Reading on nomads
July 29, 2022 11:35 AM Subscribe
I am interested in reading about historical and modern nomadic cultures. I'm especially interested in the concrete logistics of movement, but happy to read more general accounts as well.
I haven't read much about this — Seeing Like a State covers a little, and I liked this series of blog posts that look at Eurasian Steppe and indigenous North American nomads, but I have very little knowledge other than that, so even very basic resources would be good. Books, articles, and videos are all fine, audio is alright but not preferred.
I'm interested in all sorts of things, but particularly:
I haven't read much about this — Seeing Like a State covers a little, and I liked this series of blog posts that look at Eurasian Steppe and indigenous North American nomads, but I have very little knowledge other than that, so even very basic resources would be good. Books, articles, and videos are all fine, audio is alright but not preferred.
I'm interested in all sorts of things, but particularly:
- What were the concrete logistics of travel? (food, methods of transport, etc)
- How did people tend think about possessions and ownership in these societies?
- What were the historical forces that caused nomadic lifestyles to be replaced by agrarian and other sedentary lifestyles?
Possibly not what you're looking for, but if you consider the homeless to be nomadic then the London part of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell is fascinating.
(it's non-fiction, in case you only know Orwell from 1984 or Animal Farm)
posted by underclocked at 1:17 PM on July 29, 2022
(it's non-fiction, in case you only know Orwell from 1984 or Animal Farm)
posted by underclocked at 1:17 PM on July 29, 2022
I would give Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines a try.
Chatwin is a visionary from a much less self-conscious age (i.e., I doubt very much he’s anything like all the way woke in our terms) and sees Aboriginal culture only darkly through all the projections he can’t help making on it from his uncommonly deep and broad Western education and experience.
But I believe his intentions are good, and I think you might get as much or more out of confronting the limitations of his ambitious, broad and sweeping attempt at understanding through a process of empathetic identification as you would from a more cautious and careful contemporary account that doesn’t put a foot wrong yet hardly goes anywhere, either.
And he's a very good writer.
posted by jamjam at 2:29 PM on July 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Chatwin is a visionary from a much less self-conscious age (i.e., I doubt very much he’s anything like all the way woke in our terms) and sees Aboriginal culture only darkly through all the projections he can’t help making on it from his uncommonly deep and broad Western education and experience.
But I believe his intentions are good, and I think you might get as much or more out of confronting the limitations of his ambitious, broad and sweeping attempt at understanding through a process of empathetic identification as you would from a more cautious and careful contemporary account that doesn’t put a foot wrong yet hardly goes anywhere, either.
And he's a very good writer.
posted by jamjam at 2:29 PM on July 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Ooooh, read about Mongolian traditional culture! It's awesome, it's happening widely today even for folks based or sometimes living in UB, and it's relatively accessible in English because of Nadam (festival of traditional activities that have value in a nomadic culture- things like horse races, lassoing wild horses for treatments, etc).
posted by esoteric things at 5:16 PM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by esoteric things at 5:16 PM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't believe any study of nomadic cultures would be complete without the Bedouins, desert nomads of Arabia.
Here's a link to a Google search result of some books that look helpful.
posted by TimHare at 8:27 PM on July 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Here's a link to a Google search result of some books that look helpful.
posted by TimHare at 8:27 PM on July 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Are you interested in video documentaries at all?
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 7:14 AM on July 30, 2022
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 7:14 AM on July 30, 2022
Response by poster: Mournful Bagel Song — yeah, I am :)
posted by wesleyac at 11:56 AM on July 30, 2022
posted by wesleyac at 11:56 AM on July 30, 2022
The Slice YT channel has many excellent documentaries about nomadic peoples.
Here are some that I've watched and found to be illuminating: Komi nomadic peoples, women in Zanskar , and another about Zanskar, a historical (1970s) documentary about nomads in the Gobi desert.
Enjoy!
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 10:14 AM on August 4, 2022
Here are some that I've watched and found to be illuminating: Komi nomadic peoples, women in Zanskar , and another about Zanskar, a historical (1970s) documentary about nomads in the Gobi desert.
Enjoy!
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 10:14 AM on August 4, 2022
Transhumance is a search term.
Here's one I came across on Kanopy about some Greek & hired Albanian shepherds in 1995. In the video, one of them said they expected the practice to die out within the next few years.
posted by aniola at 9:29 PM on August 26, 2022
Here's one I came across on Kanopy about some Greek & hired Albanian shepherds in 1995. In the video, one of them said they expected the practice to die out within the next few years.
posted by aniola at 9:29 PM on August 26, 2022
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In terms of your third question, I'd suggest Perdue's China Marches West, the first third-ish of Elliott's Manchu Way, Khodarkovsky's Russia's Steppe Frontier, Cameron's Hungry Steppe, and Humphrey and Sneath's The End of Nomadism.
posted by derrinyet at 11:44 AM on July 29, 2022 [3 favorites]