Pastoralists’ practices are deeply embedded in cultural knowledge. Knowledge about animals, grasslands, mobility patterns and so on ensure that pastoral systems are sustained while confronting uncertainty through a more-than-human sensibility. The August theme of the International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists is ‘Indigenous and local knowledge, culture and innovation’ and, as with previous months, we have dug into the PASTRES project archives to highlight work by PASTRES researchers and others on this theme.
Beyond romanticisation and reification of local knowledges
Indigenous and local knowledge is never somehow separated from ‘modern’, ‘scientific’ knowledge. This is not a celebration of a romantic past or past, dying cultures, but locally embedded understandings of complex systems are essential for addressing contemporary challenges. Knowledge passed down across generations is repurposed for new uses, with modern technologies such as mobile phones or information from the Internet coming from satellites always part of the story when reliability is being built by pastoralist professionals.
The reification of ‘traditional’ systems can potentially undermine how ‘modern’ pastoralism is, adapted to the very challenges that everyone is facing. Living with and from uncertainty, which is so central to pastoral livelihoods, requires deep skills and experience that many in more ‘modern’ contexts would do well to learn from.
This was a central theme of PASTRES work and is highlighted in our comic series – Uncertain Worlds – accompanied by our short animation. This captures how insights from pastoral systems can be useful for a whole host of different applications, whether markets and banking, social protection, migration and so on. ‘Global lessons from the margins’ was part of the PASTRES strapline, highlighting important insights from pastoralism for us all.
Knowledges in context
Such cultural practices emerge in context, and very often it is religious and cultural institutions that support the learning required. The work of Palden Tsering in Amdo Tibet in China emphasises the importance of Buddhist ritual and monastic institutions in securing access to grazing and managing the rhythms of pastoral life. Monasteries “give people room to move, shape the values and directions of resource governance, and are important for negotiation-based rangeland management and land policy.”
Meanwhile, in Kenya the work of Tahira Mohamed highlights the importance of moral economies in binding people together in this short video. In times of stress, it is through forms of collective solidarity that people are able to respond to uncertainties. During the COVID-19 pandemic this was especially highlighted, as people argued “I exist because you exist”, highlighting the close connections that exist within communities, where knowledge and relationships are shared.
Too often, the knowledges and cultures of mobile peoples such as pastoralists are rejected as backward, unmodern and in need of transformation. Sometimes laws are enacted that prevent the very practices that sustain livelihoods and cultures. We saw this across the PASTRES case study sites, and it was also the case in the UK where legislation undermining the rights of Roma Gypsy and Irish traveller populations was being contested during 2022.
Everyday practices
Our documentary photography and photovoice, captured so brilliantly on the website, Seeing Pastoralism, by Roopa Gogineni and Shibaji Bose, highlight how the everyday practices of pastoralism are central, along with the material cultures that make pastoralism function. Simple artefacts carry significance as well as being useful, whether clothing, shearing implements, calabashes or shepherds’ sticks.
In the photo collection on moral economies and social networks, the website notes how “The connective tissue of pastoral systems exists online, around a fire, at a sheep-shearing. In Sardinia, milk is pooled and cheese is made together. In Golok, Amdo Tibet, a crowd gathers for an annual yak beauty contest. These nurtured relations generate and renew forms of resilience, individual and collective alike.”
In discussing the theme of mobilising identities, the photo collection highlights how “Tradition is not timeless or fixed. Forms of identity create continuity despite uncertainty and change. Whether through institutions, material culture or ways of dress, customs rooted in the past are carried into the present.”
Our work contributed to the Dana+20 declaration and manifesto delivered at a gathering in Jordan in 2022. This reasserted the importance of mobile people’s cultures and knowledges as central to future development. With the denigration of pastoral customs and the undermining of rights, the importance of reasserting local knowledge and culture was highlighted. Again, not to be cast in a timeless, preserved way, but as a resource to confront the uncertainties of today’s world.
Explore the archive of PASTRES work on the theme of ‘culture’ and ‘knowledge’: https://pastres.org/?s=culture; https://pastres.org/?s=knowledge
Online course: https://pastres.org/online-course/, where there is plenty of material on these themes.
Seeing pastoralism: https://seeingpastoralism.org/an-uncertain-world. See the themes on ‘mobilising identities’ and ‘social networks and moral economies.’
This is the ninth PASTRES blog in the series celebrating the 2026 UN International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. For previous monthly blogs see https://pastres.org/category/blog/
Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience - PASTRES 