THE ETERNAL BLUE SKY IS CHANGING. MONGOLIAN PASTORALISM IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS ERA

This thesis inves*gates how Mongolian herders inhabit, interpret, and respond to the transforma*ons brought about by the post-socialist transi*on and the climate crisis. Based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bayangol sum, Selenge aimag, it examines how pastoralists navigate overlapping systems of governance, ecological uncertainty, and cosmological order. Moving beyond framings of adapta*on and resilience, it argues that herders’ prac*ces ar*culate a mode of environmental engagement grounded in rela*onal ethics, moral obliga*on, and the agency of more-than-human actors. Theore*cally, the work draws on mul*species ethnography, actor-network theory, and post-socialist studies, to conceptualize Mongolian pastoralism as a prac*ce embedded in a network of human and nonhuman rela*ons. The thesis is presented through three thema*cally interlinked papers. It begins from the premise that herders inhabit an environment already animated by humans, nonhuman animals, and spirits. This way of dwelling takes place in a world shaped by the collapse of the herders’ collec*ve (negdel) system and the retreat of the state from pastoral governance, which shiGed responsibili*es for welfare, environmental management, and risk onto the herders, exposing them to new forms of economic and clima*c precarity. The first paper explores the role of wolves in the Mongolian countryside, not as mere symbolic figures, but as ac*ve agents shaping herders’ prac*ces of dwelling in the landscape. Through the ethnographic account of a wolf hunt, it inves*gates how wolves are entangled with local cosmologies, par*cularly through their connec*on to hiimor’, a form of fortune. Hun*ng wolves thus becomes not only a response to ecological threats but also a performa*ve act through which male herders assert their status as “true Mongolian men”. The second paper focuses on the (re)introduc*on of haymaking and the construc*on of fences in Bayangol sum. It traces how these prac*ces – newly adopted since they fell out of use aGer Mongolia’s transi*on to a market economy – intersect with spiritual prescrip*ons that forbid disturbing the land, as well as with the formal land possession rights issued by the state. The paper analyses fences as material actants that mediate between necessity and taboo, livestock management and cosmological obliga*on. Temporary and oGen dismantled aGer use, these fences reflect a form of rela*onal land ethics that cannot be captured by policy framings based on private property or ra*onal resource alloca*on. The third paper inves*gates how herders perceive environmental change and increasing atmospheric instability. It argues that climate change is rarely discussed in abstract or globalised terms. Instead, it is perceived through experien*al and embodied forms of knowledge – such as shiGs in pastures composi*on, altered wind and precipita*on paMerns, and disrup*ons of seasonal rhythms. While ins*tu*onal actors frame climate change through a policy lens of adapta*on and ecological compensa*on, herder’s accounts reveal feelings of resigna*on, uncertainty, and a deferral of responsibility to future genera*ons. These narra*ves reflect broader socio-economic marginalisa*on and the limited capacity to act that many herders feel they have to respond to environmental change. The papers reveal Mongolian pastoralism as a prac*ce sustained by nego*a*on, and moral engagement within a world that is materially and cosmologically unstable. It emerges as a mode of living that tac*cally reconfigures itself in response to environmental, poli*cal, and spiritual transforma*ons. The Eternal Blue Sky is Changing argues that understanding the Mongolian steppe today requires aMen*on to these rela*onal prac*ces of care, reciprocity, and endurance through which herders make the climate crisis locally meaningful, sustaining life in a landscape where uncertainty has become a condi*on of con*nuity.