Animal Husbandry Without Flow - Land And Population Movements: A Herder Families Ethnography

This paper researches on one Mongolian family in Taibus Banner, XilinGol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from micro perspective of anthropology to understand the connection among herders, land and population movement, and make an explanation of one phenomenon as "livestock husbandry without movement" as well.I have carried out nearly three months of fieldwork in Taibus Banner to collect field data and make a deep investigation on Nari’s family. The theme of this study is in what extent of Inner Mongolia Taibus Banner land influences the population movement. Through the discussion, I realize that the change of land system directly affect not only the relation between pastoralists and the land, but also the utilization of the former on the latter. This relationship eventually affects their rational choice, that is, whether to give up land to join the population movement or not.Through the study of the current situation of pastoralists family life and the family member, this research interpret the meaning of the land in local knowledge and the relation of pastoralists and land rights, and then end to the conclusion of the relation between land and population movement. Based on this point, this study would firstly focus on great significance of land as a local resource for Nari’s family. As the source of pastoral culture, the pasture meets the material needs and the cultural needs of pastoralists. The pasture passed from generation to generation as their "private property". Even through the intergenerational differences still exist, their own awareness of the landowners still depth in the hearts of the herdsman.For the phenomenon of famers’ movement while the pastoralists’ non-flowing, this study continues to dig the policy differences between farmers and herders. The farmers who have lost their land have been forced to become a flow of the tide to go out looking for a new way of livelihood. Meanwhile, the identity of the herders have ensured the right to use their land, and gained the economic subsidies from the State. This policy differences caused the social classification based on land, that is, non-farmers is lower than farmers, and the farmers is lowers than herdsmen households. From this classification, landless farmers lost their material security based on land while the herders are able to get more benefits and cultural identity because of ownership of land. These herders do not want to lose important property generated from their parents, and other land revenue gained from the new situation as well. Under the influence of these factors, they do not want to give up the pasture, and fix themselves on the pasture, which they recognized as the root of them. Whereby, this study explains the phenomenon of "animal husbandry without movement", and also research on the reality of Mongolian herders population movements. Finally, it comes to this conclusion that is based on these land-related factors, Mongolian herders rarely carry on the population movements, at least at the moment, we cannot see the prospect of such movement.