PASTORALISM IN INTER ACTION WITH OTHER FORMS OF LAND USE IN THE BLUE NILE AREA OF SUDAN [Ed. Günther Schlee] PROJECT OUTLINE AND FIELD NOTES 2009–10 HALLE (SAALE) 2012 MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY DEPartment ‘IntegraTION AND CONFLICt’ FIELD NOTES AND RESEARCH PROJECTS MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, DEPARTMENT ‘IntegraTION AND CONFLICT’, FIELD NOTES AND RESEARCH PROJECTS Pastoralism in Interaction with other Forms of Land Use in the Blue Nile Area of the Sudan: Project Outline and Field Notes 2009–10 Published by Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) P. O. Box 11 03 51 D - 06017 Halle /Saale (Germany) 9270 2׀0345׀Phone 49 http://www.eth.mpg.de ISSN 2193-987X Editor: Günther Schlee Assisted by: Viktoria Zeng and Robert Dobslaw Cover Photo: Smallstock at a well (929.jpg), Sennar State, Sudan, 2010 © Günther Schlee Printed 2012 by Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) © 2012 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory Note ..........................................................................................................iii Project Outline (2009): Pastoralism in Interaction with other Forms of Land Use in the Blue Nile Area of Sudan ..................................... 1 FIELD NOTES 2009 Damazin (August 13 till 16) .......................................................................................... 9 Tarro And Sireu (August 18 till 20) ............................................................................. 23 Abu-Hujaar (November 5 till 20) ................................................................................ 35 Abu-Hujaar Ajuula (November 15) ............................................................................. 39 Abu-Hujaar West (November 16) ................................................................................ 41 West Of Sinja (November 18) ...................................................................................... 45 East Of Sinja (November 19) ....................................................................................... 53 Abu-Hujaar (November 20 till 21) .............................................................................. 55 Damazin (November 22 till 24) ................................................................................... 59 Damazin Khartoum (November 21 till 23) .................................................................. 67 Damazin (December 20 till 26) .................................................................................... 83 FIELD NOTES 2010 Artificial Insemination (January )3 .............................................................................. 91 Dinder (January 21 till 24) ........................................................................................... 93 Dinder National Park (January 21) ............................................................................ 115 Garri (February 9 till 11) ............................................................................................ 117 Damazin (July 26 till August 5) ................................................................................. 123 Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 131 Index .......................................................................................................................... 133 Text and Film Sources ............................................................................................... 141 INTRODUCTORY NOTE (GÜNTHER SCHLEE) This booklet, and others which will follow, serves the purpose of presenting data in a fashion which is readable for other researchers than the one who had taken the notes on which these accounts are based. Primarily, this applies for co-workers on the same project, but also for others. It is further meant to facilitate to explain what our work is all about to possible co- operation partners. A third purpose is to provide pictorial illustrations more generously than commercial book publications with a publishing house usually do. The volumes in this series are not meant to replace proper publications about our results in books and journal articles. In relation to these, they have two functions: a preparatory one and a complementary one. Here data can be laid out more fully than in a commercial book publication or a scholarly journal. This series describes projects and preliminary results, i.e. work in progress. We hope for constructive criticism and the reader’s kindness, as far as the weaknesses of our work are concerned. File names (of text files and pictures) are for internal use. Pastoralism in Interaction iii PROJECT OUTLINE (2009)1: PASTORALISM IN INTERACTION WITH OTHER FORMS OF LAND USE IN THE BLUE NILE AREA OF SUDAN (GÜNTHER SCHLEE) 1. AIM The aim of the project is to throw light on the decisions faced by pastoralists in the way they manage their herds and their families in the Blue Nile area (focussing on Sennar and Blue Nile states) of the Sudan. While the focus is clearly on pastoralists, the perspective of others (sedentary agriculturalists, representatives of the state) cannot be neglected, because the rights and interests of others (at any given time) are part of the constraints faced by pastoralists in their decisions. Seen in a diachronic perspective (through time), the interethnic relations, also with regard to resources used, result from and are constantly redefined by a history of interaction. The approach chosen can be called political ecology, a somewhat contested term, but ideally a line of research which attributes equal importance to human agency and the domain of the social (political) and to the natural environment (ecology). The team (see below: personnel) therefore comprises social and natural scientists. Primarily, the project is of an academic nature and aims at explaining how people interact individually and in the form of groups and alliances. Since Hardin’s article on the Tragedy of the Commons (1968 in Science 162: 1243–48), keeping animals on the open range has been a classical example of public access to resources. ‘The commons’ have come to stand for a key issue of economics. Without necessarily agreeing with Hardin, the project takes up this problem because of its relevance to social theory. (In Range Management Studies, which should be the area Hardin’s metaphor is derived from, hardly anyone agrees with him.) A secondary focus is on application. If results of the project help to reconcile competing forms of resource use (mediation) or to improve the way in which the authorities deal with these problems (policy), this will be most welcome. 2. DURATION The project is planned for four years (2009–12). As a result of this work a follow- up project or follow-up projects may be defined. The project is part of a long term programme, ‘Integration and Conflict’ (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department ‘Integration and Conflict’). 3. PERSONNEL Prof. Dr. Günther Schlee, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, project leader Dr. Elhadi Ibrahim Osman, University of Sennar, principal investigator (anthropology) Dr. Awad Karim Tijani, M.Sc., principal investigator (agriculture, ecology) Mona Adam, BA (agriculture), technical assistant to Awad Karim and Elhadi Ibrahim. More personalities are going to be invited to participate in the project. Some such perspectives will be outlined below under ‘Cooperation’. 4. EARLIER WORK Since 1974, I have worked on pastoralists, mainly in Kenya (see bibliography). In 1996, I started to do field research in the Blue Nile area. With ProfessorA l-Amin Abu-Manga 1With minor changes and an updated bibliography. Pastoralism in Interaction 1 Muhammad, University of Khartoum, I collected oral historical traditions of migrants from West Africa. I did an in-depth study of a particular village near Abu-NaÝama, the results of which are still awaiting publication. I wrote a number of articles about the Fulɓe Mbororo pastoralists of the area (Schlee 1997, 2002c, Feyissa and Schlee 2009). Elhadi Ibrahim Osman wrote a doctoral thesis about the Mbororo of the Blue Nile region which is about to be published. His earlier work comprises an M.Sc. thesis on the performance of the rural financial markets in Sinja district, a paper on the Fiju ceremony of Mbororo in the Blue Nile area, and another on the integration of Mbororo into the national economy and the wider society titled ‘The Funj Region Pastoral Fulɓe: From “Exit” to “Voice”’ which was published as of a special issue about the Sudan in the Nomadic Peoples journal (Vol. 13(1), 2010). Awad Karim Tijani is a specialist in animal production. The main field of study is poultry. His M.Sc. thesis was about the Large Baladi Sudanese chickens under rela- tively improved environmental conditions. His PhD study was about poultry nutrition. He is also the main author of an article on the same subject which has been accepted by the Journal of Veterinary Science. There are about three papers extracted from the M.Sc. thesis now in preparation. He has been assisting me in conducting a village study and in gathering data about cattle nomads in the Blue Nile area. He also supervised students who were employed for a village census. 5. COOPERATION ▫ The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, in Halle/Saale (Germany), will be the lead institution and administer the project. ▫ University of Sennar. Two principal investigators are teaching