Science
Pastoral practices in High Asia
Author: Hermann Kreutzmann
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9789400738454
Category: Science
Page: 359
View: 855
In conventional views, pastoralism was classified as a stage of civilization that needed to be abolished and transcended in order to reach a higher level of development. In this context, global approaches to modernize a rural society have been ubiquitous phenomena independent of ideological contexts. The 20th century experienced a variety of concepts to settle mobile groups and to transfer their lifestyles to modern perceptions. Permanent settlements are the vivid expression of an ideology-driven approach. Modernization theory captured all walks of life and tried to optimize breeding techniques, pasture utilization, transport and processing concepts. New insights into other aspects of pastoralism such as its role as an adaptive strategy to use marginal resources in remote locations with difficult access could only be understood as a critique of capitalist and communist concepts of modernization. In recent years a renaissance of modernization theory-led development activities can be observed. Higher inputs from external funding, fencing of pastures and settlement of pastoralists in new townships are the vivid expression of 'modern' pastoralism in urban contexts. The new modernization programme incorporates resettlement and transformation of lifestyles as to be justified by environmental pressure in order to reduce degradation in the age of climate change.
Political Science
Everyday Energy Politics in Central Asia and the Caucasus
Author: David Gullette
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781317302520
Category: Political Science
Page: 222
View: 691
The perception of Central Asia and its place in the world has come to be shaped by its large oil and gas reserves. Literature on energy in the region has thus largely focused on related geopolitical issues and national policies. However, little is known about citizens’ needs within this broader context of commodities that connect the energy networks of China, Russia and the West. This multidisciplinary special issue brings together anthropologists, economists, geographers and political scientists to examine the role of all forms of energy (here: oil, gas, hydropower and solar power) and their products (especially electricity) in people’s daily lives throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus. The papers in this issue ask how energy is understood as an everyday resource, as a necessity and a source of opportunity, a challenge or even as an indicator of exclusionary practices. We enquire into the role and views of energy sector workers, rural consumers and urban communities, and their experiences of energy companies’ and national policies. We further examine the legacy of Soviet and more recent domestic energy policies, the environmental impact of energy use as well as the political impact of citizens’ energy grievances. This book was published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.
Social Science
Pastoral Vulnerability to Socio-political and Climate Stresses
Author: Asghar Tahmasebi
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783643903570
Category: Social Science
Page: 169
View: 925
Based on in-depth field work and living with the nomads for a whole year, Asghar Tahmasebi provides a vivid insight into the Shahsevans' strategy to cope with both political impacts and changing environmental conditions of their traditional way of life.
Science
Mapping Transition in the Pamirs
Author: Hermann Kreutzmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783319231983
Category: Science
Page: 274
View: 137
By emphasizing on the Pamir region a comprehensive overview of path-dependent and recent developments in a remote mountain region is provided in this book. Overall neglect in the mountainous periphery is contrasted by shifting the centre of attention to the Pamirs situated at the interface between South and Central Asia. From colonial times to now there has been a debate on grasping and locating the area. Here field-work based contributions are collected to provide a variety of perspectives on the Pamirs highlighting transformation and transition in Post-Soviet societies as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The similar ecological environment across borders features the common ground while analyzing development processes in a set of case studies that aim at highlighting certain aspects of regional development.
Technology & Engineering
Rangeland Stewardship in Central Asia
Author: Victor R. Squires
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9789400753679
Category: Technology & Engineering
Page: 460
View: 815
This volume of 18 chapters is the work of more than 30 authors, many of whom are natives of the Central Asian region or are researchers who have dedicated a large part of their working lives to studying the development dynamics in this vast and fascinating region. The work focuses on the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. But it also traces the attitudes of land users to the land dating from before the late 19th century, when Russian conquest and colonization occurred, and through the upheavals caused by Soviet-style collectivization and sedentarization. The book is rich with new data presented in 68 easy to understand charts/graphs (many in color) and 50 Tables. Information was generated for this book by experts working in-country. It presents for the first time in English a digest of plethora of previously inaccessible Russian reports and scientific literature that will be invaluable for development agencies, including UN, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Bank as well as to students of this vast and fascinating region who seek up to date and authoritive information.
Antiques & Collectibles
The Gujjars Vol:05 Edited by Dr. Javaid Rahi -Book Series on Gujjar History and Culture
Author: Javaid Rahi
Publisher: Jammu and Kashmir Acacademy of Art, Culture , Languages , Jammu
ISBN:
Category: Antiques & Collectibles
Page: 438
View: 108
The Gujjars Vol: 05 by Dr. Javaid Rahi (Book Series on History & Culture of Gujjars) 'The Gujjars' is a book series that highlights the History of Gujjar Tribe besides their Cultural Heritage and Socio-Economic issues..
Social Science
Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia
Author: Jelle J.P. Wouters
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9781000598582
Category: Social Science
Page: 456
View: 349
The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia is the first comprehensive and critical overview of the ethnographic and anthropological work in Highland Asia over the past half a century. Opening up a grand new space for critical engagement, the handbook presents Highland Asia as a world-region that cuts across the traditional divides inherited from colonial and Cold War area divisions - the Indian Subcontinent/South Asia, Southeast Asia, China/East Asia, and Central Asia. Thirty-two chapters assess the history of research, identify ethnographic trends, and evaluate a range of analytical themes that developed in particular settings of Highland Asia. They cover varied landscapes and communities, from Kyrgyzstan to India, from Bhutan to Vietnam and bring local voices and narratives relating trade and tribute, ritual and resistance, pilgrimage and prophecy, modernity and marginalization, capital and cosmos to the fore. The handbook shows that for millennia, Highland Asians have connected far-flung regions through movements of peoples, goods and ideas, and at all times have been the enactors, repositories, and mediators of world-historical processes. Taken together, the contributors and chapters subvert dominant lowland narratives by privileging primarily highland vantages that reveal Highland Asia as an ecumune and prism that refracts and generates global history, social theory, and human imagination. In the currently unfolding Asian Century, this compels us to reorient and re-envision Highland Asia, in ethnography, in theory, and in the connections between this world-region, made of hills, highlands and mountains, and a planetary context. The handbook reveals both regional commonalities and diversities, generalities and specificities, and a broad orientation to key themes in the region. An indispensable reference work, this handbook fills a significant gap in the literature and will be of interest to academics, researchers and students interested in Highland Asia, Zomia Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Politics, Conceptual History and Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Central Asian Studies and South Asian Studies as well as Asian Studies in general.
Science
Mountain Landscapes in Transition
Author: Udo Schickhoff
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9783030702380
Category: Science
Page: 656
View: 687
This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.
Nature
Making way: developing national legal and policy frameworks for pastoral mobility
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9789251357002
Category: Nature
Page: 84
View: 377
Mobility is a vital strategy employed by pastoralists to capitalize on the scarce availability of resources in variable environments, making pastoralism economically feasible and environmentally sustainable. Through mobility, pastoralists can produce animal-sourced products that provide food and income security to populations in the world’s rangelands. Such a practice also provides a range of benefits to the environment while fostering the capacity to adapt to changing social and natural environments. With a few exceptions, policies have largely not kept up with new scholarship and development discourse that acknowledges the importance of mobility to pastoralism. There is a lag in and resistance to legislating in favor of mobility. The overall objective of this handbook is to guide the development of legal and policy frameworks for securing mobility for various pastoral production systems and practices. This handbook calls for the legal recognition and securing of pastoral mobility as a way of safeguarding and facilitating a continuous stream of economic and social benefits for pastoralists, countries, and the environment. It facilitates a deeper understanding of pastoral mobility through examples and case studies drawn from various parts of the world and identifies considerations to be borne in mind when legislating for mobility.
Social Science
Sustainable Land Management in Greater Central Asia
Author: Victor R. Squires
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781317394051
Category: Social Science
Page: 310
View: 364
Greater Central Asia encompasses a vast area that includes deserts, natural grasslands, steppes, shrublands and alpine regions. Many of these land types are degraded and productivity is falling at a time when human populations and livestock inventories are on the rise. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity are under threat and there is an urgent need to develop more sustainable land management regimes. This book uses an integrated regional approach to provide a comprehensive exploration of sustainable land development in Central Asia. An interdisciplinary team of experts analyses the economic, ecological, sociological, technological and political factors surrounding sustainable land and water management in the region, sharing potential problems and solutions. As international concern about desertification grows, the book concludes by asking how the region is likely to develop in the future. This book will be of value to scholars, students, policy makers and NGOs with an interest in sustainable development in Central Asia.
History
High Mountain Pastoralism in Northern Pakistan
Author: Eckart Ehlers
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN: 351507662X
Category: History
Page: 216
View: 865
"The strength of the book lies in this differentiated analysis which is based on extensive empirical research. Several chapters challenge conventional modernization theories, and the authors' intimate connection to their data makes for an unusually stimulating and pleasurable read. The reader gains a vivid picture of the variability, the diversity and the flexibility of how people adapt to social and political developments." Erdkunde gibt "einen hervorragenden kulturgeographischen Uberblick ueber die gegenwartige Situation und speziell den Wandel in den pastoralen und agropastoralen Bevolkerungen der verschiedenen Talschaften im nordlichen Pakistan. Es sollte in keiner geographischen und ethnologischen Bibliothek fehlen." Anthropos "The studies in this well produced volume provide the reader with some very valuable information on the transformations that are taking place in this part of High Asia and Pakistan. Although each deals with micro-regional specificities, taken together, they enable the reader to grasp and compare the similarities and differences between these regions. [a] High Mountain Pastoralism is a major contribution to the field of studies on high altitude societies, and is a must for all those interested not only in Asia, but also in the Andes and other comparable environments." Internationales Asienforum Aus dem Inhalt: Eckart Ehlers / Hermann Kreutzmann: High mountain ecology and economy: potential and constraints Georg Stober / Hiltrud Herbers: Animal husbandry in domestic economies: organization, legal aspects and present changes of mixed mountain agriculture in Yasin Reinhard Fischer: Coming down from the mountain pastures: decline of high pasturing and changing patterns of pastoralism in Punial Eckart Ehlers: Pastoralism in the Bagrot: Spatial organization and economic diversity Hermann Kreutzmann: Livestock economy in Hunza: societal transformation and pastoral practices Matthias Schmidt: Pastoral systems in Shigar/Baltistan: communal herding management and pasturage rights Juergen Clemens / Marcus Nuesser: Pastoral management strategies in transition: indicators from the Nanga Parbat region (NW-Himalaya) Hilturd Herbers: Why are mountain farmers vegetarians? Nutritional and non-nutritional dimensions of animal husbandry in High Asia.
Science
Carbon Management for Promoting Local Livelihood in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) Region
Author: Zhanhuan Shang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783030205911
Category: Science
Page: 347
View: 701
This book contributes to our understanding of linkages between carbon management and local livelihoods by taking stock of the existing evidence and drawing on field experiences in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, an area that provides fresh water to more than 2 billion people and supports the world’s largest population of pastoralists and millions of livestock. This edited volume addresses two main questions: 1. Does carbon management offer livelihood opportunities or present risks, and what are they? 2. Do the attributes of carbon financing alter the nature of livelihood opportunities and risks? Chapters analyze the most pressing deficiencies in understanding carbon storage in both soils and in above ground biomass, and the related social and economic challenges associated with carbon sequestration projects. Chapters deliver insights to both academics from diverse disciplines (natural sciences, social sciences and engineering) and to policy makers.