ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the varieties of pastoral society and examines the influences that account for variation among pastoral societies. The mutability over time of pastoral society can be seen in cyclical as well as cumulative transformations of economies, organizational forms, polities, and identities. In some regions of the world, such as Asia and the Mediterranean, state organizations and their agents have been present and variably effective for several thousands of years. The acting out of pastoral production and nomadic movement is itself contingent on environmental conditions, as are the more specific orientations of generalization/specialization and consumption/market. Postpeasant pastoralists, such as shepherds in Tuscany— detached from their original peasant communities and individually adapted to farm-based production, capitalist market exchange, and structures of government and private finance—are fully integrated into the modern state system. Access to jobs through the labor market has been controlled by Israeli agencies, and these agencies have regulations about entry into urban zones.
