4 - Residence, descent and territory

Summary

The social significance of nomadic mobility is that it gives the opportunity for continual choice and change in residential association, within a wide but limited and relatively homogeneous social field, an opportunity inherently denied to settled people.

(Tapper 1979a, p.46)

Nomad camps have been likened to ‘mobile villages’ (Barth 1961, p.25; Stauffer 1965, p.285). The analogy holds up to a point. Camps, like villages, are composed of individual dwellings, each containing a household unit. Tents are generally clustered together for reasons of sociability and security. The residents of both settlement types form a face-to-face community. However as our attention shifts to residential patterns, community organization, property relations and territory, the analogy begins to break down. Failing major catastrophe, there is a certain inertia in the physical layout and membership of a village, which is absent in a nomad camp. Other things being equal, the villager will tend to remain where he is and any change in residence will involve a major decision. For the nomad such decisions are routine and the composition of a nomad camp can persist even over short timespans only through constant reaffirmation (Barth 1961, p.25). The size and composition of nomad residence groups is therefore highly responsive to decisions taken at the household level.

Nomad social organization

Central to this residential flexibility is the nomad facility for reinforcing social relationships through physical distance.