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Re-Imagining Collective Action Institutions: Pastoralism in Mongolia

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Abstract

Strengthening collective action institutions involves recognizing local community or user group land rights particularly through formal property mechanisms. However, policy initiatives based on collective action theories can be highly prescriptive and difficult to apply in developing contexts. Employing a qualitative case study methodology, I explore the ways in which donor organizations in Mongolia attempt to strengthen common property or collective action institutions by engineering socioeconomic units and formalizing property rights to pastureland. These initiatives face difficulties in defining group social and resource use boundaries and the herders’ vision of pastureland management. Using an access approach, this study reveals various legal and extra-legal mechanisms that have historically persisted to enable the state and local community to manage state territories, pastoral production, and resources. Overestimating the capacity of formalized property rights obscures the importance of other mechanisms in strengthening state and local community co-management and collective action institutions.

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Notes

  1. See Law on pastureland, law of Mongolia, No 187 (3577), Daily News 2010.08.09.

  2. Key herder informants from HBU, DD & UU bags, 2016.

  3. ‘This is not a social group or institution; rather it is a social field defined by an intense flow of reciprocal exchange between neighbours’ (Lomnitz 1977 cited in Sneath 1993: 194).

  4. In 2002, the land law was amended so that hot ail herders were allowed to own winter and spring campsites based on the 1994 version allowing legal possession of household residential plots.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Sandagsuren Undargaa

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Correspondence to Sandagsuren Undargaa.

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Funding

This study was funded by Endeavour Postgraduate Award of Australia (1009_2009) & the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia Pacific School, the Australian National University.

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The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Appendix

Appendix

Glossary

Ail :

Household

Am jalgynhan :

Use of same valley

Aimag :

Province

Bag :

Rural micro-districts

Buuts :

Layers of dried dung which is utilized as a livestock bed (buuts)

Ezemshih erkh :

Pasture possession rights

Golynhon :

Use of same river

Hashaa :

Fence made of dung, rocks or wood

Hoton :

A camp of more than one or two households

Hot ail :

Contemporary version of hoton. See hoton

Hoshuu :

Formal territorial administrative unit known as a banner

Hudagiinhan :

Use of same well

Huree :

A large camp including hundreds of households

Negdel :

Socialist collectives

Neg nutgiinkhan :

Its definition is a matter of scholarly debate as it refers to either networking or a group or alliance of households camping together. See the section ‘Collective action institutions in the past’ in this article.

Otor :

Pursuit of short and/or long-distance temporary movement from regular seasonal pastures

Saahalt :

A collaboration of two different camps of ail or hot ail

Soum or sum :

Rural district

Suuri :

A camp of 1–2 (often non-related) households to herd specific species

Ulamjlalt :

Equivalent to ‘customary’, which referred to practices inherited from or transferred by ancestors and which are still adhered to and mainstream in the present

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Undargaa, S. Re-Imagining Collective Action Institutions: Pastoralism in Mongolia. Hum Ecol 45, 221–234 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9898-1

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