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Nature, Identity, And Pastoralism: Changing Landscapes And Shifting Paradigms In The Mongolian Taiga, Jessica Vinson

Theses and Dissertations

The traditional environment of pastoralism is under assault from land degradation, rangeland conservation, and development paradigms that alter the everyday lives of Tsataan Dukha reindeer herders in the Mongolian taiga. This paper seeks to analyze the ways in which identity is shaped through experiences of or relationships with particular nonhuman places and beings, and how the Tsataan Dukha renegotiate their individual and collective identities with changing local landscapes that exert considerable pressures upon the social, political, and economic organization of Dukha life. Senses of place and of space are intimately tied to a sense of self, so disruption in environmental …