This lecture by Ian Scoones reflects on lessons from responding to volatility in banking and finance networks; managing reliability in critical infrastructures; early warning and preparedness around infectious disease outbreaks and reflecting on the construction of vulnerability in climate and disaster responses.
Convergent themes suggest important links to pastoralism. Can the wider debate about responding to uncertainty in today’s turbulent world be enhanced by gaining insights from those of who have long confronted environmental, market and governance uncertainties, such as pastoralists living in marginal areas?
Watch the lecture
Questions
- Based on the examples of financial networks, critical infrastructure, disease preparedness and disasters, what similarities/differences can you identify with pastoral systems you know about?
- What core principles for responding to uncertainties emerge from across these fields?
- What are the implications for policy and practice?
Reading
We can learn a lot from pastoralists about navigating uncertainty. Like many, pastoralists must live with and from uncertainty. Thinking about uncertainty in banking/finance systems, around preparing for and responding to pandemics, in relation to international migration policy, in the delivery of social assistance in challenging settings and in designing approaches to knowledge exchange in rural settings, pastoralist principles become important.
The core reading is the PASTRES Working Paper (second half), which contains many references on the examples shared in the lecture.
- Scoones, I. (2019) What is uncertainty and why does it matter? STEPS Working Paper 105. Brighton: ESRC STEPS Centre.
Here are a few papers that have emerged from the PASTRES programme, published after the original lecture but inspired by the ideas.
- Scoones, I. (2021) What bankers should learn from the traditions of pastoralism Essay in Aeon magazine
- Scoones, I. and Nori, M. (2021), Living with uncertainty in a pandemic: four lessons from pastoralists The Zambakari Advisory, Fall 2021: ‘Living in an era of emerging pandemics’
- Maru, N. et al. (2022), Embracing uncertainty: rethinking migration policy through pastoralists’ experiences, Comparative Migration Studies 10(5)
- Caravani, M. et al. (2022) Providing social assistance and humanitarian relief: The case for embracing uncertainty , Development Policy Review 40(5)
- Tasker, A. and Scoones, I. (2022), High Reliability Knowledge Networks: Responding to Animal Diseases in a Pastoral Area of Northern Kenya Journal of Development Studies, 58(5)
For discussions on the politics of uncertainty across a huge range of fields – from banking to insurance, disease control, migration, security and religion, among others – see the open access book edited by Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling, The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation.
Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience - PASTRES 