Political Economy, Power, and the Erasure of Pastoralist Indigenous Knowledge in the Maghreb and Afghanistan

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, most people in the Maghreb and Afghanistan were pastoralists. They possessed a sophisticated body of ecological knowledge complemented by indigenous veterinary knowledge. Transformations of the Maghreb political economy under French colonialism had deleterious effects on indigenous ways of life. The French state appropriated land and forests, banned common management techniques like firing for pasture regeneration, and, later, criminalized traditional veterinary medicine. These changes and those in trading systems with the imposition of western veterinary medicine and land-management techniques reduced indigenous knowledge and practice. These trends have continued in the postcolonial Maghreb and have been exacerbated by many “development” projects, especially under neoliberalism. Similar development projects in Afghanistan threaten to destroy the sophisticated indigenous veterinary knowledge of Koochi nomads, especially among women. This knowledge, highly valued by Koochi women, is being eroded and their position marginalized by the implementation of patriarchal, western-led development projects operating in a conservative religious climate during reconstruction.