The Causes of Pastoralist Social Network Transition
Around the world, many pastoralists are diversifying their livelihoods by incorporating alternative income-generating activities. Much scholarship has examined the drivers of this trend, but less attention has been paid to the consequences of diversification, especially how it may affect the structure and function of pastoralists’ social networks.
This article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between pastoralist livelihood diversification and a social network transition, and the effects of this transition on resilience at the household and community scales.
Pastoralists’ livelihoods and social networks are deeply intertwined, serving similar purposes in managing risk, smoothing consumption, and supporting collective action. While diversification can provide households with new opportunities, it may also undermine traditional mechanisms of social support and reciprocity. Understanding this dynamic is crucial, as changes to pastoralist social networks can have far-reaching implications for how individuals and groups manage resources and respond to challenges.
The Rural Livelihoods Approach and Pastoralist Diversification
The rural livelihoods approach is a widely used framework for examining smallholder economic activity and diversification, including among pastoralist communities. It defines livelihood diversification as “the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and improve their standards of living” (Ellis, 1998, p. 4).
Pastoralist diversification can take many forms, including the adoption of agriculture, wage-labor migration, off-farm employment, mining, and other activities. Much scholarship has focused on the drivers of diversification, such as market integration, land fragmentation, NGO-led development, climate change, violent conflict, and changing cultural norms.
However, less attention has been paid to the consequences of diversification, particularly its impacts on the structure and function of pastoralists’ social networks. These networks are critical for providing access to material and informational resources, as well as forms of insurance to manage risk. Changes to these networks can have far-reaching implications for how individuals and groups manage resources and respond to challenges.
Social Networks, Social Capital, and the Strength of Weak Ties
At their core, social networks are important conduits for both material and information resources. In many parts of the Global South, a critical aspect of social networks has been the culturally prescribed reciprocal exchange of material goods, such as gift-giving and informal lending. These exchanges are viewed as key mechanisms within social groups to spread risk, smooth consumption, build trust, promote cooperation, and support collective action.
However, as groups engage with markets and diversify their livelihoods, scholars have observed declines in these exchange practices. Concurrently, the roles of social networks in facilitating information exchange have been transformed by the rapid adoption of mobile phones and other technologies, creating new spatially heterogeneous opportunities for accessing, exchanging, and creating information.
Granovetter’s Strength of Weak Ties (SWT) theory provides a foundation for understanding these dynamics. This sociological theory states that an individual’s weak ties confer greater diversity of information and stronger economic opportunities than their strong ties. Despite the popularity of this theory, little has been written about how pastoralist societies may be transitioning from a preponderance of strong ties to a preponderance of weak ties, and the implications of this transition.
Applying the Livelihoods Approach and Social Network Analysis
To examine the effects of changing livelihoods on pastoralist social networks, this conceptual framework integrates insights from the rural livelihoods approach and social network analysis (SNA).
From the livelihoods perspective, households construct diverse portfolios by mobilizing various forms of capital (human, social, physical, and natural). From the SNA perspective, household decision-makers (egos) are embedded in relationships (ties or edges) with other individuals or groups (alters), each exhibiting various characteristics (attributes).
Applications of the livelihoods approach have often focused on the effects of social capital on livelihoods. Alternatively, SNA has focused more on the causes of social capital by examining how it is constructed by, and distributed through, social networks, though rarely in pastoralist settings.
Social capital is commonly understood as a type of value produced by social networks through the facilitation of material and information resource exchange. Scholars have distinguished between “bonding” and “bridging” capital and networks. Bonding capital is associated with homogenous, dense networks that help manage uncertainty, while bridging capital is associated with more heterogeneous networks that provide access to diverse information and opportunities.
The Consequences of Pastoralist Social Network Transition
Stage 1: Homogenous, Bonded Networks
In Stage 1, pastoralist households have comparatively homogenous and dense social networks, where members are ethnically, culturally, and/or economically similar. These “bonded” networks are the primary avenues for exchanging materials and information, and reciprocal material exchange to build relationships and spread risk is common. Information exchange, measured in terms of information diversity, is limited by the network’s homogeneity.
This type of bonded network may be well-adapted to high-magnitude, low-frequency shocks like major livestock losses and multi-year droughts.
Stage 2: Diversification Triggers Network Changes
In Stage 2, households begin to embrace alternative economic strategies in response to new constraints and opportunities, such as policies that remove resources from production, new infrastructure, and increased market integration. However, economic shifts may outpace changes in longstanding socio-cultural norms.
During this period, diversified households may begin to manage certain small problems independently, and new types of shocks that are lower in magnitude but greater in frequency (like land tenure issues and infrastructure failures) emerge.
Stage 3: Bridging Ties and Independent Problem-Solving
In Stage 3, diversified households continue to broaden their social contexts through interactions with other groups, especially through new economic activities. This gives rise to new types of information and weak ties.
Diversified households increasingly manage smaller problems independently using cash from market-based activities, minimizing livestock sales. They call on customary support networks less frequently as livelihood diversification increases.
Stage 4: Tensions and Innovations in Exchange Mechanisms
In Stage 4, historical and contemporary forces create tensions that limit certain changes and promote others. Culturally engrained norms, especially surrounding livestock, impose limits on economic diversification. However, new opportunities and perspectives engender innovations in the use of traditional exchange mechanisms, limiting their decline.
New technologies and infrastructures, especially mobile phones, accelerate the formation of new weak ties within increasingly heterogeneous social networks, resulting in rapid increases in information diversity. More bridged social networks help households prospect for information and opportunities, serving diversified livelihoods and addressing smaller problems.
Consequences for Household and Community Resilience
Taken together, increased livelihood diversification and the associated decrease in material reciprocity exchange and increase in information diversity characterize a transition from more “bonded,” homogenous social networks to more “bridged,” heterogeneous networks.
One significant consequence of this transition may be shifts in groups’ abilities to respond to different types of shocks. As groups transition towards more bridged networks, they may become better adapted to high-frequency, low-magnitude shocks (e.g., human illness, market fluctuations) but less well-adapted to low-frequency, high-magnitude shocks (e.g., land disputes, severe drought) that require broad trust and collective action to address.
In essence, diversification can lead to a type of social change that plays out in environments often characterized by low-frequency, high-magnitude shocks – the marginal environments where longstanding patterns of pastoralist mobility and social organization are well-adapted. This transition may ultimately undermine the sustainability of pastoralist systems, unless reciprocal exchange mechanisms adapt to new economic conditions and bridged networks do not displace bonded ones.
Conclusion
This conceptual framework illustrates how pastoralist livelihood diversification can drive a social network transition, characterized by a shift from more homogenous, bonded networks towards more heterogeneous, bridged networks. This transition has important consequences for household and community resilience, posing both opportunities and challenges.
While the framework highlights the potential erosion of traditional pastoralist institutions, it also suggests possibilities for adaptation, where economic diversification supports livestock-based traditions, reciprocal exchange mechanisms evolve, and bridged networks complement rather than displace bonded ones.
Ultimately, this model provides a flexible framework to guide future research and development in support of pastoralist communities amidst the dynamics of livelihood change and social network transition.
