Beyond the ‘Wild Shepherd’: How Global Capitalism Has Reshaped Pastoralism. Suggestions from a Mediterranean Island

Autor: Domenica Farinella
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nomadic Peoples, Vol 28, Iss 2, Pp 189-216 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0822-7942
1752-2366
DOI: 10.3828/whpnp.63837646691055
Popis: This article shows how, from the modern era up to the present day, Sardinian pastoralism has been increasingly incorporated into global capitalism, despite essentialising narratives about the primitiveness and backwardness of shepherds that have been propagated from the mid-eighteenth century to the present neoliberal phase. The case-study considered in this article illustrates how capitalism works as a ‘food regime’, producing the ‘conversion of agriculture and food to commodity-type relations, which, in addition to cheapening food, also incorporates agricultures and foods into investment strategies’ (McMichael 2013: 21). First, a reconstruction of the embedding of Sardinian pastoralism into the global capitalist chain from the modern age to the early twentieth century is presented. Then the changes in pastoralism from the post-World War II period to the 2000s and the neoliberal turn of the last twenty years are considered. The aim is to analyse how pastoralists coped with the uncertainties arising from being part of the global market, the volatility of milk prices and the resulting contradictions that have emerged.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals