The Animalification of Nationalist Sentiments Horse, Herder and Homeland Relations in the Construction of Nationalism in Mongolia
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper is about what I call the animalification of nationalist sentiments, based on stories, poems and films about some runaway horses returned to their birthplace, which Mongolians commonly call the nutag (homeland). These stories, poems and films deliver a message that even “Mongol horses” have a sense to love, miss, find and return to their nutag, and critiques those involved in mining and other businesses with environmental destruction as being worse than horses. The analogy of man and horse in this paper helps us to understand, first, how Mongolians perceive and explain sources of nationalist sentiment as natural and inevitable and, second, how a sense of nutag shared by both man and animal shapes human-animal relations.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Badamtsetseg, B. “G. Erdenebileg: Ekh nutagtaa temüülsen mongol moriny tüükhiig üzeed ööröösöö ichikh khün olon garna [Many people will be ashamed of themselves after watching the story of a horse running to its mother nutag]. N24. 2018. https://www.n24.mn/a/1284. Accessed on October 4, 2018.
Beach, Hugh. and Stammler, Florian. “Human-animal relations in pastoralism.” Nomadic Peoples 10(2) (2006):6–29. https://doi.org/10.3167/np.2006.100202
Bökönyi, Sandor. “Definitions of Domestication.” In J. Clutton-Brock (ed.) The Walking Ladder: Patterns of domestication, pastoralism, and predation, 1–4. Cambridge: Unwin, 1989.
Bumochir, Dulam, Ahearn, Ariell, and Ichinkhorloo, Byambabaatar. “Herd Agency: Rethinking herdherder relations in Mongolia and Qinghai, China.” Inner Asia 22(2) (2020):183-198.
Bumochir, Dulam. “Nationalist sentiments under some ‘pejorative labels’: Birthplace, homeland and mobilisations against mining in Mongolia.” Inner Asia. 21(2) (2019): 162–179. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340124
Bumochir, Dulam. 2020. The State, Popular Mobilisation and Gold Mining in Mongolia: Shaping “Neoliberal” Policies. London:UCL Press.
Dashnyam, Gongor. “Galdan Boshgot Sudlal” [The Study of Galdan Boshgot]. In Galdan Boshgot Sudlal [The Study of Galdan Boshgot], eds by E. Jigmeddorj and Na. Sukhbaatar, 225–231. Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Printing, 2014.
Heikkinen, Hannu L., Moilanen, Outi, Nuttall, Mark, and Sarkki, Simo. “Managing predators, managing reindeer: contested conceptions of predator policies in Finland’s southeast reindeer herding area.” Polar Record. 47(3) (2011):218–230. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247410000513
Horstkotte, Tim, Utsi, Tove Aagnes, Larsson-Blind, Å., Burgess, P. Johansen, Bernt, Käyhkö, Jukka, Oksanen, Lauri, and Forbes, Bruce. C. “Human–animal agency in reindeer management: Sámi herders’ perspectives on vegetation dynamics under climate change.” Ecosphere. 8(9) (2011):1-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1931
Humphrey, Caroline. and Ujeed, Hurelbaatar. “Fortune in the Wind: An Impersonal Subjectivity.” Social Analysis 56(2) (2012): 152-167. doi:10.3167/sa.2012.560211
Khoroldorj, Ch. Sharga daaga (Yellow Colt). Ulaanbaatar: ICITY films and Mongol Films Distribution, 2013.
Marchina, Charlotte. “‘Follow the Horse’: The Complexities of Collaboration between the Lasso-pole Horse (uurgach mor’) and his Rider among Mongolian Horse Herders.” In Dona Davis and Anita Maurstad (eds.). The Meaning of Horse: Biosocial Encounters, 102–114. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Marsh, Peter. K. The Horse-Head Fiddle and the Cosmopolitan Reimagination of Tradition in Mongolia. London: Routledge, 2008.
Munkh-Erdene, Lhamsuren. “The Irony of Mongolia’s Independence: Making the Mongols Mongolic and Mongolia Multi-Ethnic.” In Mongolian Sovereignty and the Mongols (Mongolyn tusgaar togtnol ba Mongolchuud, International Conference Proceedings) 34–49. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2012.
Munkhbayar, Kh. Mongol Bayar Naadam: Tüükhen Tovchoo (Mongol Naadam Festival: A Historical Compilation). Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Printing, 2019.
Nominchimed, Baasan. “Boldoggüi ‘orgodol’ Mongol Morid.” [Helpless “Fugitive” Mongol Horses] Eren News. 2018. http://erennews.mn/article/4939. Accessed on November 25, 2018.
Erdenebileg, Ganbold. Khiimori/The Steed. Ulaanbaatar: Ajnai Corporation, Three Flames Pictures, Nomodia Pictures and Belgute Pictures, 2019.
Fijn, Natasha. Living with Herds: Human-Animal Coexistence in Mongolia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Paradis, Mary Rose. Equine Neonatal Medicine: A Case-Based Approach. Hong Kong: Elsevier Saunders, 2006.
Peemont, Victoria Soyan. “We Eat Whom We Love: Hippophagy among Tyvan Herders.” Inner Asia 19(1) (2017): 133-156. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340082
Philo, Chris. and Wilbert, Chris “Animal spaces, beastly places: An introduction.” In C. Philo and C. Wilbert (eds.) Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New geographies of human-animal relations: 1–34. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
Qian, Sima. Records of the Grand Historian of China. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Colombia University Press, 1993.
Sneath, David. “Political mobilization and the construction of collective identity in Mongolia.” Central Asia Survey 29(3) (2010): 251–267.
Steward, Helen. “Animal Agency.” Inquiry 52(3) (2009): 217–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201740902917119
Stammler, Florian. “Animal diversaity and its social significance among Аrctic pastoralists.” In F. Stammler and H. Takakura (eds.) Good to eat, good to live with: nomads and animals in Northern Eurasia and Africa., 235–243. Sendai: Tohoku University, 2010.
Takakura, Hiroki. Arctic pastoralist Sakha: ethnography of evolution and microadaptation in Siberia. Balwyn North: Trans Pacific, 2015.
Vitebsky, Piers. and Alekseyev, Anatoly. What is a reindeer? Indigenous perspectives from Northeast Siberia. Polar Record 51(4) (2014): 413–421. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247414000333