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The Material and Cultural Recovery of Camels and Camel Husbandry Among Sahrawi Refugees of Western Sahara Gabriele Volpato* and Patricia Howard

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The Material and Cultural Recovery of Camels and Camel Husbandry Among Sahrawi Refugees of Western Sahara Gabriele Volpato* and Patricia Howard Volpato and Howard Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 2014, 4:7 http://www.pastoralismjournal.com/content/4/1/7 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access The material and cultural recovery of camels and camel husbandry among Sahrawi refugees of Western Sahara Gabriele Volpato* and Patricia Howard Abstract For nearly 1,500 years, Sahrawi nomads of Western Sahara respected the camel; camels were essential to life in the desert environment, constituting both the main means of production and exchange and the keystone of Sahrawi cultural identity. The capacity to adapt to drought is crucial for the resilience of nomadic populations, which are particularly susceptible to its repeated occurrence. Knowledge of coping strategies is transmitted and embedded deeply within nomads’ cultural institutions. In 1975, the Moroccan army occupied the Sahrawi’s traditional nomadic territory, decimating camel herds and forcing most Sahrawi into refugee camps in Algeria where the Sahrawi became wholly dependent on foreign aid for their sustenance. However, with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in the early 1990s, the Sahrawi recovered part of their nomadic territory and the right to move within it, while at the same time, new flows of capital entered the camps. Refugees began to recover camel husbandry as a livelihood strategy and the camel re-emerged as a potent symbol as refugees and the Polisario Front (the Sahrawi’s political representative) struggle to assert their newfound national identity, regain access to all of their traditional territory and reaffirm their shared nomadic cultural heritage. Keywords: Camel pastoralism; Refugee camps; Forced displacement; Herd losses; Cultural identity; Livelihood strategies; Agency Introduction Studies of herd loss and recovery among contemporary For the past several decades, scholars and development nomadic populations with drought and protracted conflict organizations have increasingly focused on nomadic popu- are central to pastoralist studies (Boneh 1984; Khalif and lations in part because, across the globe, their cultures and Oba 2013; Mezhoud and Oxby 2013). Such studies are socio-ecological systems are threatened by the creation of situated within an anthropological literature that under- political boundaries, forced sedentarization and resource stands sedentarization as a recurrent phenomenon within depletion and in part because they have become aware of nomadic societies (Salzman 1980; Adano and Witsenburg the complexity and efficacy of such systems in relation to 2005; Blench 2001). The case of the Sahrawi can be resource management in harsh environmental conditions contextualized precisely within this literature. Over the (Keenan 2003; Gauthier-Pilters 1961; Chatty 2005). Re- past 1,500 years, when their camel herds were largely search has also been conducted on the keystone role of the depleted or severely weakened by drought or military camel among these populations (Köhler-Rollefson 2003), assault, Sahrawi nomads could no longer appropriate on their traditional ethnobiological and ethnoveterinary desert resources and were forced to retreat to the periph- knowledge (Volpato et al. 2013a; Mohamed and Hussein ery of their nomadic territories where they sought other 1996; Abbas et al. 2002) and on the human-camel relations means to survive outside of the desert, i.e. in oases, in from an anthropological perspective (Catley 2006). coastal towns (where fishing was possible) or in agricul- tural settlements (Caro Baroja 1955). Destitute nomads relocated to other areas either near wealthy camps or set- * Correspondence: [email protected] tlements (offering services to them, seeking assimilation Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, and surviving on public slaughter and milk redistribution), Wageningen 6706 KN, The Netherlands © 2014 Volpato and Howard; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Volpato and Howard Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 2014, 4:7 Page 2 of 23 http://www.pastoralismjournal.com/content/4/1/7 or emigrating to the agricultural villages of the Oued Draa permit, refugees struggle to reassert their agency, develop and Oued Nun or, less commonly, to the oases of central productive activities and revitalize the associated knowledge Mauritania. After herds were decimated by recurrent and practices. In the process, these are adapted to new droughts, with the return of the rains, nomads began to environmental, social, cultural, political and economic repopulate the desert with their surviving herds or animals contexts (Golooba-Mutebi and Tollman 2004; Jacobsen received in mniha (camel loans)a. Nomads who had lost 2002; Horst 2006a). all of their camels engaged in trade or other activities to Because refugees lose everything with forced displace- acquire camels and initiate their real and metaphorical ment into camps, recovery must occur from scratch. travel back towards the ‘centre of the desert’. Studies about such autochthonous recovery processes (e.g. In the 20th century, the strategies that the Sahrawi not purposively facilitated by aid agencies or governments) deploy to confront the Moroccan threat to their nomadic and of refugees’ individual and collective agency can help way of life and recover camels after dispossession while in to formulate policies that promote refugees’ material and exile in essence represent an extension or adaptation of cultural well-being. The international community can their traditional mix of strategies for dealing with drought support refugee’s own efforts to regain access to the and military assault. In 1975, for the first time in their means of subsistence (e.g. livestock, land) by facilitating history, the Sahrawi were forced to confront an enemy the economic means and necessary institutional condi- with vastly superior military power and, in the process, tions (e.g. mobility, security, legal entitlements) (Meyer lost all access to their traditional pastoral territories; most 2006). As the case study presented here shows, aid can be lost their mobility, herds and alternative means of live- instrumental to the recovery process in that it represents a lihood. Most fled Morocco’s military assaults, taking safety net for refugees who have no access to other refuge in camps where they became utterly dependent resources, removes the burden of procuring basic provi- upon foreign aid for the duration of the prolonged sions for survival while capitals are rebuilt and provides (16 years) guerrilla war that the Sahrawi waged against the seed capital for refugees’ own pursuits (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh Moroccan Army. The Sahrawi experienced greater social, 2011; Lentz et al. 2005). As Harvey and Lind (2005, p. 26) cultural and political change living as refugees in a pro- argue for Turkana pastoralists of Kenya, ‘Food aid can tracted situation. This time, the particular confluence of provide the incentive for pastoralists to hold onto animals, factors that permit refugees to proactively recover herds and thereby contribute to the livelihood recovery process and reoccupy the desert, and the means by which they after an emergency.’ have adapted to these new conditions, signals profound As refugees’ worldviews, beliefs, values, cognition changes in the economic, technical, social and cultural (including knowledge) and social relations are strongly relations of camel husbandry in the Western Sahara and rooted in their pre-exile worlds, their recovery strategies in the Sahrawi’ssocialformation. are informed by pre-exile modes of subsistence, social The study of pastoralists who have lost their herds and relations, cultural values and adaptive strategies. Especially become refugees is directly relevant not only to the under- among former pastoral and nomadic refugees, and within standing of contemporary pastoralist societies that are the constraints presented by the structure of camps and confronted with herd loss and physical displacement, but access to pastoral territories, refugees’ agency is directed as well to the study of refugees more generally and of their towards the recovery of livestock husbandry, including a attempts to recover pre-conflict/pre-disaster livelihoods. return, as far as possible, to nomadism or transhumance. Dispossessed pastoralists generally reconstitute herds only At the same time, however, refugees become integrated in the long term, which may be compared with the time within trans-regional and transnational processes through required for refugees living in protracted situations to political struggles, foreign aid, emigration and informal regain their subsistence strategies and cultural identity and formal markets for wage labour and other commod- (Khalif and Oba 2013; McCabe 1987). In refugee camps, ities. Pastoralism and nomadism are also being trans- people’s individual and collective agency - their capacity formed through economic globalization (Chatty 2005; and actions to ‘transcend the dictates of their immediate Bollig et al. 2013; Gertel and Le Heron 2011), and refugee environment and…shape their life circumstances and the herd recovery is thus accompanied by change in the course of their lives’ (Bandura 2006. p. 165) - are severely material and cultural use and management of herds constrained; they are deprived of access to most resources,
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