Suchergebnisse

Mapping the Pamirs and Wakhan mountain areas in High Asia, the author researches marginal border areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Tajikistan and how they were used by the Kirghiz and Wakhi peoples over time. Both archival and published textual, photographic and cartographic resources are used to illustrate this exploration of remote Asian mountain areas in the context of boundary-making, crossroads, communities, and migration

Vielfältige Veränderungen der sozioökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen haben seit dem 20. Jahrhundert zu tiefgreifenden Umwälzungen in der Berglandwirtschaft und vor allem in der mobilen Viehzucht geführt. Bergbauern und Pastoralisten standen vor der Herausforderung ständiger Anpassung an veränderte Produktionsbedingungen, die sowohl durch revolutionäre gesellschaftspolitische Prozesse als auch durch graduelle Veränderungen in der ökologischen Sphäre und in sozioökonomischen Tätigkeitsfeldern verursacht worden sind. Am Beispiel Hochasiens werden die signifikanten Eingriffe seitens externer Akteure exemplifiziert. Durch diese Vorgehensweise werden die Dimensionen der Veränderung, die Vernetzung ökologischer und ökonomischer Faktoren sowie die Anpassungsformen und -strategien bergbäuerlicher und pastoraler Bevölkerungen in Hochgebirgen herausgestellt. Letztere sind immer Resultat komplexer Interdependenzen. In Gesellschaften mit hoher Regulationsmacht lassen sich tiefgreifende Eingriffe in bestehende Strukturen nachweisen. Im weltweiten Vergleich ist das Spektrum ergriffener Maßnahmen breit gestreut und in variierende Umweltbedingungen und gesellschaftliche Spielregeln eingebettet. Local adaptation strategies in high mountain land use: Multiple changes in socioeconomic frame conditions have contributed to significant transformations in high mountain agriculture and especially the animal husbandry sector has been affected since the beginning of the 20th century. Mountain farmers and pastoralists have been facing the challenges of constant adaptation for their production systems that were triggered by sociopolitical revolutions, gradual ecological changes and socioeconomic conditions. Significant interventions will be exemplified with case studies from High Asia. This approach allows to specify dimensions of change, to analyse the complex interrelationship between ecological and economic factors as well as to identify adaptation strategies implemented by mountain farmers and pastoralists that have been the result of complex interdependencies. Societies with authoritarian regimes and high regulatory impact show significant transformations of utilisation strategies. Looking from a global perspective a wide spectrum of intervention options exists and is embedded in a variety of ecological frame conditions and socio-political rules

The Pamirs have been a contested space in different periods of time. Access to fertile pastures characterized the local economic competition between nomads and mountain farmers. International attention reached its peak when the Pamirs became a pawn in the "Great Game"; during the second half of the 19th century, Great Britain and Russia disputed control over the mountainous area. Local and regional interests took on a subordinate role. The imperial contest resulted in dividing the Pamirs among four interested parties that are nowadays independent countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. Since the division, separate developments have emerged in all parts that are abodes of farmers and pastoralists who share a common heritage but have experienced quite different political and social developments. Thus the Pamirs represent a focal region of similar ecological properties in which political and socioeconomic developments that originated in the 19th century have changed development paths through the Cold War period until the early 21st century. From Tsarist Russia to post-independence Tajikistan, from the Afghan monarchy to the post-Taliban republic, from British India to Pakistan, and from the Middle Kingdom to contemporary China, political interventions such as nationality policies and regional autonomy, sociotechnical experiments such as collectivization and subsequent deregulation, and varying administrative systems provide insight into external domination that has shaped separate developments in the Pamirs. In the early 21st century, the Pamirs experienced a revaluation as a transit corridor for transcontinental traffic arteries.

This working paper illustrates the process of territorial transformation in time and space. From the period of Silk Road networks to imperial designs for spatial control in Crossroads Asia, external interests for local and regional resources were the driving forces for superpower confrontation. The Great Game is the 19th century highpoint of confrontation leading to boundary-making and restricted trade relations. Decisions taken in faraway locations – capitals of superpowers of their time – had significant effects on the most remote corners of Crossroads Asia, from participation excluded communities and populations that were forced to adapt to changing circumstances, political affiliation, contested loyalties and power relations. The border regimes – in terms of communication, mobility and trade – highlight the effects of diplomatic negotiations, forceful encounters and manoeuvring in niches and spaces of neglect. Exchange across boundaries came to a stand-still with the commencement of the Cold War. In this paper constraining factors from geopolitics and internal developments within and between nation-states are presented in order to discuss the development gap with which we are confronted in this high mountainous and remote region of Crossroads Asia. Taking the establishment of ethnonymous Central Asian republics within the Soviet Union as a starting point, the long-lasting consequences for the now independent states of Central Asia are discussed. The concepts of autonomy and national segregation led to the configuration of republics without historical antecedents. The independent nation-states of Middle Asia are now faced with numerous border disputes, severe communication and exchange constraints and insufficient traffic infrastructures, which were originally established for a larger union and do not comply with the needs of sovereign states of smaller size. Tajikistan's border impasse with the People's Republic of China represents a case of communication and trade gaps. Afghanistan is a case in point for external interests and shaping of a nation-state regardless of ethnic and historical considerations. The factors leading to buffer state development and the consequences resulting from imperial domination are discussed on different levels and illustrated with examples from Badakhshan. The Pashtunistan dispute led to a form of irredentism that has affected Afghan-Pakistan relations until today. Pakistan in itself devotes bitterly needed funds for rural development to border disputes, of which the Kashmir stalemate with India is the most costly. The importance of reconciliation for future mutual understanding, improved exchange relations, infrastructure development, and bi- and multi-lateral cooperation is underpinned by this scrutiny and investigation in past developments. The foundation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) might be a first step leading to more reconciliation in border disputes and enhanced trust and exchange among neighbouring states. Physically feasible and recognizable is the extension of the road network linking and bridging neighbours and the region.

Perceptions and experiences differ widely in the world of pastoralism. The case studies presented in this volume provide fieldwork-based insights and evidence from a widespread area between the Pamirs, Tien Shan, Hindukush, Karakoram, Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. More important than the ecological breadth and spread of environmental properties and changes seem to be the societal embed-dedness of pastoralism, the politico-economic framework and the understanding of 'modernisation'. The debate on the 'tragedy of the commons' seems to have devel-oped through a supposed 'drama of the commons' to an institutional 'tragedy of responsibility' under similar pretexts as in the early stages. Norms and viewpoints govern judgements about actors and victims in relation to their pastoral practices.

The Chinese modernisation programme has affected even the remotest high mountain pastures of Xinjiang. The dynamics of such processes are exemplified in a case study from the Chinese Pamirs and are analysed in regard to their im-portance for adaptation and development. Based on a dia-chronic ex¬amination of transformation processes related to Kirghiz nomads, special emphasis is put on four stages of transformation that might lead from mobile pastoralism to a town-ship settlement. Developments affecting the Kirghiz nomads of Little Kara Köl may be classified as transfor¬mations in space and time, resulting in the integration of this marginal region into the perma¬nently settled areas of Xinjiang. Externali-ties in the field of social structure and political administration have supported this integration and growing dependence on the commercial and service centres of the foreland oases.