Project description
From cooperative herding groups to hierarchical societies
What do we know about nomadic empires? Can we explain the transition of cooperative pastoralist groups to complex organisations? The livestock (as the primary source of wealth) is believed to reduce inequalities and prevent pastoralism of supporting hierarchical societies. However, there is evidence that environmentally induced livestock losses sharpen wealth inequalities. The EU-funded COMPLEXITY project will develop a theoretical explanation of political organisation from acephalous societies in Africa to imperial confederations in Inner Asia by perceiving cooperative herding groups as the building blocks of nomadic societies. The project will cross-culturally document the prevalence of cooperative herding groups, investigate how evolutionary factors impact pastoral cooperation and how cooperation affects pastoral performance and inequality.
Objective
The main question of this research project is: can political complexity evolve from small-scale cooperative groups? The predominant view of nomadic empires – that they are caused by contact with agricultural neighbours – cannot explain how pastoralists transitioned from small, kin-based cooperative herding groups to complex hierarchical groups with the power to conquer their sedentary neighbours. By perceiving cooperative herding groups as the building blocks of nomadic societies, this project aims to develop a theoretical explanation of pastoral political organisation ranging from acephalous societies in Africa to imperial confederations in Inner Asia. While cooperative herding has been documented, previous studies have been based on single case studies. Thus, a cross-cultural investigation of pastoral cooperation is lacking. There is also a view that livestock, as the primary source of wealth, limits the development of inequalities, making pastoralism unable to support complex or hierarchical organisations. However, evidence indicates that environmentally induced livestock losses exacerbate rather than limit the development of wealth inequalities. COMPLEXITY rectifies this situation through three steps. First, by combining a systematic literature review of the ethnographic material with information in the eHRAF World Cultures database, COMPLEXITY will cross-culturally document the prevalence of cooperative herding groups. Second, by using a pluralistic methodology, e.g. experimental economic games, observations and interviews, COMPLEXITY will comparatively investigate to what degree pastoral cooperation is structured by evolutionary factors – such as kinship, reciprocity, social network structure, and norms – and investigate how cooperation affect pastoral performance and inequality. Third, by combining empirical data with modelling techniques, COMPLEXITY investigates whether cooperative herding groups can be considered prototypes for more complex organisations.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedHost institution
0155 Oslo
Norway