Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Based on a year of ethnography with the Duha of northern Mongolia, this paper examines reindeer–human relations as a cooperative, relational practice. It argues that companionship, not pastoral ownership, sustains shared worlds and resilience amid social and ecological change.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the adaptation strategies of the Duha reindeer-keeping community in northern Mongolia in the context of rapid socioeconomic and environmental change. Drawing on ethnographic data collected through a year of living and working with the community, it focuses on transformations in economic practices and subsistence strategies.

I argue that the Duha have not historically been pastoralists but hunter-gatherers, and that their relationship with reindeer exemplifies a cooperative and relational mode of subsistence. This challenges prevailing representations of the Duha as nomadic herders and unsettles simplified binaries between use and care, production and stewardship. Rather than treating reindeer as livestock and the Duha as pastoralists, the paper frames reindeer–human companionship as a flexible strategy that sustains shared life and resilience in the face of environmental and social pressures. In this light, their interactions can be seen as a form of everyday commoning, where shared access and mutual responsibility help maintain human–animal networks.

This relational mode of subsistence unfolds within political and ecological contexts shaped by conservation frameworks, tourism, and climate change. By emphasizing cooperation and mutual dependence, the paper highlights how reindeer–human relations produce both practical outcomes and ethical claims to land, mobility, and continuity, while remaining adaptable to shifting circumstances.

By situating Duha subsistence practices within broader discussions of relationality, shared worlds, and more-than-human resilience, the paper contributes to anthropological debates on domestication, sustainability, and multispecies coexistence, and shows how attention to everyday practices can reveal ways of sustaining life beyond rigid ownership or management frameworks.