Dynamic Mutual Adaptation: Human-Animal Interaction in Reindeer Herding Pastoralism

Most of the existing anthropological literature that recognizes human-animal interaction as being at the core of nomadic pastoralism focuses on nomads as the only active agents of this interaction. Nomads interact with their animals by either adapting their actions to animal behavior or by changing this behavior in ways to suit them. Based on empirical material from two groups of reindeer herding nomads in northern Russia, we suggest that human-animal interaction in nomadic pastoralism can be better understood as being the result of a dynamic mutual behavioral adaptation. In the process of this adaptation, animals change their behavior in response to the herders’ actions, which in turn leads to a responsive change to herders’ patterns of actions, etc. We argue that this approach can account for the differences in both animal behavior and herding technologies across nomadic pastoralist cultures, as well as for some of the divergent developments within these cultures.