I went to a camel festival in the Gobi Desert this morning, a celebration of nomadic life, and it was absolutely amazing

more from this weekend's camel festival near Sainshand, Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert

Zionist settlers use age old settler-colonial tactics against Palestinians in the West Bank especially against Bedouins. Settlers moving their livestock to steal native land has been a tactic for centuries, including in the Americas. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

📢 New out! Jennifer Keating investigates the multiscalar history of the Karkara trade fair and its Kazakh and Kyrgyz pastoralist communities. #Inner/CentralAsia #pastoralism #environment #ruraleconomy #Russianempire #spatialscale #temporalscale #globalmarkets #tradefairs doi.org/10.1017/S174...

I just want everyone to look at this majestic Bactrian Camel 🐫

Ts. Namkhainyambuu (1948-2003) was a highly decorated herder in the Mongolian People’s Republic. He specialized in sheep herding for which he received numerous decorations and awards, and was named Labor Hero in 1978 (which he is wearing in this photo). He also was a member of Parliament.

Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to @erichalsey.bsky.social of The Bulgarian History podcast about the First Bulgarian Empire and his book "State Builders from the Steppe" Listen below ⬇️ or wherever you get your podcasts:

It was an absolute pleasure to talk to Pierce on the latest episode of ‘O Verda Darano’. We chatted about spooky Romani folklore, vampires, and sorts of revenants in Roma culture, as well as interacting with gothic media as a Roma person. Tune in here www.deadscaredentertainment.com/overdadarano...

V much looking fwd to listening to this podacst discussion of @songsforhorses.com book "A Song for the Horses: Musical Heritage for More-than-Human Futures in Mongolia" podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/a...

"If you want to know about the horsehead fiddle, you have to know about horses.", @songsforhorses.com was told and took to heart in research for his book.

Had a very nice chat with Maggie Freeman of the New Books Network's "Nomads Past and Present" series about my book, music, and the environment in Mongolia: newbooksnetwork.com/a-song-for-t...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to KG Hutchins @songsforhorses.com about his new book "A Song for the Horses: Musical Heritage for More-than-Human Futures in Mongolia" 🐴🎻 Listen below (or wherever you get your podcasts) to learn about music, climate change & future imaginaries in contemporary Mongolia ⬇️

The Roma: A Travelling History Madeline Potter newbooksnetwork.com/the-roma-a-t... #romahistory #romanihistory discusses writing a history through the practice of Romani storytelling

One of our most popular pieces on #Mongolian and #Buddhist studies; in 2021 former editor-in-chief Daigengna Duoer introduced readers to the online #database and #mapping project “Documentation of Mongolian #Monasteries.” 🔗 See this #PostFromThePast here: digitalorientalist.com/2021/01/29/m...

Talked with Maggie Freeman on her podcast “Nomads, Past and Present” about “The Nomadic Leviathan“: #TheNomadic Origin of the State, #TheWeberian State, #The Conquest Theory of State Formation, #Bureaucracy as a method conquest rule, #Extrahuman Transportation ⬇️ newbooksnetwork.com/the-nomadic-...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene about his work on Mongol and Chinese history and why many pre-modern states were founded by nomadic pastoralists. Listen below ⬇️ or wherever you get your podcasts!

1/ Happy to share that my article “Beyond Homecoming: The Reintroduction of Seven Przewalski’s Mares in the Gobi Desert” has been published in Environmental Humanities. It is the story of seven mares flown from Australian zoos to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1990s doi.org/10.1215/2201... #envhist

Call to action to defend tribal libraries, archives, and museums from ILMS and NEH cuts! #libraries #archives 📚 www.atalm.org/call-to-acti...

Thank you Literary Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social for running a little extract from my book 👇 ‘In From the Margins: On Letting the Roma Narrate Their Own Story’ lithub.com/in-from-the-...

A great quote showing how the Mongol royalty moved in great cities. It was also not the movement of mobile herders or "nomads" - it was thousands of animals and people (certainly was terrible for the environment). See Chris Atwood's "Imperial Itinerance" article for more info. #tengri #mongolsky

Shoutout to my bestie, @nomadspod.bsky.social. I've never listened to one of these episodes without learning a lot and usually wanting to buy another book. It's about nomadic and nomadic peoples throughout history and it's fantastic.

And another little podcast: this time about the history, legacies, and culture of nomadism for the Roma. Thank you ‘Nomads Past and Present’ for the invitation! I’ve really enjoyed it!

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Madeline Potter @madelinepotter.bsky.social about her (excellent, moving, informative) book "The Roma: A Travelling History" Listen below ⬇️ or wherever you get your podcasts!

As a contributor to a past issue of JAE and reader of the journal, I send all my solidarity to the (censored) issue’s editorial team Nora Akawi, Omar Jabary Salamanca, Zoé Samudzi, and Nick Estes and all the contributors. This move against academic freedom should not be accepted.

Happy International Women's Day! The Mongolian People's Republic heavily featured women's liberation as part of their stated mission, emphasizing education, women's ability to be high quality workers, and so forth. #mongolsky #tengri

History of reindeer herding in Canada. A Sami freind (Lloyd Binder's) family brought over reindeer to the NWT from Northern Norway. The reindeer herd was transfered to Inuvialuit ownership. www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Few people are paying attention to the complications posed for & by the Sami in Russia. I have a Sami freind now a refugee in Norway. He is in distress as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues over related internal & external politics. Learn more. www.thebarentsobserver.com/life-and-pub...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Zozan Pehlivan about her research into the effects of climatic disruptions and anomalies on the lives and intercommunal relations of Kurdish pastoralists in the 19th century Ottoman Empire ⬇️

went to Kurdistan, came back a changed person

New year, new publications out into the world! ✨ First, my article on the architecture of the Iraq Petroleum Company and the IPC's interactions with the Bedouin was just published by Architectural Theory Review (open access, so you have no excuse but to go read it) ⬇️

🚨NEW EPISODE!🚨 I talked to archaeologist Joy McCorriston about ancient pastoralism in southern Oman, and what evidence of pastoralist permanence (in the form of stone monuments and settlements) can in turn tell us about pastoralist mobility. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts ⬇️

✨proofs day✨

There are still 3 spots left in my "History of Deserts" class @ the Cambridge Center for Adult Education! We'll talk about environmental imaginaries around deserts, how people actually make life in seemingly inhospitable regions, and deserts as sites of experiments from nuclear testing to mining.

"Conservation" efforts have been used to dispossess indigenous and other marginalized people of their land everywhere from Appalachia and the American West to Palestine and East Africa *Always* be wary of conservation projects that act like people don't exist in a place

An oldie but a goodie: Christopher Atwood's Facebook post on how describing steppe peoples like Mongols as "tribes" justifies colonial and imperial projects by Russia and China. (Thanks for @chakarchinggis.bsky.social for bringing this back up the other day!)

A great one I was the guest on is @nomadspod.bsky.social ! Some really great work there from about peoples around the world and across time.

Truly ridiculous. Shoutout to @nomadspod.bsky.social, a great podcast that I have been on, and Folkwise, a great Twitch stream I have been on, and many more who do great public facing works involving scholars and scholarship.

🚨 NEW EPISODE 🚨 I talked to David Chaffetz about his book "Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires" (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024) Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts ⬇️ newbooksnetwork.com/raiders-rule...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Dr. Petya Andreeva about her book "Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies" (Edinburgh UP, 2024) Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts ⬇️ newbooksnetwork.com/fantastic-fa...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Sam Dolbee about his book "Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East" (Cambridge UP, 2023). Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts ⬇️ newbooksnetwork.com/locusts-of-p...

NEW EPISODE: I talked to Judith Lindbergh about her novel "Akmaral" (forthcoming May 7), a historical fiction account of the life of a nomadic warrior woman on the Central Asian steppe in the 400s BCE. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts: newbooksnetwork.com/akmaral

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Emilie Le Febvre about her book "Photography and Making Bedouin Histories in the Naqab" (Routledge, 2023). Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts:

New episode: I talked to Dr. Kara Kennedy about Dune: Part Two and representations of nomadic peoples in the Dune universe. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts:

New episode: I talked to Dr. Nicholas Morton about his book "The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187" (Oxford University Press, 2020) Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts:

New episode: I talked to Dr. Adriana Helbig @adahelbig about her book "ReSounding Poverty: Romani Music and Development Aid" (Oxford University Press, 2023) Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts:

"As people navigate tensions with pastoralists who have come to the region, supposedly from Chad or Cameroon, I remember letters from missionaries and colonial officers about the efforts to monitor the porous border with Sudan."

New episode: I talked to Kenneth Harl about his book, "Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization" (Bloomsbury, 2023) Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts: newbooksnetwork.com/empires-of-t...