Managing Development and Infrastructure: Understanding State Engagements with Rural Communities in Mongolia

管理发展和基础设施：了解政府与蒙古农村社区的互动

• 批准号: ES/P009921/1
• 负责人: Ariell Ahearn
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP009921%2F1
• 关键词: Managing; Development; Infrastructure; Understanding; State

The proposed research will to build upon my DPhil research in Mongolia by focusing on understanding how government administrators engage with rural households around infrastructure and development projects such as the World Bank's Sustainable Livelihoods Project and the Oyu Tolgoi gold and copper mega-mine. My work plan addresses the GCRF thematic priorities of "understanding the relationship between social institutions, physical infrastructure and the natural environment" and the theme of migration, mobility and development. I will draw upon the large amount of qualitative data that I collected over the course of my DPhil project as well as data from a socio-economic survey of rural households living near the Oyu Tolgoi mine, which I conducted since finishing my DPhil in February 2016. I am particularly interested in exploring ways to actively engage rural households in the development planning process in order to contribute to economic and social welfare on both national and local scales in Mongolia. My expertise as a social scientist working in the fields of economic geography and anthropology as well as my long-term engagement in the region of Inner Asia will enable me to effectively achieve these aims.I have conducted independent long-term ethnographic research on rural livelihoods and the political economy of mobile pastoralism in Mongolia since 2004 and I speak, read and write Mongolian. My DPhil thesis, The Changing Meaning of Work, Herding and Social Relations in Rural Mongolia, is based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork involving extensive participant observation. It examines the role of mobile pastoralism and rural work as a medium of social reproduction for families in Mongolia. This work is reported in four academic articles, which examine herder household management, decision-making, and the spatial aspects of household social and economic production. Rural work practices are used as a lens to examine wider processes of social change around gender, labour, finance and mobility. As standalone pieces and as a united work, the articles show that herding work practices are an important reference point in political subjectivities, concepts of citizenship and administrative practices that idealize the state. The policies and practices of government institutions, including non-state agencies, play powerful roles in the particular forms through which relations are spatialized. By taking this approach and prioritizing herder critical reflections on their own lives, I show how herder efforts to access resources, such as formal schooling for children, spatially transform the labour, finance, and mobility systems of households. My work presents three key arguments with reference to these concepts. The first is that patron-client relations continue to play a strong role in family hierarchies and wider social alliances used to gain access to needed resources and services. Secondly, I argue that pastoralist work is an integral part of governance and the moral authority of the state. Finally, attention to the spatial organisation of household economies, including household splitting and new types of mobility, reiterates the significance of place in human agency. These findings specifically identify themes around household decision making and public administration, which provide a basis to address the GCRF challenge areas around sustainable livelihoods and inclusive growth and building effective institutions. The actions I plan to take to address these challenge areas are to resubmit academic articles which I wrote as part of my DPhil, write new academic articles and collaborate with colleagues on interdisciplinary co-authorships, conduct short-term follow-up field work, consolidate and continue to build networks of academic and non-academics working on issues related to understanding social and environmental change and governance, and participate in a work exchange focused on social and environmental safeguard policies.

拟议的研究将建立在我在蒙古的博士研究的基础上，重点了解政府管理人员如何围绕基础设施和发展项目（如世界银行的可持续生计项目和奥尤陶勒盖金铜矿）与农村家庭接触。我的工作计划涉及全球气候框架的优先主题，即“了解社会机构、有形基础设施和自然环境之间的关系”，以及移徙、流动和发展主题。我将利用我在博士项目过程中收集的大量定性数据，以及我自2016年2月完成博士学位以来对居住在奥尤陶勒盖矿附近的农村家庭进行的社会经济调查的数据。我特别感兴趣的是，探讨如何使农村家庭积极参与发展规划进程，以促进蒙古国家和地方的经济和社会福利。作为一名社会科学家，我在经济地理学和人类学领域的专业知识以及我在中亚地区的长期参与将使我能够有效地实现这些目标。自2004年以来，我对蒙古的农村生计和移动的畜牧业的政治经济进行了独立的长期民族志研究，我会说，读和写蒙古语。我的博士论文，在蒙古农村工作，放牧和社会关系的变化的意义，是基于一年的人种学实地考察，涉及广泛的参与观察。它审查了移动的畜牧业和农村工作作为蒙古家庭社会再生产媒介的作用。四篇学术文章报告了这项工作，这些文章审查了牧民家庭管理、决策以及家庭社会和经济生产的空间方面。农村工作实践被用作一个透镜，以审视围绕性别、劳动力、金融和流动性的更广泛的社会变革进程。作为独立的作品和作为一个联合的工作，文章表明，放牧工作的做法是一个重要的参考点，在政治主体性，公民的概念和行政实践，理想化的国家。包括非国家机构在内的政府机构的政策和做法在关系空间化的特定形式中发挥着强有力的作用。通过采取这种方法，并优先考虑牧民对自己生活的批判性反思，我展示了牧民如何努力获得资源，如儿童的正规教育，空间上改变了家庭的劳动力，金融和流动系统。我的工作提出了三个关键参数参考这些概念。第一，庇护人-客户关系继续在家庭等级制度和更广泛的社会联盟中发挥重要作用，这些关系被用来获得所需的资源和服务。其次，我认为牧民工作是国家治理和道德权威的一个组成部分。最后，对家庭经济的空间组织的关注，包括家庭分裂和新型的流动性，重申了人类机构的重要性。这些调查结果具体确定了围绕家庭决策和公共行政的主题，为解决全球气候框架围绕可持续生计和包容性增长以及建立有效机构的挑战领域提供了基础。我计划采取的行动，以解决这些挑战领域是重新提交学术文章，我写的一部分，我的博士学位，写新的学术文章，并与同事合作的跨学科合著，进行短期后续实地工作，巩固和继续建立网络的学术和非学者的工作有关的问题，了解社会和环境变化和治理，并参加以社会和环境保障政策为重点的工作交流。

项目成果

A Condensed History of the Public Administration of Pastoralism in Mongolia

蒙古牧业公共管理简史

• DOI: 10.3197/np.2018.220206
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Nomadic Peoples
• 影响因子: 0.9
• 作者: Ahearn A

Herders and hazards: covariate dzud risk and the cost of risk management strategies in a Mongolian subdistrict

牧民与危害：蒙古分区的协变量暴雨风险和风险管理策略的成本

• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-017-3128-4
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Natural Hazards
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Ahearn A

The New Mongolian State Herder: Examining Invocations and Improvisations of the State in Rural Mongolia

• DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1638750
• 发表时间: 2019-09
• 期刊: Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Ariell Ahearn

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Emerging Research on Traditional Knowledge and Livelihoods

土著人民与气候变化：传统知识和生计的新兴研究

• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Ariell Ahearn

Winters without women: social change, split households and gendered labour in rural Mongolia

没有女性的冬天：蒙古农村的社会变革、家庭分裂和性别劳动

• DOI: 10.1080/0966369x.2018.1443910
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Gender, Place & Culture
• 作者: Ahearn A