Pastoralist Dilemmas: Where to Go and When to Move, or with Whom to Talk?

Abstract

Pastoralists in Western Mongolia face a range of challenges during their annual grazing cycle due to the simultaneous but conflicting needs for secure allocation rules and a high degree of flexibility. In this paper, I analyze the seasonal arrangements and corresponding strategies that households adopt to deal with unpredictable environmental conditions and the demands of supplying livestock with sufficient forage throughout the year. In contrast to game theory simulations, I argue that dilemmas are: a) often not a question of cooperating or not, but form continua of more or less; and b) socially embedded as people operate in a multitude of relationships that influence their decision-making. Therefore, sharing information in a manner that prioritizes the requirements of individual households while not jeopardizing social reputation is crucially important. Rhetorical skills play an important role in this regard, but there are also situations when herders blatantly ignore state law or local institutional arrangements and risk confrontation to ensure the survival of livestock leading to a situation where free-riding may at times become the dominant strategy.