Agenda

SEMINAR |  Waters, Borders and Pastoralism in Mongolian Dauria: Narratives and Resistances within Conservation

19 June 2026
11:00-13:00

Sala delle Trifore, San Sebastiano
Dorsoduro 1686 Venezia

The seminar focuses on the case study of the Mongol Daguur, a protected area in Mongolian Dauria located in the eastern province of Dornod, along the border with Russia and China, critically examining contemporary environmental conservation policies through the lens of “fortress conservation”.
Drawing on environmental anthropology, pastoralism studies, and analyses of international conservation frameworks (UNESCO, Ramsar, and biosphere reserve policies), the presentation aims to highlight the tensions produced by the overlapping of protection regimes, administrative zone borders, and mobile pastoral practices. Since the 1990s, the top-down zonation of the protected area has generated conflicts between state authorities and local nomadic (or semi-nomadic) communities, particularly Buryat groups, who perceive their rights to mobility, access to pastures, and seasonal settlement as increasingly threatened.

In contrast to official conservation narratives that often portray pastoral presence within protected areas as a source of environmental degradation, ethnographic research reveals the active role of nomadic communities in caring for the land, managing wildfires, maintaining water resources, and transmitting local ecological knowledge. Pastoral mobility thus emerges as a practice historically embedded in the ecological balances of the Daurian steppe.

Particular attention is devoted to the “social life of water”: rivers, lakes, wetlands, wells, and springs are understood as relational, cultural, and cosmological entities. Fences introduced by conservation authorities frequently come into conflict with local water-management practices, giving rise to forms of silent resistance and everyday negotiation. Springs, in particular, acquire emblematic significance as sites of healing, spirituality, and sociality, often informally protected by pastoral communities according to logics that differ substantially from institutional conservation models.

Through a critical and decolonial perspective, the seminar ultimately proposes a broader reflection on the relationship between water, borders, and pastoralism in Mongolian Dauria, showing how global conservation policies may also produce new forms of territorial exclusion and cultural marginalization in Mongolia. It therefore becomes essential to imagine and implement alternative models of environmental protection grounded in the meaningful participation of pastoral communities, the recognition of their ecological knowledge, and the development of shared practices of coexistence among humans, animals, and the environment.

Short Bio:

Nadia Breda is Professor of Anthropology at Florence University where she teaches Environmental Anthropology and Anthropology of Mongolia. Visiting researcher at LAS-Collège de France, she edited the Italian translation of Philippe Descola, Oltre natura e cultura (2021, Cortina). She conducts fieldwork in Mongolia in collaboration with IISNC Institute of UB and she is Director of naMec Asian, Nomadic Cultures, Mobility and Environment Study Center - Mongolian Culture Center.

Sabrina Tosi Cambini is Associate Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Parma. Her research focuses on urban anthropology, migration and mobility, nomadism and peripatetic groups, and the intersections between anthropology and the arts. She has conducted ethnographic research mainly in Italy, Romania and Mongolia. Visiting professor at the International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations (UB, Mongolia), she serves as Vice Director of naMec.