Nomadism

Nomadic people (Greek: nomádes, “those who let pasture herds”), commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are commu-nities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in industrialized countries. Nomadic cultures are discussed in three cat-egories according to economic specialization: hunter-gatherers, pas-toral nomads, and “peripatetic nomads”.Nomadic hunting and gathering, following seasonally available wild plants and game, is by far the oldest human subsistence method.Pastoralists raise herds, driving them or moving with them, in pat-terns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.Peripatetic nomads, who offer the skills of a craft or trade to those they travel among,are most common in industrialized nations.

Hunter-gatherers

Many groups of ‘nomadic’ hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers) moved from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Known examples include:Some Adivasi tribal people of IndiaMost Indigenous Australians prior to Western contactVarious groups of Pygmies, such as the Mbuti of the Ituri Rain forest in the Democratic Republic of the CongoThe Bushmen of Southern AfricaMany Native Americans, such as the Nukak-Makú, Comanches and many other Plains Indians, the Yahi of California, indigenous inhabit-ants of Tierra del Fuego, or early people of Montana located at Bar-ton Gulch

Pastoralism

Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accom-panied population growth and an increase in the complexity of so-cial organization. Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:Pastoralism: This is a mixed economy with a symbiosis within the family.Agropastoralism: This is when symbiosis is between segments or clans within an ethnic group.True Nomadism: This is when symbiosis is at the regional level, gen-erally between specialized nomadic and agricultural populations.The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move be-tween the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.

Origin

Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the sec-ondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat (“on the hoof”) also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8500-6500 BC in the area of the southern Levant. There, during a period of increasing aridity, PPNB cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock. This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later devel-opments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Greko-Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.

(wikipedia)

The Nomad(Iron Maiden)

Like a mirage riding on the desert sandLike a vision floating with the desert windsKnow the secret of the ancient desert lands

Your are the keeper of the mystery in your hands

Nomad, rider of the ancient eastNomad, rider that men know the least

Nomad, where you come from no one knowsNomad, where you go to no one tells

Undercover of the veil of your disguiseThe men that fear you are the ones that you despise

No one’s certain what you future will beholdYou’re a legend you own story will be told

No one dares to even look or glance your wayYour reputation goes before you they all say

Like a spirit that can disappear at willMany claim of things but no one’s seen you kill

Those who see you in horizon desert sunThose who fear your reputation hide or run

You send before you a mystique that’s all your ownYour silhouette is like a statue carved in stone

Legend has it that you speak an ancient tongueBut no one’s spoke to you and lived to tell the taleSome may say that you have killed a hundred men

Others say that you have died and live again

When you walk, each step is the body’s movement against falling — each movement is felt in our potential for freedom as we move with the earth’s gravitational pull.

When we navigate our way through the world, there are different pulls, constraints and freedoms that move us forward and propel us into life.

(Navigating Movements: an interview with Brian Massumi)

“A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places”.

(Isabelle Eberhardt)

A nomadic poetics is a war machine, always on the move, always changing, morphing,moving through languages, cultures, ter-rains, times without stopping. Refuelling halts are called poases, they last a night or a day, the time of a poem, & then move on. The sufi poets spoke of mawqif - we will come back to this.

A nomadic poetics will cross languages, not just translate, but write in all or any of them.

A nomadic poetics will thus explore ways in which to make -- & think about -- a poetry that takes into account not only the manifold of languages & locations but also of selves each one of us is constantly becoming. The nomadic poem as ongoing & open-end-ed chart of the turbulent fluxes the dispersive nature of our realities make inevitable.

(NOTES TOWARDS A NOMADIC POETICS)

(Allen Fisher)

Selective Privacy

Online life has challenged traditional ideas of privacy. We are inspired by the artists, designers and program-mers who play with this.Take control. Play with concepts such as invisibility and absence.