When nomads lose cattle: wodaabe negotiations of ethnicity

Abstract

Scholars have increasingly focused on travel & translocation, as simultaneously they have deconstructed essentialised notions of cultures & ethnicities. WoDaaBe pastoral nomads in Niger base their ethnic identity strongly on reference to cattle & a nomadic lifestyle but many have since the 1980s become migrant workers in cities. The discussion explores how these migrant workers renegotiate their own cultural traditions & identities, thus emphasising how cultural traditions are constantly articulated within social processes of flow & translocation. The discussion demonstrates how even typological notions of ethnicity, such as shame & taboos, are renegotiated within new contexts, suggesting that migrant work is no longer seen as shameful by the WoDaaBe migrant workers in that it prevents them from behaving as WoDaaBe herders. Migrant work is emphasised as apart of the mobility & flexibility which is so crucial to pastoralists' survival. 72 References. Adapted from the source document.