Fulfilling Quotas through “Theft”

Livestock as a Manipulable Resource in Late Socialist Mongolia

Abstract

This paper examines livestock theft in socialist Mongolia (1924–1992), particularly during the late socialist period from the 1960s to the 1980s. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kharkhorin soum, Övörkhangai Province, between 2016 and 2024, including participant observation and interviews with elderly pastoralists, the study explores how herders experienced collectivization, state quotas, and informal livestock exchange. Historical materials, literary works, and socialist-era publications are also analyzed. The paper proposes the concept of “positive dispossession,” distinct from Marshall Sahlins’ (1972) notion of negative reciprocity. While livestock theft generally implies criminal appropriation, Mongolian pastoral society also contained forms of mutually understood livestock taking embedded within reciprocal social relations. Such practices can be traced to the late Qing period through narratives of the “shiliin sain er” (good men of the plains), figures remembered for redistributing livestock from wealthy elites to poorer herders. Under socialism, herders belonging to collectives (negdel) were required to fulfill state production quotas despite ecological crises such as drought (gan) and severe winter disasters (zud). In response, pastoralists concealed livestock from state inspection and registration and relied on informal networks, including sain er, to obtain livestock necessary for survival and quota fulfillment. The paper argues that stolen livestock functioned as manipulable resources within informal systems of reciprocity and mutual adjustment.