poles, etc.,
which demands staying in one place for some time. Fourthly, they need to meet up with the transport (e.g.,
helicopters) that is irregularly sent to them in order to bring supplies, pick up reindeer meat, provide medical care,
give lifts to nomads going to villages, etc. Fifthly, they have broader social needs (e.g., relaxing in a warm flat,
watching television and seeking companionship), which are available mainly in villages. The social setting and
political and economic agencies also influence nomadic movement: the reindeer herding enterprises can order the
herders to bring their herds to special corrals in order to count the animals, to choose reindeer for slaughter, to give the
reindeer injections, etc., as well as to bring the chosen animals to a slaughter house. The traditional system of land
tenure binds Komi herders to established migration routes (vörga), and Nenets herders to defined, although
changeable land plots (ya); the state can remove a patch of territory from the agricultural allocation (vyvesti iz
selskohozajstvennogo oborota), i.e., confiscate it from the herders and give it, for example, to an oil or gas drilling
company (see Habeck 2005).
These factors influence herders’ movement decisions in ways that would often have been different if they had been
made exclusively to maintain control over the herd with minimal disposal of resources. These differences, however,
always increase the risk of loosing control over the herd, which can be partly mitigated through an increase in
workload (in terms of human, reindeer and dog power). It is argued, therefore, that the herders’ actual process of
movement decisions involve constantly assessing and balancing the risk of losing control over the animals and the
increase in the workload needed to mitigate it on the one hand and the need to satisfy the herders’ needs and respond
to non-ecological factors on the other. It transpired that the need to maintain herd control usually took precedence, i.e.,
the herders deviated from the optimal pattern of movement for controlling the herd only when the risk of losing its
control could be mitigated by a reasonable price in terms of increased workload. To illustrate this point, on one
occasion the Nenets were ordered by the sovkhoz to repair a damaged corral. However, to do this, the camp had to
pasture its reindeer in an area deemed unsuitable. This caused the herd to disperse over a wide area and the combined
effort of as many as eight of the 11 herders present in the camp was required every day to retrieve all the groups of
reindeer and bring them to the camp; this made the repair work very slow. Eventually the repair work was abandoned,
as avoiding a conflict with the enterprise over uncompleted work did not warrant the potential loss of reindeer, which
would have been expected had the camp stayed near the corral.
New Proposed Model
Figure 3 shows that reindeer herding movements amongst Komi and Nenets reindeer herders result from the interplay
between reindeer behaviour and the actions of the reindeer herders aimed at achieving ‘herd control’ – which includes
herd cohesion, manageability and safety – with minimum costs in terms of human and animal power. This interplay
involves the herders’ perception of reindeer behaviour and their reaction to it. The interplay is influenced, on the one
hand, by the impact of ecological factors on reindeer behaviour and, on the other, by non-ecological factors that have
an impact on the actions of the reindeer herders.
Fig. 3

Proposed model (actor-based) for explaining movement

This model seems to have several advantages. Firstly, the analysis of interrelations between the reindeer herders and
their animals allows not only the determination of factors that influence reindeer herding movement, but also suggests
how these factors work together to produce it. More importantly the model is falsifiable (see Popper 1992), i.e., it can
be used to produce testable hypotheses about how certain changes in the ecological and non-ecological environment
can influence Komi and Nenets reindeer herding movements. These hypotheses could be empirically tested and the
results of this test used to either prove or disprove the model. Finally, this model, which combines a microeconomic as
well as cognitive approach to decision-making, can work as a useful guide to building more specific and detailed
testable explanations. Thus, it could serve as a guide when using optimality theory to analyse nomadic movement.
When optimality models are applied separately to the reindeer herd (based, for example, on optimal foraging) and the
herders’ reaction to it (based on optimizing manpower expenditure), movement can be regarded as the outcome of the
interplay between these two optimization strategies. This model should also take into account existing reindeer
herding technology and the role of reciprocal learning. If this model is correct, the hypotheses resulting from this
approach should describe empirically observable movements better than those resulting from the ‘black box’ model
described previously.
It would, of course, be interesting to know how far, if at all, the principle of herd control could be applied to explain
the movement decisions of other reindeer herding nomads as well as nomads in general. We are now entering a
completely speculative arena, since, in the absence of substantial comparative data, it is difficult to make sound
forecasts. It is probable that herd control is a major issue for all groups of reindeer herding nomads, since reindeer
have wild conspecifics and essentially behave as such (unlike cows, sheep, goats, and other domesticated animals
herded by other nomads in different regions of the world). This means that no matter how domesticated reindeer
become, once included in a herd they move – in order to exploit the resources that are widely distributed in the
environment – in a similar way to their wild conspecifics. However, it stands to reason that the degree to which herd
control is an issue to the herders depends upon two factors: the level of reindeer domestication (which is largely
determined by reindeer ecotype) and the size of a herd. Indeed, the tundra form of reindeer inhabits open areas, is
more gregarious than the forest dwelling types, and has developed a more sophisticated social organization
(Geist 2003). This could be an advantage for the herders who herd tundra reindeer (Clutton-Brock 1987) and may
have been important during the course of the transition from small-scale transport reindeer herding (with herds only in
the dozens) to managing large herds of reindeer for food and skins (modern reindeer pastoralism). Consequently, one
can imagine that herd control is less of an issue for small-scale reindeer herders (e.g., the Evenki and some Khanti)
and it may be that our model cannot be applied to them. On the other hand, herd control is probably an important issue
for other large-scale reindeer herders (e.g., Chukchi, Saami, some groups of Yakut, etc), for whom our model is likely
to be applicable.
It is even more difficult to judge with certainty how far (if at all) our model can be applied to nomads herding animals
other than reindeer. Reindeer are known to be highly atypical amongst domesticated animals due to their low degree
of domestication, which they probably acquired relatively recently (Baskin 1970; Krupnik 1993). This suggests that
maintaining control over reindeer could be more problematic than over other animals. Nevertheless, as mentioned,
there is evidence (e.g., Swidler 1972; Erdenebaatar 1996; Turner 1999; Coppolillo 2000) that southern nomadic
pastoralists also have to deal with and react to specific animal behaviour. It was claimed that some aspects of their
migratory patterns depended upon this reaction; these included the length of migrations (Erdenebaatar 1996;
Turner 1999; Coppolillo 2000) and their direction (Turner 1999). However, we are not aware of any works that have
systematically focused on this question. It is also evident, that in the case of southern nomadic-pastoralist systems, the
herds more often than not contain several animal species with different behavioural patterns and that there are
different aspects of human–animal relations (e.g., milk yield) to which the herders could react when deciding on their
movements. However, we believe that treating herders and herds separately and focusing on their interrelations leads
to a better understanding of the herders’ decision-making, including those decisions related to movement.

Conclusion
The analysis of reindeer herding technology of the Komi and the Nenets presented in this paper has demonstrated the
following:
1. Reindeer pasturing – the central element of the productive cycle in Komi and Nenets reindeer herding – is based on
the special relation between the herders and their reindeer. This relation, termed ‘herd control’, consists of the
interplay between reindeer behaviour and the actions of the reindeer herders enabling the latter to maintain herd
cohesion by preventing the uncontrolled dispersal of the animals and the avoidance of pastures that could increase the
risk of reindeer injury, disease, and mortality or losing track of reindeer.
2. The nomadic movement of Komi and Nenets herders with their herds can be best understood as the means of
maintaining herd control whilst deploying the minimum amount of resources (i.e., human/animal effort and use of
equipment) on rounding up the herd, stopping and turning it.
3. Ecological factors influence this movement primarily through their impact on reindeer behaviour and, therefore, on
the herders reaction to it. However, we confirm that animal behaviour is influenced by the reciprocal learning process
that exists between human and animals within a particular herding (technological) system.
4. Non-ecological factors influence this movement by restricting their direction, timing and range. Their impact,
however, is restricted by how feasible it is to maintain herd control using a reasonable deployment of resources.
These aspects were used to compile a model explaining the way in which different factors influence reindeer herding
movements. This model treats animals and herders as two separate elements of a nomadic pastoral system and focuses
on the relationship between them. Although the possibility of applying this model without modification to explain the
movement of other groups of nomads remains speculative, the principles upon which it is based appear to be helpful in
understanding nomadic pastoralist movement generally.
Notes
1. In fact it was argued that the very concept of nomadic pastoralism should be abandoned for this reason (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-
Hudson 1980: 55–56).
2. He mentions that some attempts were undertaken just before World War II (e.g., Evans-Pritchard 1940; Lattimore 1940), but it was not until
the 1950s that these works were heeded by the scientific community.
3. Mulder and Sellen (1994) define this term as: “The currency can be any outcome, such as maximization, minimization or variance reduction
in a commodity such as food, herd size, labor or productivity. Currencies are only proxy measures of fitness, but must be proven to have (or
likely to have) some effect on ultimate evolutionary fitness” (1994:206).
4. The Russian term usually used to designate a work unit in a socialist state enterprise. However, historical sources show that both the social
organization and the technology of Komi reindeer herding described here existed long before the establishment of socialist reindeer herding
enterprises (Kercelli 1911; Babushkin 1930).
5. Sovkhoz (sovetskoye khozaystvo – meaning Soviet enterprise): State-owned agricultural enterprise (in this case reindeer herding) in the north
of the Soviet Union and in Siberia after the 1960s – beginning of the 1970s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly all sovkhozes were
privatized and turned into agricultural cooperatives (without state control) or share-stock companies. This, however, had little impact on their
structure and methods of work (see Konstantinov 2004) and, in the Komi Republic, the state recently had to buy many of them back in order to
save them from bankruptcy.
6. Some exceptions to this general model were observed. For example, if the herd reached the camp in the evening or in the middle of night,
most brigadas did not start to migrate immediately and allowed the herd to temporally go in front of the camp until they could move the
following morning.
7. Dangerous terrain includes steep slopes, deep streams and bogs where reindeer can fall or drown. It also includes a thermokarst called tabey in
Komi, which occurs as a result of an accumulation of wet mud under a thin layer of soil due to the melting of permafrost. When reindeer
cross tabey they can easily sink into the soil and die.
8. Many of these statements correspond to the findings of reindeer ethologists (e.g., Baskin 1970; Skogland 1989, 1991).
9. Each camp has a rectangular shaped territory of around 60sq km.
10. For example, the herders say that reindeer usually walk against the wind, along streams and natural depressions, and tend not to return to
pastures that have been trampled or grazed (see Baskin 1970). Therefore, by remembering the wind direction (for orientation purposes) and
knowing the landscape and where reindeer were previously found, it is possible to determine their location.
11. During the calving period the herders try to move as little as possible, since it is arduous for newborn calves to follow the brigada to new
camps. This means that by the end of the calving period, the herd of calves and females is usually 15–20km away from the brigada, since several
camp changes would have taken place to enable the herd of male reindeer to be successfully pastured.
12. This also includes the level of effort required by the herders’ transport reindeer and dogs.

References
Adriansen, H. K., and Nielsen, T. T. (2002). Going Where the Grass is Greener: On the Study of Pastoral Mobility in Ferlo, Senegal. Human
Ecology 30(2): 215–226.
1. Babushkin, A. I. (1930). Bol’shezemel’skya Tundra, Obstatotdel, Syktyvkar, Russia.
Barth, F. (1960). The Land Use Patterns of Migratory Tribes of South Persia. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift Bind XVII: 1–11.
2. Barth, F. (1961). Nomads of South Persia, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.
Baskin, L. M. (1970). Severny Olen: Ekologiya i Povedeniye, Nauka, Moscow.
Bates, D. G. (1972). Differential Access to Pasture in a Nomadic Society: The Yörük of Southeastern Turkey. Journal of Asian and African
Studies 3(1–2): 48–59. Reprinted in Irons, W. and Dyson-Hudson, N. (eds.) (1972), Perspectives on Nomadism, E. J. Brill, Leiden, NL, pp. 48–
3. Bates, D. G. (1973). Nomads and Farmers: A Study of the Yörük of Southeastern Turkey, Anthropological papers # 52, Museum of
Anthropology, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
4. Beach, H. (1990). Comparative systems of reindeer herding. In Galaty, J. G., and Johnson, D. L. (eds.), The World of Pastoralism:
Herding Systems in Comparative Perspective, Belhaven Press, London, pp. 255–298.
5. Burnham, P. (1975). “Regroupment” and Mobile Societies: Two Cameroon Cases. The Journal of African History 16(4): 577–594.
6. Casimir, M. (1992). The ecological determinants of territorial behaviour among mobile herders. In Casimir, M., and Rao, A. (eds.),
Mobility and Territoriality: Social and Spatial Boundaries Among Foragers, Fishers, Pastoralists and Peripatetics, Berg, New York, pp. 153–203.
7. Clutton-Brock, J. (1987). A natural history of domesticated mammals, Cambridge University Press/British Museum (Natural History),
Cambridge and London.
8. Coppolillo, P. B. (2000). The Landscape Ecology of Pastoral Herding: Spatial Analysis of Land Use and Livestock Production in East
Africa. Human Ecology 28(4): 527–560.
9. Cronk, L. (ed.) (2000). Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective, Aldine de Gruyter, New York.
10. De Boer, W. F., and Prins, H. H. (1989). Decisions of Cattle Herdsmen in Burkina Faso and Optimal Foraging Models. Human
ecology 17(4): 445–464.
11. Dwyer, M. J., and Istomin, K. V. (2006). Mobility and Technology: Understanding the Vulnerability of Two Groups of Nomadic
Pastoralists to Reindeer Losses. Nomadic Peoples 10(2): 142–165.
12. Dwyer, M. J. and Istomin, K. V. (2008). Komi Reindeer Herding: The Effects of Socialist and Post-Socialist Change on Mobility and
Land Use. Polar Research. In Press.
13. Dyson-Hudson, N. (1972). The Study of Nomads. Journal of Asian and African Studies 7: 2–29.
14. Dyson-Hudson, R., and Dyson-Hudson, N. (1980). Nomadic Pastoralism. Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 15–61.
15. Dyson-Hudson, R., and McCabe, J. T. (1985). South Turkana Nomadism: Coping with an Unpredictably Varying Environment,
Ethnography Series FL17-001, Human Relations Area Files, HRAFLEX Books, New Haven.
16. Dyson-Hudson, R., and Smith, E. A. (1978). Human Territoriality: an Ecological Reassessment. American Anthropologist 18(1): 21–
41.
17. Elam, Y. (1979). Nomadism in Ankole as a Substitute for Rebellion. Africa 49(2): 147–158.
18. Erdenebaatar, B. (1996). Socio-economic aspects of the pastoral movement patterns of Mongolian herders. In Humphrey, C., and
Sneath, D. (eds.), Culture and Environment in Inner Asia, The White Horse Press, Cambridge, pp. 58–110.
19. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940). The Nuer, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
20. Forde, C. D. (1934). Habitat, Economy and Society: a Geographical Introduction to Ethnology, Methuen & Co. ltd., London.
21. Geist, V. (2003). Of reindeer and man, modern and Neanderthal: a creation story founded on a historic perspective on how to conserve
wildlife, woodland caribou in particular. Rangifer 14: 57.
 22. Gulliver, P. H. (1975). Nomadic movements: causes and implications. In Monod, T. (ed.), Pastoralism in Tropical Africa, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, pp. 369–386.
23. Habeck, J. O. (2005). What it Means to be a Herdsman: The Practice and Image of Reindeer Husbandry among the Komi of Northern
Russia, LIT Verlag, Münster.
24. Ingold, T. (1986). The Appropriation of Nature: Essays on Human Ecology and Social Relations, Manchester University Press,
Manchester.
25. Ingold, T. (1988). Hunters, Pastoralists and Ranchers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
26. Ingold, T. (1990). An Anthropologist Looks at Biology. Man 25(2): 208–229.
27. Ingold, T. (1996). The optimal forager and economic man. In Descola, P., and Palsson, G. (eds.), Nature and Society: Anthropological
Perspectives, Routledge, London, pp. 25–44.
28. Ingold, T. (2000). The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge, London.
29. Irons, W. (1974). Nomadism as Political Adaptation: The Case of Yomut Turkmen. American Ethnologist 1(4): 635–658.
30. Irons, W., and Dyson-Hudson, N. (eds.) (1972). In Perspectives on Nomadism, E. J. Brill, Leiden.
31. Kercelli, S. V. (1911). Po Bol’shezemel’skoy Tundre s Kkochevnikami, Gubernskya Tipografia, Archangelsk, Russia.
32. Konstantinov, Y. (2004). Towards a Model of Comparing Transitional Forms in Russian Reindeer herding, MPI für Ethnologische
Forschung, Halle (Saale).
33. Krupnik, I. (1993). Arctic adaptations: native whalers and reindeer herders of Northern Eurasia. U of New England, Hannover.
34. Lattimore, O. (1940). Inner Asian Frontiers of China, American Geographical Association Press, New York.
35. Little, M. A., and Leslie, P. W. (eds.) (1999). In Turkana Herders of the Dry Savanna: Ecology and Biobehavioral Response of
Nomads to an Uncertain Environment, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
36. Maksimov, S. V. (1984)[1868]. God na severe [One Year in the North]. Severo-Zapadnoye Izdatelstvo, Archangelsk.
37. McCabe, J. T. (1994). Mobility and land use among African pastoralists: Old conceptual problems and new interpretations. In Fratkin,
E., Galvin, K. A., and Roth, E. A. (eds.), African Pastoral Systems: An Integrated Approach, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London, pp. 69–90.
38. Mulder, M. B., and Sellen, D. W. (1994). Pastoralist decision making: a behavioral ecological perspective. In Fratkin, E., Galvin, K.
A., and Roth, E. A. (eds.), African Pastoral Systems: An Integrated Approach, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London, pp. 205–230.
39. Myers, J. L. (1941). Nomadism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 71(1/2): 19–42.
40. Orlove, B. S. (1980). Ecological Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 235–273.
41. Paine, R. (1972). The herd management of Lapp reindeer pastoralists. In Irons, W., and Dyson-Hudson, N. (eds.), Perspectives on
Nomadism, E. J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 76–87.
42. Paine, R. (1994). Herds of the Tundra: a portrait of Saami reindeer pastoralism, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington, D.C.
43. Popper, K. R. (1992). Logic of scientific discovery. Routledge, London.
44. Robbins, P. (1998). Nomadisation in Rajastan, India: Migration, Institutions and Economy. Human Ecology 26(1): 87–112.
45. Salzman, P. C. (2003). The Political Ecology of Pastoralism, Westview, Oxford.
46. Salzman, P. C. (2004). Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy and the State, Westview, Oxford.
47. Schareika, N. (2001). Environmental Knowledge and Pastoral Migration Among the Wodaabe of South-Eastern Niger. Nomadic
Peoples 5(1): 65–87.
48. Semple, E. C. (1933). Influences of Geographic Environment, Constable & Co. Ltd., London.
Sieff, D. F. (1997). Herding Strategies of the Datoga Pastoralists of Tanzania: Is Household Labour a Limiting Factor? Human Ecology 25(4):
49. Skogland, T. (1989). Comparative Social Organization of Wild Reindeer in Relation to Food, Mates and Predator Avoidance.
Advances in Ethology 29: 1–74.
50. Skogland, T. (1991). What are the Effects of Predators on Large Ungulate Populations? OIKOS 61: 401–411.
51. Smith, E. A. (1983). Anthropological Applications of Optimal Foraging Theory: A Critical Review. Current Anthropology 24: 625–
52. Spooner, B. (1972). The status of nomadism as a cultural phenomenon in the middle east. In Irons, W., and Dyson-Hudson, N. (eds.),
Perspectives on Nomadism, E. J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 122–131.
53. Stenning, D. J. (1958). Household viability among pastoral Fulani. In Goody, J. (ed.), The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 91–119.
54. Stenning, D. J. (1959). Savanna Nomads: A Study of the Wodaabe Pastoral Fulani of Western Bornu Province, Oxford University Press,
London.
55. Swidler, W. W. (1972). Some demographic factors regulating the formation of folks and camps among the Brahui of Baluchistan. In Irons,
W., and Dyson-Hudson, N. (eds.), Perspectives on Nomadism, E. J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 69–75.
56. Turner, M. D. (1999). Labour Process and the Environment: the Effects of Labour Availability and Compensation on the Quality of Herding
in the Sahel. Human Ecology 27(2): 267–296.