Preface

Abstract

This special issue focuses on the topic of nomads in politics. In so doing, it attempts to make a contribution to academic debates on pastoral nomads as well as to the general literature on politics in non-state societies. The individual articles deal with political competition and decision-making in a variety of contexts, within and between nomadic groups (including post-nomads) and between them and external actors. They are united by an interest in the agency of nomadic or post-nomadic actors and by a fl exible heuristic framework, the political fi eld, that allows for innovative studies beyond dichotomies such as 'tribe and state' and 'nomadic societies and sedentary states'.The studies presented in this volume are based on research undertaken within the Collaborative Research Centre 'Difference and Integration' at the universities of Halle-Wittenberg and Leipzig, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) since mid-2001 (see www.nomadsed.de). The Research Centre brings together scholars from many fi elds, including historians, social anthropologists, ecological modellers, geographers, archaeologists and others, who are interested in regions as diverse as the Tibetan highlands, the Moroccan high plateaus, the Eurasian Arctic and the desert and steppe lands of Egypt and Sudan. In particular, the Syrian Steppe and the Turko-Iranian world have been major areas of investigation, which is refl ected in this volume.The overarching assumption of the Research Centre is that nomads and sedentary people interact in manifold ways, and that this interaction with the sedentary world has been a fundamental feature of nomadic life since its inception in the Bronze Age. This interaction may take peaceful forms, such as trade and exchange, but also more violent ones. Moreover, mobile livestock breeding is often only one of the economic pursuits by which groups we call 'nomads' secure their living. Making use of a mix of resources for a living is another characteristic feature for many, if not most, nomadic groups. The Research Centre has opted for a broad understanding of nomadism, with the mobility of the entire group over the whole year and interaction with settled people as basic criteria. Over time, we have also seen the need to include 'post-nomadism' on our agendas because the boundaries between 'real' nomadism and 'post-nomadism' are blurred and because many people continue to cultivate a self-representation as 'nomads', or are still seen as such by their neighbours, even after several generations of settled life.One of the main diffi culties, in history and archaeology as well as in the social sciences, has been and still is to make nomads visible (see Hauser 2006;Holzwarth 2002;Leder 2004;Paul 2006). In history, this has resulted in new approaches to terminology in a number of languages; in archaeology, new methods have been devised to detect the traces nomads may have left on the landscape; in the social sciences, the resilience of nomadic identities in a generally 'post...

Transformation of the consciousness of post-nomads in the context of globalization

“…By examining the impact of political processes on nomadic tribes, authors Büssow et al (2011) analyse how political changes and decisions can influence the nomadic peoples' role, status, interests and traditions. Researchers indicate that nomadic tribes are also influenced by political processes that can impact the local societies' thinking and consciousness.…”