Accepted Panels

Inner Asian pastoral societies in the modern age have been repeatedly affected by external factors such as emergence / collapse of socialist system, economic globalization, recent COVID-19 pandemic, and so on. Historically, Inner Asian pastoral societies have been relying on members’ high mobility and trading with sedentary societies which were affected by above-mentioned events. To take Outer Mongolia as an example, collapse of socialism in early 1990s increased number of pastoralists who tended to be self-sufficient but tried to raise more livestock than they could consume for themselves, then it led to cold and snow disaster in the early 2000s which made total number of livestock in Mongolia decrease rapidly and poor pastoralists moved to suburban pasture nearby cities which restored market function because of economic globalization which made huge investments for Mongolian mining development at that time. Recently, COVID-19 pandemic which flowed from China blocked a lot of physical movements which were necessary for pastoralists’ lives at various special levels. It blocked face to face communications with pastoralists who could be pastoral partners and merchants who bought their livestock products, domestic movements to cities where their descendants and relatives lived, and international movements where they might go for wage labor or medical services. Generally, they managed to continue pastoralism by use of some technologies such as smartphone and personal media. As of now, it is difficult to imagine that they will be able to restore the pre-pandemic lifestyle absolutely for some reasons. It should be stressed that this kind of situation took place each time after social disasters, so they changed something to keep their lives as pastoralists. The aim of this panel is to discuss change and continuity of Inner Asian pastoral societies under such circumstances. Presentations concerning post COVID-19 pandemic are appreciated, though others are not excluded.