This blog post presents an overview of activities covered in our recent newsletter. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to the bi-annual PASTRES newsletter.
Six PhD students join PASTRES
PASTRES now has six linked PhD students working in Qinghai in China, Isiolo in Kenya and Sardinia, Italy (the core PASTRES countries), as well as southern Tunisia, western India and southern Ethiopia. All are registered through IDS at the University of Sussex, and supervised by Ian Scoones and Jeremy Lind. Fieldwork starts in September/October, so watch out for updates on the fascinating projects that are now underway.
Video: how can PASTRES inform wider debates?
A series of short videos recorded in 2018 explore how the PASTRES project can contribute to wider debates about uncertainty in pastoralism and beyond. Video contributors include the three PASTRES country leads – Gongbuzeren, Hussein Mahmoud and Antonello Franca – and other academics and practitioners engaged with pastoralism, including Ann Waters-Bayer, Camilla Toulmin, Echi Gabbert, Saverio Krätli and Fiona Flintan.
Watch the video series (YouTube)
Seminars
PASTRES has hosted three seminars recently. You can watch/listen to them again at the links below.
The Future of the World is Mobile: What can we learn from pastoralists?
with Ian Scoones, Michele Nori, Natasha Maru, Bernard Hoekman and Giorgia Giovanetti, 10 April 2019 at European University Institute, Florence
Disciplinary Diversification in Karamoja: The Case of Charcoal
with Matteo Caravani (PASTRES Affiliate), 9 May 2019 at IDS, Sussex, UK
Bringing moral economy into the study of land deals: Reflections from Madagascar
Mathilde Gingembre (PASTRES Affiliate), 19 March 2019, IDS
What is Uncertainty? New working paper
The first Working Paper from the PASTRES project, What is Uncertainty and Why does it Matter? has been published. It’s an ambitious literature review, looking at diverse perspectives on uncertainty from different disciplines and fields of practice.
Ian Scoones to give Ester Boserup prize lecture
PASTRES principal investigator Ian Scoones is the winner of the 2019 Ester Boserup Prize for Development Research. He will be giving the prize lecture on June 14 in Copenhagen, titled ‘Embracing uncertainty means rethinking uncertainty’.
Symposium on ‘Uncertainty’
Together with the ESRC STEPS Centre, which hosts PASTRES, we are organising a symposium aimed at galvanising conversations on uncertainty across fields. These include economics and finance, critical infrastructures, migration, infectious disease responses, natural disasters and more. This will be a great opportunity for PASTRES to link understandings of living with and from uncertainty in pastoral settings to other contexts, aiming at exchanging insights and learning lessons.
In the next newsletter a summary of the findings will be shared.
Mobile methods workshop
PASTRES is supporting an important workshop to be held in June in Friedensau, Germany, for early career researchers. The workshop aims to explore research methods for working with mobile peoples, including pastoralists.
It is being organised by Jill Blau from Friedensau University, Ariell Ahearn from the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford, Linda Pappagallo and Natasha Maru (PASTRES PhD students), Giulia Gonzales from the University of Turin, and Greta Semplici, a PASTRES associate researcher based at Oxford University’s Department of International Development.
New publications
Below is a listing of recent publications from PASTRES researchers, students, affiliates and country leads:
J Lind, R Sabates-Wheeler, JF Hoddinott, AS Taffesse (2018) Targeting social transfers in pastoralist societies: Ethiopia’s productive safety net programme revisited, EDRI, IFPRI
Review of The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands by Roy H. Behnke and Michael Mortimore I Scoones 2018 Pastoralism 8 (1), 26
Mediterranean interfaces: agriculture, rural development and migration: Forward-looking policies and programmes for an integrated approach by Michele Nori and Anna Triandafyllidou
EUI Global Governance Programme, Policy Brief 2019/03
Forum on Agriculture, Rural Development and Migration in the Mediterranean – A better understanding of the drivers and impacts for forward looking policies and programs with chapters by Michele Nori and Anna Triandafyllidou
EUI Global Governance Programme, Full Report
Is Italian agriculture a ‘pull factor’ for irregular migration – and, if so, why? (Policy Brief)
EUI and Open Society Foundations, 2018
Is Italian agriculture a ‘pull factor’ for irregular migration – and, if so, why? (Technical report)
EUI and Open Society Foundations, 2018
Seeing like the herder: Climate change and pastoralists’ knowledge – insights from Turkana herders in northern Kenya
chapter by Greta Semplici in Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Emerging Research on Traditional Knowledge and Livelihoods, ILO/School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
Pastoralists: Sindhi-Muslim Pastoralists of the Banni Grassland: Fact Sheet
Pastoralists: Religious Reform of the Sindhi-Muslim Pastoralists of the Banni Grassland
Entries by Natasha Maru in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia
PASTRES blog
We appreciate all our readers and their comments on the blog posts from PASTRES.
Here are the most viewed posts of 2019 so far:
- Youth moving to town: a major cause of uncertainty among the pastoralists of Isiolo, Kenya
- Should we cry over spilled milk? The case of Sardinia
- The commoditisation of pastoral milk
- What can our increasingly mobile world learn from pastoralists?
- Can pastoralists benefit from payments for ecosystem services?
Thanks for reading, and do subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates by email.
Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience - PASTRES 