AUTHOR=Baird Timothy D. 

TITLE=Pastoralist livelihood diversification and social network transition: a conceptual framework

JOURNAL=Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/pastoralism-research-policy-and-practice/articles/10.3389/past.2024.12892

DOI=10.3389/past.2024.12892

ISSN=2041-7136

ABSTRACT=Pastoralist livelihoods are important and widespread. Globally, between 200-500 million people rely on livestock husbandry as their primary economic activity. Furthermore, pastoralist livelihoods are changing. Driven by various factors, many pastoralists have diversified into agriculture, wage-labor migration, and other activities in the past few decades. Much has been written, across many disciplines, about the causes of pastoralists' livelihood diversification. Less attention, however, has been paid to its consequences, especially to its effects on pastoralists' social networks, including their structures and functions. In this Perspective, I present an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for a pastoralist social network transition, driven by livelihood diversification, and its effects on resilience at household and community scales.