Paper short abstract:

The present article illustrates the importance of mobility as the most important strategy of the Mongolian pastoralists to adapt to the changing climate, and the institutional principles that ensure maintenance and deployment of this adaptation strategy.

Paper long abstract:

Mongolian herders depend on mobility in order to access varied and variable resources and withstand increasingly frequent climate extremes. In addition to extreme events, recent changes in precipitation patterns are rendering the essential summer rains (and thus pasture productivity) patchier and the growing season shorter. Consequently, people and livestock need to become increasingly mobile. Despite popular imagery of Mongolian pastoralists as carefree 'nomads', mobility is a complex negotiation between push- and pull- circumstances that either inhibit or encourage increased mobility.

Drawing on a mix of participant observations, in-depth interviews, herder-drawn migration maps, and life history conversations, the paper illustrates the complexities of mobility in the context of increasingly adverse weather and climate. It shows that patterns of movement have changed historically under the influence of weather and climate change. It also shows that current mobility is being restricted by technological changes that render it expensive, by increased bureaucratisation, and by rural development patterns. The paper dwells in more detail on how patterns of human sociality and of livestock behaviour influence mobility patterns. Thus, pastoral mobility is facilitated by principles (institutions) in the pastoralist practice and tradition, and in Mongolian culture as a whole. One of these institutions is a type of territoriality that is inclusive and flexible, allowing herders to claim and receive shelter in other herders' homelands especially during difficult weather. In addition, collaboration between the receiving and in-migrant herders is based on an institutionalized form of reciprocity, by which help is given in virtue of a mutuality principle.