For many years, studies of peasants and pastoralists have run in parallel, creating mutual blind-spots. A reflection on a large literature on pastoralism reveals that there are some important contrasts with classic representations of a settled peasantry (living with and off uncertainty; mobility to respond to variability; flexible land control and new forms of tenure; dynamic social formations; collective social relations for a new moral economy; engaging with complex markets and a new politics for a transforming world). Nevertheless, the article argues that these are all important for understanding settled agrarian systems too, as today pastoralists and peasants face many of the same challenges.
Read the full article by Ian Scoones here
