Nomadization in Rajasthan, India: migration, institutions, and economy
Robbins, P.
Human Ecology 26(1): 87-112
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0046-8169 PMID: 12321714 Document Number: 276710
Amidst a global trend toward settlement, the incidence of pastoral nomadism is increasing in the Marwar region of western Rajasthan, India, with a regional livestock population increasingly on the move, sometimes turning to year-round nomadism in order to meet the demands of seasonal pasturage. The notion that common property grazing resources have disappeared amid unprecedented growth of the regional herd cannot explain the observed trends. Rather, changing institutional and economic patterns are creating new contexts for strategic movement. The transition into migratory strategies has developed from the decline of key village social institutions which manage pasture and forest land, the profits earned from intensification in an increasingly capitalized market, and the benefits of migration in the form of the herd's increased reproductive capacity. Producers in this population increase their access to markets and the reproductive rate of their herd through long, annual migration. Nomadism in this setting is therefore a general adaptation to changes in the socioeconomic conditions of the region, although differential resource endowments account for the range of strategies.