https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2703-6789
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Construction of a nomadic identity in contemporary society has received increasing attention as the result of multiple challenges, including industrialisation, the formation of nation-states and a global market system. Mongolia provides an interesting case study for examination of the self-representations of nomadic peoples and their intricate relationship with national identity-building in a developing society. Based on an analysis of 28 school textbooks on social studies subjects and the narratives of herders in two regions of Mongolia (Bulgan and Bayankhongor), this study examined the interplay between the ‘Mongol malchin’ (Mongolian herder) identity and the construction of a Mongolian national identity in the state’s dominant discourse and herders’ living experiences. The study’s findings revealed how a nomadic identity is interpreted in post-socialist Mongolian society to accommodate social changes and the political agenda of building nationhood.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their extensive and helpful comments on earlier versions of this article and all the informants taking part in the study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Kabachnik, “Nomads and Mobile Places.”
2. Dinero, “New Identity/Identities Formulation in a Post‐Nomadic Community”; Engebrigtsen, “Key Figure of Mobility”; and Robinson and Drozdzewski, “Hybrid Identities.”
3. Kabachnik, “Nomads and Mobile Places,” 223.
4. Rossabi, Modern Mongolia.
5. Billé, Sinophobia Anxiety, Violence and the Making of Mongolian Identity; Diener and Hagen, “City of Felt and Concrete”; Marin, “Between Cash Cows and Golden Calves”; Murphy, “No Room for Nomads”; Myadar, “Imaginary Nomads”; Paddock and Schofield, “Authenticity and Adaptation”; and Stolpe, “Social Versus Spatial Mobility?”
6. Murphy, “No Room for Nomads” and Sarlagtay, “Current Mongolian Cultural Problems.”
7. Marin, “Between Cash Cows and Golden Calves” and Michelet, “What Makes Children Work?”
8. Marat, “Imagined Past, Uncertain Future,” 14.
9. Billé, Sinophobia Anxiety, Violence and the Making of Mongolian Identity and Campi, “Globalization’s Impact on Mongolian Identity Issues and the Image of Chinggis Khan.”
10. Diener and Hagen, “City of Felt and Concrete”; Marin, “Between Cash Cows and Golden Calves”; Murphy, “No Room for Nomads”; Myadar, “Imaginary Nomads”; Paddock and Schofield, “Authenticity and Adaptation”; and Stolpe, “Social versus Spatial Mobility?”
11.. Upton, “Living off the Land.”
12. Honeychurch, “Pastoral Nomadic Voices,” 409.
13. Diener and Hagen, “City of Felt and Concrete,” 644.
14.. Sneath, “The Rural and the Urban in Pastoral Mongolia.”
15. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
16. For more, see Aubin, “Renouveau gengiskhanide et nationalisme dans la Mongolie postcommuniste”; “La Mongolie des premières années de l’après-communisme”; Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia; Kaplonski, “Creating National Identity in Socialist Mongolia”; Truth, History and Politics in Mongolia; Sabloff, Modern Mongolia Reclaiming Genghis Khan; Sneath, States of Mind and “Political Mobilization and the Construction of Collective Identity in Mongolia”; and Myadar and Rae, “Territorializing National Identity in Post-socialist Mongolia.”
17. See Campi, “Globalization’s Impact on Mongolian Identity Issues and the Image of Chinggis Khan”; Myadar and Rae, “Territorializing National Identity in Post-socialist Mongolia”; and Myadar, “The Rebirth of Chinggis Khaan.”
18. Billé, Sinophobia Anxiety, Violence and the Making of Mongolian Identity.
19. Isaacs and Polese, “Between ‘Imagined’ and ‘Real’ Nation-building Identities and Nationhood in Post-Soviet Central Asia.”
20. Ibid., 375.
21. Apple, Ideology and Curriculum and Milner, Culture, Curriculum, and Identity in Education.
22. Marzluf, Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia; and Zhao, China’s Mongols at University.
23. Steiner-Khamsi and Stolpe, “Non-Traveling ‘Best Practices’ for a Traveling Population.”
24. Stolpe, “Social versus Spatial Mobility?” 29.
25. Statistics from the National Statistics Office of Mongolia, “Online Annual reports.”
26. See Rossabi, The Mongols and the Global History; Campi, “The Rises of Cities in Nomadic Mongolia”; and Stolpe, “Social versus Spatial Mobility?”
27. Gardelle, Des sociétés nomades et des Etats.
28. Upton, “Nomadism, Identity and the Politics of Conservation,” 305.
29. Stolpe, “Social versus Spatial Mobility?” 19–20.
30. See Campi, “Problems Integrating Mongolia’s Nomads into a 21st century Nationstate.”
31. Aubin, “Renouveau gengiskhanide et nationalisme dans la Mongolie postcommuniste”; “La Mongolie des premières années de l’après-communisme”; Diener and Hagen, “City of Felt and Concrete”; Kaplonski, “Creating National Identity in Socialist Mongolia”; and Sneath, States of Mind.
32. See note 14 above.
33. Campi, “The Rises of Cities in Nomadic Mongolia” and Gardelle, “De la ville à la campagne et de la campagne à la ville.”
34. Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia.
35. Marsh, “Our Generation is Opening Its Eyes” and Upton, “Nomadism, Identity and the Politics of Conservation.”
36. Amossy, Images de soi dans le discours.
37. Fusulier, “Le concept d’ethos” and Hatano-Chalvidan and Lemaître, Identité et discours.
38. Amossy, “Ethos at the Crossroads of Disciplines,” 21.
39. Grossberg, “Identity and Cultural Studies.”
40. Tүүх 6 (History 6, Grade 6), 41.
41. Tүүх 6 (History 6, Grade 6), 84, author’s translation.
42. Upton, “Nomadism, Identity and the Politics of Conservation.”
43. Нийгмийн ухаан 10–11 (Social Sciences 10–11, Grades 10–11), 94–95.
44. Нийгмийн ухаан 1 (Social Sciences 1, Grades 2–3), 39.
45. Нийгмийн тухай мэдлэг 9–10 (Knowledge of Society 9–10, Grades 9–10), 122.
46. Нийгмийн ухаан 10–11 (Social Sciences 10–11, Grades 10–11), 69.
47. Havard, “Histoire(s), mémoire(s) collective(s) et construction(s) des identités nationales dans l’Afrique subsaharienne postcoloniale.”
48. Aubin, “La Mongolie des premières années de l’après-communisme.”
49. Sneath, “Political Mobilization and the Construction of Collective Identity in Mongolia.”
50. Marsh, “Our Generation is Opening Its Eyes.”
51. Lattimore, Mongolie.
52. Marin, “Between Cash Cows and Golden Calves.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Linda Gardelle
Linda Gardelle is associate professor and head of the Department of Social Sciences of ENSTA Bretagne, France. She is researcher in the research unit Training and Professional Learning (EA 7529) France. Her research interests include school curricula and the role of education in the construction of identities (professional or national belonging).
Zhenzhou Zhao
Zhenzhou Zhao is assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship at the Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. Her research interests include the sociology of education, citizenship studies, cultural diversity, and gender studies.