Routledge Handbook of Pastoralism

Mark Moritz is Professor of Anthropology at the Ohio State University, USA. He has conducted research on pastoral systems in Central Africa and Southern Arabia, using a combination of ethnographic methods, spatial analyses, comparative analyses, and agent-based modelling to explore questions about common-pool resources, the ecology of infectious diseases, and economic transformations.Igshaan Samuels is a specialist researcher in Range and Forage Sciences at the Agricultural Research Council in South Africa. He is the Global Co-chair of the Global Alliance for the United Nations declared International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026. Nikolaus Schareika is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He has extensively worked in pastoral societies, particularly in groups of Woɗaaɓe and Fulani people in West Africa. Eva Schlecht chairs the joint section Animal Husbandry in the Tropics and Subtropics at the Universities of Kassel and Göttingen, Germany. With over thirty years’ research across Africa, Asia, and the Near East, she examines livestock–environment interactions, related ecosystem services, and how animal husbandry supports livelihoods and food security.

• 1. Introduction to Pastoralism Section I: The emergence of pastoralism 2. Coevolution in pastoral systems: The example of African sheep and goats 3. Archaeology of pastoralism: Forty years of archaeological studies of pastoralism across the world 4. Archaeological, historical, and ethnographic analyses of changes in pastoral systems Section II: Colonialism, capitalism, and commodities 5. Cattle Ranching: Handmaiden of Settler Colonialism 6. Livestock and Global Capitalism 7. Livestock Commodities in a Globalizing World: Between Pastoralism and Capitalism Section III: Biophysical components of pastoralism 8. Rangeland Ecology 9. Livestock nutrition in pastoral systems 10. The ecology of health and infectious diseases in changing pastoral systems 11. Demographic Dynamics in Pastoral Systems Section IV: Pastoral adaptations 12. Pastoral mobility 13. Contributions of pastoralism to climate change 14. Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation 15. Valuing pastoralist goods, services and culture 16. Ecosystem services and pastoralism Section V: Social and political organization of pastoralism 17. Pastoralist Social Organization 18. Continuity and Change in Pastoralist Identities 19. Development and Gender in Herding Societies 20. Political organization 21. How Pastoralists Access Natural Resources 22. Between-group contest competition among pastoralists Section VI: Approaches to studying pastoralism 23. Spatial Analysis of Pastoral Mobility 24. Simulation as an Approach to Pastoral System Analyses 25. Methodologies for understanding rangeland ecology 26. Animal’s intentional acting and cultural understanding of behavior: the place and role of animal agentivity in pastoralism 27. Contributions of ethnographic and community-based methods to interdisciplinary studies of pastoralist health and wellbeing 28. Participatory Action Research in Pastoral Systems: Tools for Empowerment, Innovation, and Resilience Section VII: Development of pastoralism 29. Trends in Pastoralists' Sedentarization: Causes, Consequences, and Policies 30. Divergent livelihood pathways in pastoralist areas of the Horn of Africa 31. Humanitarian crises and responses in the Horn of Africa 32. Pastoralism and Conservation: Compatibilities, Conflicts, and Promise 33. Politics of Land Grabbing in Pastoral Territories Section VIII: Futures of pastoralism 34. Provisioning of social and economic services to pastoralist communities in Africa: models, impacts and prospects for improvement 35. Rethinking policies for pastoralists: Experiences from four world regions 36. Pathways and possibilities for pastoralist youth