Livelihood challenges in High Asian pastoral spaces
Livelihood challenges in High Asian pastoral spaces

Summary/Abstract: Shrinking pastoral spaces are a global phenomenon, particularly in mountain areas. Factors contributing to this include interrupted migration routes, state regulations, and the encroachment of settlement expansion and modernization strategies. The 20th century saw infrastructure development, cultivation of previously untouched lands, deforestation, and the revaluation of natural assets leading to a conflict between traditional extensive pastoral practices and modernization. Modernization and resource exploitation promoted a 'modern' mobile society, but viewed classical mobility as outdated. This reflects a long-standing cultural conflict between mobile and settled communities. The shrinking of pastoral spaces is both a spatial and a political, socio-cultural, and development-theory-driven process accelerating sedentarization. The author discusses a 'tragedy of responsibility' to exemplify this process in High Asian pastoral spaces, highlighting diversity and legislative differences within the framework of social and climate change.

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