World Development Vol. 37, No. 8, pp.

1400–1410, 2009
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
0305-750X/$ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev
doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.08.014

‘‘Custom” and Contestation: Land Reform

in Post-Socialist Mongolia
CAROLINE UPTON *
University of Leicester, United Kingdom
Summary. — Current state and development-led land reform agendas encompass formal recognition of customary rights to an histor-
ically unprecedented degree. Through analysis of historical transformations in customary tenure amongst Mongolia’s herders, this paper
maps the dynamic interplay between state influences, customary rights and practice. It questions unrealistic dichotomies between ‘‘state”
and ‘‘custom” in derivation of rights, though examining process of ‘‘institutional bricolage” at four case study sites. Results indicate the
limitations of both state and particular manifestations of community-led land reform in promoting desirable or predictable trajectories
of change, and the centrality of local reworkings of particular interventions in shaping actual practices.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Key words — Central Asia, Mongolia, pastoralism, customary tenure

1. INTRODUCTION state representatives. Such policy solutions provide a welcome

Recent developments in land policy include an unprece-
dented focus on devolution of rights and formal recognition
of customary tenure, reflecting state-led land reform agendas
and the influence of multinational donors and policy makers
(Agrawal & Ostrom, 2001; Deininger & Binswanger, 2001;
World Bank, 2003). Such land policy initiatives reflect re-
newed donor emphasis on the role of land rights in sustaining
the livelihoods of the rural poor, for whom access to common
land, mediated though customary arrangements, often forms
an integral component of their livelihoods (Beck & Naismith,
2000; Bruce & Mearns, 2002; Johnson, 2004). However, the
impacts of state and developmental influences on customary
tenure arrangements for management of common pool re-
sources (CPRs), and hence on local land use practice and live-
lihoods, remain contentious and poorly understood. The
inherent dynamism and flexibility of customary systems pose
particular challenges both to policy makers and to scholars
of land tenure (Fitzpatrick, 2005). As Peters argues (this vol-
ume; 2004), the long-fought battle to establish the efficacy of
customary tenure within policy-making circles, although
apparently successful in displacing simplistic, economistic
thinking, may itself have contributed to an alternative, but
similarly flawed model. Specifically, she sounds a warning note
concerning the normative values recently ascribed to flexibility
and negotiability in customary tenure arrangements at the ex-
pense of critical attention to winners, losers and processes of
exclusion under such arrangements. She argues that new ap-
proaches risk ‘‘obscuring critical social processes around land”
(Peters, 2004, p. 271).
These issues take on a particular complexion when applied
to pastoral livelihood systems, the empirical focus of this pa-
per. Process-oriented approaches, at the cutting edge of policy
thinking with respect to pastoral land tenure, reflect a concern
with just such flexibility, specifically with respect to resource
access and boundaries, and with promoting transparent in-
ter-group negotiation involving ‘‘legitimate” resource claim-
ants (Bruce & Mearns, 2002). In policy terms, this implies
devolution of resource rights to local users, often through sup-
port of customary tenure arrangements, with on-going negoti-
ations between claimants supported and facilitated by local
1400
redress to previously dominant state and development-led
norms and practice, these typically being grounded in notions
of carrying capacity and individualized tenure. However, is-
sues of equity, processes of exclusion, contested definitions
of customary rights and the influence of external interventions
on tenure remain unresolved to date. I argue that an enhanced
focus on the specific social relations and historical contexts
constitutive of particular customary property rights is integral
to addressing these lacunae, to understanding the nature and
transformations of such rights and to charting the limitations
of state-led land reform.
Recent developments in Mongolia’s pastoral sector exem-
plify the particular challenges of devolution of land rights
and formal recognition of customary rights and practice in
contexts wherein both spatial and social boundaries are fluid
and permeable and ‘‘custom” emerges as a particularly dy-
namic and fragmented concept. The state and development-
led focus on reform of Mongolia’s pastoral sector in recent
years has been enacted through legal instruments such as the
Land Laws (1994, 2002). These have in turn facilitated the for-
mal devolution of pasture rights to herders and the conclusion
of co-management agreements with state actors, through pro-
jects such as the World Bank Sustainable Livelihoods Project.
The longer term implications of the latter innovations are to
some extent masked by their very recent appearance, but this
does not preclude their evaluation as the most recent manifes-
tations of complex historical processes. In this paper, and
drawing on empirical material from four case study sites in
Mongolia, I illustrate the processes and social relations
through which land rights are claimed and reworked in vary-
ing and recent historical contexts. I examine struggles around
* The author would particularly like to thank all herders in case study
areas for their invaluable contributions and participation in this research.
The author is very grateful for information provided by GTZ and World
Bank staff. The financial support of the British Academy (Small Research
Grant SG-44072), ESRC and Cambridge University Committee for Ce-
ntral and Inner Asia is gratefully acknowledged. Finally, the paper also
benefited from the valuable comments of anonymous referees on an earlier
draft. Final revision accepted: August 7, 2008.
 ‘‘CUSTOM” AND CONTESTATION: LAND REFORMIN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA
the notion of custom and the inherent dynamism of customary
property rights on Mongolia’s pastoral commons. These in-
sights are used to illuminate the role and limitations of recent
state practice, laws, and policies in shaping land tenure and
land use. Empirical data thus indicate the limits of state-led
land reform. Such data also highlight the limitations of a par-
ticular manifestation of community-led land reform (see Sikor
and Mueller, 2009 for diverse meanings of community-led re-
form), wherein empowerment of communities (through state
or development-led agendas) and emphasis on customary
rights and practice may create spaces for exclusion and en-
hanced inequality. Empirical data also highlight the longitudi-
nal reworking of state practices at the local level, whereby they
may become incorporated within new definitions of custom,
thereby problematising rigid state/customary dichotomies in
our understanding of land use practices. My approach does
not seek to test frameworks or typologies through the kind
of multi-site, comparative studies of CPR management re-
gimes proposed by Agrawal (2001). To paraphrase Johnson
(2004), my ambitions here are at once more modest and con-
textually and historically specific. However, the policy implica-
tions of ‘‘thick description” or the ethnographic approach, as
presented here remain clear (Geertz, 1973, cited in Peters
(2004)). Although presenting a contrast to ‘‘thin,” functional-
ist approaches concerned with production and verification of
disembedded blueprints, the ethnographic approach nonethe-
less offers the prospect of insights into broader, national,
and global processes through analysis of the local and the spe-
cific (Peters, 2004). As customary tenure becomes of increasing
interest to policy makers at state and international levels, anal-
yses of the internal functioning of specific regimes offer invalu-
able contributions to understanding the dynamism, equity,
and land use outcomes of such regimes and the extent to which
these are influenced by external actors, particularly the state.
2. STUDY AREAS AND RESEARCH METHODS
The ethnographic methods employed in my study and its
longitudinal nature are designed to highlight dynamics of
change, local perspectives, the ‘‘fuzzy” contested notions of
property rights (Verdery, 1999) and their links to social forms,
along a continuum of historical change. Theories were thus
developed in an inductive, iterative manner throughout the
fieldwork, in accordance with the precepts of grounded theory
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990) with emergent issues from the initial
fieldwork period (2000) forming the basis for subsequent
empirical work.
The empirical data in this paper draw on 12 months
fieldwork in two sums in Mongolia. 1 Case study sites were
selected to enable examination of land tenure issues and insti-
tutional transformations under the contrasting ecological,
climatic and also livelihood conditions prevalent at these sites.
Arkhangai aimag and its constituent sums are located in a for-
est-steppe environment, in one of the wettest areas in Mongo-
lia, with annual temperature variations of 15 to +15 °C, and
350 mm rainfall per year. Omnogov aimag in contrast is one of
Mongolia’s driest regions, typically receiving only 127 mm
p.a., and with marked mean annual temperature variations
of 15 to +20 °C. Herding is the dominant livelihood strategy
in both aimags. Recent government statistics and participatory
poverty assessments indicate that herders in Omnogov are
relatively wealthy in terms of both livestock holdings and own-
ership of material goods such as electric motors, vehicles, and
TV sets (NSOM & World Bank, 2001). Much of this wealth
may be equated to the growing dominance of cashmere goats
1401
in regional herds (in excess of 60%, compared to 45% in 1990).
However, as in Arkhangai, this wealth is unevenly distributed,
with the recent national statistics indicating marked and grow-
ing inequality amongst herding households.
During fieldwork events in 2000 and 2001 household surveys
were conducted with all winter herding groups (individual
families or khot ail) 2 in each bag, equivalent to a total of
183 groups in Bulgan sum and 67 groups in Tariat sum. These
were designed to collect basic livelihood, demographic, and
socio-economic information, but survey instruments were
dominated by open-ended questions concerning social organi-
zation, land rights, and land use. Follow-up semi-structured
interviews were conducted with all groups in 2001. These
focused on issues of pasture rights, the fluid social and spatial
boundaries pertinent to such rights and contested notions and
definitions of customary rights, all of which emerged as central
to understanding tenure issues during the first phase of
fieldwork. In particular, herders were encouraged to discuss
the nature and source(s) of their own pasture rights and the
specific (and in some cases changing) meanings they attributed
to notions of customary rights. In-depth key informant
interviews and oral histories were undertaken with selected
herders throughout the two fieldwork periods, in addition to
participant observation while living in herding camps. Inter-
views were also undertaken with local, regional, and national
government officials and staff of development bodies active in
the research areas.
A further period of fieldwork at one of the Bulgan sites in
2004 was designed specifically to explore emergent new
herders’ groups, institutions, and tenure issues linked to the
activities of international development projects in this bag,
namely the World Bank Sustainable Livelihoods and the
GTZ Nature Conservation and Bufferzone Development
projects. This involved in-depth semi-structured interviews
with 105 herding groups, primarily from the original 2000–
01 sample, but focusing specifically on issues of herding
practice and linkages to rights, institutions, and institutional
transformations contingent on developmental interventions.
3. PASTORAL ORGANIZATION AND LAND TENURE
IN MONGOLIA
(a) Introduction
At the time of writing pastoralism remains a core compo-
nent of the Mongolian economy. More than 30% of the pop-
ulation continue to rely on livestock herding on the country’s
extensive grasslands as their main livelihood strategy. Despite
formal allocation of possession contracts for winter and spring
campsites to khot ail or larger herders’ groups under the
provisions of recent legislation, pastureland remains in state
ownership. Land rights are thus determined through a com-
plex interplay of state-derived and enforced legislation, mani-
festations and interpretations of herders’ customary rights and
the reworked legacy of historical institutional arrangements.
Inclusive and more exclusive land rights, reconciled through
the central principle of reciprocity, reflect not only different de-
grees of exclusivity in respect of particular pastures, but also a
degree of seasonal and social variability in such rights. In par-
ticular, reserving pasture specifically for use in winter and
spring through a system of seasonal deferral is a key aspect
of the pastoral system, as is the existence of more exclusive
rights of particular herding families or khot ail to certain
winter and spring camps, typically attributed in the recent
literature to customary usage (Fernández-Giménez, 1999;
1402 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
Mearns, 1996). However, reciprocity requires that access to lo-
cal pastures by ‘‘outsiders” is permitted in times of need, with
the expectation that such consideration will be returned as
necessary in the future. The herding system is based on herd-
ers’ seasonal movements between spring, summer, autumn,
and winter pastures, albeit with regional, ecological varia-
tions. 3
(b) Historical contexts
Current tenure patterns are shaped by the recent history of
pastoral organization and land use in the 20th and 21st centu-
ries. Until 1911, when land ownership was transferred to the
Bogd Khan, Buddhism’s leader in Mongolia, all Mongolian
land was in the ownership of the Manchu emperor (Mearns,
1993). Pasture allocation within pre-defined herding territories
(banners or hoshuu) in pre-revolutionary Mongolia was at the
discretion of secular or religious officials, and typically made
to herding camps (khot ail) within the boundaries of their par-
ticular administrative district or banner (hoshuu) (Potkanski &
Szynkiewicz, 1993). Within smaller administrative districts
(sums and bags) and with respect to each season’s pasture,
available records indicate that herders gained access to
particular grazing areas on the basis of customary usage
(Fernández-Giménez, 1999; Sneath, 2001). Winter pasture in
particular was increasingly recognized on the basis of regular
usage by particular families or khot ail while rights for summer
grazing were more flexible (Bawden, 1968).
Following the communist revolution in 1921, all land passed
into state ownership and the powers of banner princes, their
officials and Buddhist monasteries were progressively eroded.
Customary rights reportedly retained importance as means
to access land, although the mechanisms by and degree to
which they were reconstituted amongst the many displaced
herders remain opaque.
More radical reorganization of pastoralism occurred during
the collective era (late 1950s to early 1990s), although land
remained under state ownership. The collective system in
Mongolia was supportive of certain characteristics of the
pre-collective era, notably seasonal mobility, which the collec-
tives (negdel) facilitated through provision of mechanized
transport between key seasonal pastures and in times of emer-
gency. 4 State goals for land use were also firmly production
oriented. Pasture use was officially under the control of the
negdels or state farms (sangiin aj ahui). However, according
to the published literature customary rights and institutions
coexisted to varying degrees with centralized state control,
and thus continued to shape land rights and pasture use, albeit
with the tacit approval and support of the collective (Mearns,
1996, 2002). The effective replacement of khot ail by suur, that
is, small groups of (theoretically at least) unrelated house-
holds, and the allocation of single-species negdel herds to these
new production units did, however, contribute to reworking or
evolution of new ‘‘customary” rights for some herders, for
example where species’ requirements dictated the use of new
winter or spring pastures.
The decollectivization of Mongolian pastoralism in the early
1990s marked the culmination of a series of radical reorgani-
zations of the herding sector in the 20th century. It included
a major two-stage privatization of collective assets such as
livestock and winter shelters. The exclusion of pastureland
from this process was initially portrayed as anomalous by
some western donors. The Asian Development Bank (ADB)
complained that ‘‘currently there is no private ownership of
land. As a consequence, land tenure insecurity causes disincen-
tives to invest in land improvements.” (ADB, 1994, p. 33, cited
in Sneath (2003)). Thus, certain strands of international devel-
opmental advice in the early post decollectivization years fo-
cused on private ownership of land, informed by notions of
an incipient ‘‘Tragedy,” and driven by western concepts of
property and ownership largely alien to Mongolian pastoral-
ists’ custodial relationship with land (Sneath, 2001). Such
arguments did not, however, go unchallenged. Since the early
1990s influential voices within the donor and policy commu-
nity, for example within IFAD and UNDP, have argued for
the role of customary tenure in the future development of
Mongolia’s pastoral sector.
The latter ideas have come to the fore in legislation and
policy particularly since 2000, as reflected in a series of
recent major international developmental initiatives imple-
mented in conjunction with the Mongolian state. Recent
land legislation (particularly the Land Laws, 1994, 2002)
has also provided a framework through which the state
has attempted to reclaim a role in pastureland tenure and
use issues, albeit with rather differing goals from its collec-
tive-era predecessor. According to Mearns (2002, p. 6) the
1994 Land Law was intended by the state as ‘‘a tool for con-
servation-oriented rather than production-oriented land
management.” These new approaches have been shaped by
a range of overlapping and interlinked factors including in-
creased numbers of herding families and livestock, reported
reductions in mobility and/or conflict over key pasture re-
sources, overgrazing and the impacts of recent natural disas-
ters (dzud), which impoverished many herders. Enhanced,
legible tenure security through formal devolution of rights
to herders’ groups has thus emerged as a policy solution, al-
beit grounded in the strengthening or revival of customary
rights and practice (Mearns, 2002; Ykhanbai, 2004).
4. LAND RIGHTS AND LAND USE: AN
EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Empirical material concerning the complex interrelation-
ships between customary and state influence on land rights
and land use is presented in four sections: Section (a) explores
aspects of herders’ social organization, kinship, and identity as
determinants of land rights and land use; Section (b) examines
the historical dimensions of the complex, dynamic, and over-
lapping sources of land rights, including both various manifes-
tations of the state and contested notions of custom, which
underscore current land use patterns; Section (c) interrogates
the differentiated impacts of the recent legislative changes
and their enforcement by state actors on land tenure and land
use, thus highlighting the limitations of state interventions;
Section (d) examines the recent evolution and contested under-
standings of customary rights in the light of dzud events and
discourses of ‘‘conflict.” A final section, Section (e), focuses
on the influence of particular international development inter-
ventions (enacted in conjunction with the state) on systems of
land rights and land use. In particular, it highlights how the
emphasis on custom, community, and community-led ap-
proaches to land issues in recent interventions may create
space for local exclusion and exacerbation of inequalities.
(a) Households, khot ail, and land use
In post-decollectivization Mongolia land rights have typi-
cally been contested and enacted at the level of individual
households or khot ail. Table 1 provides summary information
concerning the nature, composition, and stability of these
basic herding groups at case study sites (Table 1).
 ‘‘CUSTOM” AND CONTESTATION: LAND REFORMIN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA 1403

Table 1. Comparison of case study sites (winter groups, 2000–01)

Tariat sum, Arkhangai aimag Bulgan sum, Omnogov aimag
Bag A Bag B Bag C Bag D
a
Mean size basic herding group 19 25 5 6
Mean household sizeb 4 4 4 4
Dominant kinship patternsc Joint family (29.4%) Joint family (37.5%) Lone nuclear family (75%) Lone nuclear family (62.5%)
Seasonal stabilityd 28.6% 21.9% 87.9% 78.3%
Temporal stabilitye 8 7 10 8
Percentage of core groups which include 29% 23% 27% 32%
‘‘New herders”f
Mean household wealth: total private 121/53 114/58 232/45 239/82
livestock/bodg
a,b
Number of persons, including children.
c
Percentages denote dominant kinship patterns amongst winter herding groups, 2000–01.
d
Percentage of core winter herding groups who typically remain together throughout the year.
e
Mean no. of years core winter 2000–01 groups have reformed.
f
‘‘New herders” are those who only adopted herding as their main livelihood strategy post 1991 and thus were not employed as herders during the
collective era. I exempt children of collective era herders from this category, except where employed as adults in non-herding occupations prior to adopting
their current livelihoods as herders.
g
Bod are traditional Mongolian livestock units. One is equivalent to 1 horse, yak, or cow, 7 sheep and 10 goats, while 1 camel is equivalent to 1.5 bod
(Fernández-Giménez, 2002).

Winter herding groups in Tariat are typically much larger
than those in the desert steppe case study areas, reflecting
the importance of khot ail comprising five to six households
as core herding groups in these forest-steppe environments.
Khot ail offer increased efficiency and economies of scale in
herding through co-operation in everyday herding tasks, in
addition to social and ritual functions. However, their devel-
opment is constrained by ecological limitations in arid areas,
such as Bulgan, where pasture conditions preclude co-resi-
dence of large herding groups and therefore single households
predominate, with some khot ail of only two or occasionally
three households. 5
Residence forms are seasonally and also temporally unstable
to varying degrees. For example, winter residence groups in
forest-steppe environments separated during the annual graz-
ing cycle in more than 70% of cases. Access to winter shelters
and pastures, in exchange for labour, has been hypothesized as
a major factor in compelling ‘‘new” or weaker herders to join
the winter khot ail of wealthier, more established and often
non-related herders (Bold, 1996; Mearns, 1996). 6 However,
this did not emerge as a key factor in case study areas, in part
due to allocations of winters shelters and local interpretations
of licensing provisions of the 1994 Land Law (Section (c)).
Seasonal land use patterns may be considered the legible
manifestations of herders’ property rights, albeit modified by
diverse ecological and social opportunities and constraints
(Table 2).
Movement patterns in the desert steppe areas, especially bag
C, continue to reflect the ‘‘Gobi Type” movement system iden-
tified by Simukov in 1934 (cited in Sneath (1999)), in which
herders spend winters in mountain areas and spend summers
on the plains, with annual movements of only 30–40 km be-
tween two or three main seasonal camps. In the more temper-
ate forest-steppe areas winter pastures are typically in higher
elevations in sheltered areas in or at the foot of mountains,
while summer grazing is on valley floors or plains adjacent
to major rivers, typically with distinct spring and autumn sea-
sonal pastures at interim locations.
Constraints on or determinants of mobility of individual
households/khot ail in case study areas were readily divisible
into four non-mutually exclusive categories, of which land
rights or entitlements were only one: material (lack of trans-
port/labour power); attitudinal (ideas of lack of necessity of
movement); net resource scarcity (lack of grazing due to
weather changes); and socially determined scarcity (lack of
rights or entitlements to land or other resources). However,
entitlements through contested and evolving notions of cus-
tomary rights emerged as central in shaping herders’ practice.
In both case study environments winter pastures formed the
stable core of the seasonal cycle. Customary rights to these
pastures were the most individualized and widely recognized,
with the same herding families returning to the same winter
pastures year after year. Rights were increasingly manifested
in physical structures, namely winter shelters, which, together
with the 0.07 ha land area on which they stood, formed the
winter campsites to which particular herders held licences allo-
cated by the local sum administration. The basis of these allo-
cations in historical, contested, and reinvented notions of

Table 2. Seasonal land use patterns

Tariat sum, Arkhangai aimag Bulgan sum, Omnogov aimag
Bag A Bag B Bag C Bag D
Mean annual movement distance (km) 24 24 32 17
Frequency of annual movement distances by category
10 km or less 25.7% 28.1% 17.4% 59.7%
11–20 km 20% 25% 20.2% 18.1%
20+ km 54.3% 46.9% 62.4% 22.2%
No. of main seasonal camps per yeara 3–4 3–4 2–3 2–3
a
Particularly in seasons other than winter herders often make several subsidiary movements around a particular area or point location such as a well, in
addition to movement between these main seasonal camps. Data presented here do not therefore denote number of movements per year.
1404 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
custom is explored further in Section (b). Spring shelters were
also common in Tariat, with summer grazing being the least
exclusive and most variable part of the seasonal cycle in both
areas. Herders in bag D were notably more sedentary than in
other bags, reflecting the higher proportion of new herders in
the bag and their diversification into vegetable growing, as a
supplementary component of their livelihoods. In interviews
conducted by the author with herding households in 2000
some new herders also cited their own perceived lack of enti-
tlement to distant winter pastures as influencing relatively sed-
entary lifestyles, which were, in many cases, also facilitated by
small numbers of livestock.
(b) Sources of post-collective land rights
and their social and historical dimensions
To date, writing on Mongolian pastoralism has placed
remarkably little emphasis on the need to deconstruct ideal-
ized, homogenous constructs of ‘‘custom,” particularly the
role and meaning of ‘‘customary pasture rights” or as typically
referred to by herders ulamjlalt belcheer ashiglalt, and the rel-
ative strength of claims drawing on customary rights of differ-
ing historical origins. These lacunae are addressed below as
integral to understanding the nature and functioning of cus-
tomary regimes and their interplay with the state.
Dissonant notions of custom rapidly began to emerge from
discussions with herders in the field. These were partially
grounded in notions concerning historical continuity of pas-
ture use as a basis for claiming customary rights, but also re-
flected processes of strategic reinvention of custom as herders
sought legitimacy for their practices and claims, through a
process described by Cleaver as ‘‘institutional bricolage”
(Cleaver, 2002) 7(Table 3).
Over 90% of herding households or khot ail in the more fer-
tile forest-steppe region claimed historical continuity of use as
the basis of their rights to particular winter pastures, based on
their own or their ancestors’ usage in the collective and/or pre-
collective period. Rights of both collective and pre-collective
origins were typically described as ‘‘customary” (ulamjlagd-
san). Even new herders attributed their rights to the collective
period and described these as customary in some instances, for
example where they inherited a winter shelter acquired by their
parents at decollectivization, thus acquiring de facto rights to
surrounding grazing. In the more arid desert steppe case study
areas some 71% of herding groups (individual families or khot
ail) claimed historical continuity of use as a basis for their pas-
ture rights. Again, rights of differing historical origin were ci-
ted as customary.
Further examination of the reorganization of herding prac-
tice in case study areas during the collective era suggests that
displacement of herders from their pre-collective tursun nutag 8
was relatively common, especially in the desert steppe bags
(bags C and D). Such relocation and disruption of preceding
customary rights may be attributed to factors ranging from
the reorganization of livestock holdings into single species
herds, to changes in the basic herding unit from khot ail to suur
Table 3. Historical origins of current pasture rights (as claimed by herders, winter 2000–01)
Tariat sum, Arkhangai aimag
Bag A (%)
Pre-collective (and collective) 40
Collective 51.4
Decollectivization/post decollectivization 8.6
Other – –
and well and shelter building programs instituted by the new
negdel. In bag C and generally for Tariat sum this program re-
sulted in relocation of herders from high mountainous areas,
inaccessible by collective vehicle, to plain areas, in addition to
the opening up of previously unused pasture areas around
new mechanical wells in bag C. Thus claims to customary rights
grounded in historical usage reflect the effective creation of new
rights for many herders in the collective era. Claims based on
customary pre-collective usage continue to be consciously em-
ployed by herders to support claims to ‘‘empty” areas. As one
herder told me: ‘‘. . .now everyone has got their private animals,
so people need a place to stay and they try to find and claim an
empty place by saying ‘it is my ancestors’ place. . ..” However,
pasture rights in case study areas in 2000–01 appeared to be
most widely respected on the basis of shelter ownership, which
reflected herders’ diverse interpretations of historically
grounded, customary rights to varying degrees.
(c) State influences on post-decollectivization land tenure
Any examination of the complex trajectory of land tenure
reform in Mongolia’s recent history cannot be complete with-
out due cognisance of the state and legal framework within
which these innovations occur. In the following section I con-
centrate particularly on allocation of winter shelters at decol-
lectivization and especially on the post-decollectivization Land
Laws (1994 and 2002) as the main instruments through which
the state has attempted to reclaim a role in the regulation of
pastureland tenure and use in the aftermath of the negdel sys-
tem and its demise.
As previously observed, winter shelters are particularly
important as the key to access to vital winter grazing and as
the visible manifestation of herders’ land rights, although the
extent to which winter shelter ownership implies exclusive
use of surrounding pasture has been a matter of some conten-
tion and conflict in recent years. The allocation of winter shel-
ters to established users at decollectivization by the soon to be
defunct negdel favored the continuation of customary rights or
usage, interpreted in this process as those dating from the col-
lective era. Over 95% of herding groups in all case study areas
claimed ownership of a winter shelter, primarily on the basis
of shelter allocation on privatization of collective assets and
on their own established collective-era usage (Table 4).
Allocation of winter shelters and rights to broader pasture
areas were subsequently addressed in the 1994 Land Law, un-
der which bag governors were given rights over timing of sea-
sonal movements and control of common land not allocated
for other uses, while sum governors were required to allocate
contracts for winter and spring campsites to herders (Fernán-
dez-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004).
Despite the addition of this law to the statute books in 1994,
in 2000 some 80% of herders in case study areas commented
on the effective absence of local government from pasture reg-
ulation and perceived a need for greater involvement by local
authorities, a conclusion echoed in other parts of Mongolia
(Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004). The legal rights
Bulgan sum, Omnogov aimag
Bag B (%) Bag C (%) Bag D (%)
28.1 48.6 43.1
62.5 21.6 29.2
9.4 18 27.7
11.8 –
 ‘‘CUSTOM” AND CONTESTATION: LAND REFORMIN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA 1405

Table 4. Source and extent of winter shelter ownership (2000–01)

Tariat sum, Arkhangai aimag Bulgan sum, Omnogov aimag
Bag A (%) Bag B (%) Bag C (%) Bag D (%)
No shelter – – 4.5 –
Privately owned shelter 100 100 62.2 100
From privatization (decollectivization) 86a 88b 61c 50d
Built post decollectivization – 6 27 38
Othere – – 3 7
No data 14 6 9 5
Use shelter owned by livestock institute – – 33.3 –
a
Of privatization sub-total (n = 30), 67% claim that the shelter is the one used by themselves or by their parents in the collective time, 3% (n = 30) have
dismantled their shelter from privatization and rebuilt it elsewhere.
b
Of privatization sub-total (n = 28), 86% claim that the shelter is the one used by themselves or by their parents in the collective time.
c
Of privatization sub-total (n = 42), 71% claim that the shelter is the one used by themselves or by their parents in the collective time, 2% (n = 42) have
dismantled their shelter from privatization and rebuilt it in another location, 5% (n = 42) no longer use the shelters they obtained from privatization and
have relocated to less crowded areas, or to be closer to water.
d
Of privatization sub-total, (n = 36), 69% claim that the shelter is the one used by themselves or by their parents in the collective time, 11% (n = 36)
obtained shelters at decollectivization, but no longer use these shelters and have sold them or given to children and built new elsewhere.
e
‘‘Other” includes purchase of shelters or claiming empty shelters.

and obligations of state representatives at sum and bag levels
under the Law were thus rarely fully discharged, a situation
attributed by governors to their own lack of financial and la-
bour capacity to fulfill such obligations. Thus, despite a degree
of decentralisation in modalities of reform in this instance,
desirable changes in terms of sustainable use of pasture were
stymied by the state’s lack of capacity at this local level (see
Sikor & Mueller, 2009). As one ex-governor told me ‘‘I have
tried to implement the provisions of the Law, but I haven’t
managed to do so. . .I have tried to control pasture manage-
ment in a systematic way, but failed. . .so now, I have just
given up. . .the herders just negotiate together. . ..”
One area where state actors have adopted a more influential
role under the auspices of the 1994 Law is, however, with re-
spect to the issue of winter campsites. In Article 51 the Law
refers only to common use of summer and autumn pastures,
while elsewhere requiring the allocation of winter and spring
campsites (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004). Confusion
has arisen over whether ‘‘winter and spring campsites” refers
only to the shelter and the immediate area on which it is con-
structed or whether it also includes rights to surrounding graz-
ing (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004; Hansted &
Duncan, 2001).
In Tariat and Bulgan a key issue is whether rights to winter
shelters are recognized at the level of individual households or
the khot ail groups of which households may be members. As a
direct outcome of changes in the implementation process in
Tariat sum during 1994–2000, herders in 2000–01 were divided
almost equally between those with winter shelters only in the
name of the khot ail leader and those with more secure claims
in the names of their own individual households. Herders were
also divided in their understanding of the implications of the
licence between those who considered the licence to apply so-
lely to the shelter and its immediate area (the winter campsite)
or else to the whole seasonal pasture. Sum administration offi-
cials however, were clear that licences pertained only to the
area on which the shelter was located.
In Bulgan sum where single households dominate, issues sur-
rounding the names included on the licence are less important.
As in Tariat, Bulgan sum officials agreed that the licence per-
tained only to the 0.07 ha campsite area, for which it implied
exclusive rights, and also that licences were renewable on com-
pletion of a term, although they varied in understanding of the
length of that term, with 5–15 years typically reported in Bul-
gan as opposed to 60 years in Tariat. The right of renewal was
complemented by a right of inheritance, both as stated under
the provisions of the law and as understood by the two sum
administrations. It therefore appeared to afford effectively per-
manent rights to a particular shelter and campsite to a family
or group of families and their descendents and was understood
as such by the herders themselves.
In both sums competing claims to shelters were resolved by
the administrations primarily on the basis of established
usage. This has usually meant confirming ‘‘customary” claims
to shelters, typically as derived from the collective era and
decollectivization, but also reinforced by earlier claims in some
instances. However, another effect of interpretation and imple-
mentation of the 1994 Land Law was the apparently equal
weight afforded to more recent claims derived through con-
struction of new shelters in the previously unoccupied or
‘‘empty” places. New building was most prevalent in Bulgan
sum (Table 4), where it had occurred predominantly amongst
new herders or recently independent children of established
herders. Herders in all four case study areas who had con-
structed new winter or other seasonal shelters claimed to have
done so typically without permission from the local adminis-
tration and often without any discussion with the neighboring
herders. Established herders seemed effectively powerless to
stop or protest against such new building, with some even
being displaced from their established areas and thus contrib-
uting to new building in their turn. Thus the licensing of camp-
sites (including shelter structures) under the 1994 Land Law
not only formalized established rights to customary places de-
rived from historical usage, but also appeared implicated in
the de facto creation of new customary rights or claims which
had equivalent legitimacy in the eyes of the law and against
which other herders seemed powerless to act.
The revised Land Law (2002) came into force in May 2003.
In a new provision the 2002 version of the Law states that,
‘‘citizens of Mongolia may jointly possess land under winter
and spring settlements through their hot ail communities”.
This at least clarifies that campsites may be allocated under
possession as opposed to use contracts, although overall the
Law does not appear to explicitly either allow or preclude allo-
cation of pastures as distinct from settlements or campsites. 9
It also includes additional, apparently contradictory, emphasis
on the need to maintain common access to pastureland, irre-
spective of the existence of any possession contracts, while at
the same time requiring protection of winter and autumn pas-
tures from out of season grazing.
1406 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
According to some recent commentators, devolution of
rights to herders groups, thus supporting and strengthening
customary rights and practice, offers the potential for resolu-
tion of at least some of the difficulties facing the post-decollec-
tivization pastoral sector (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan,
2004; Mearns, 2002). The 2002 Law has been widely inter-
preted, for example amongst donors, as permitting herders’
groups, for example neighborhood groups using the same four
seasonal pastures, to negotiate use or possession contracts
with sum authorities for winter and spring pastures and camp-
sites and even their entire customary grazing areas (UNDP,
2002; Ykhanbai, 2004). However, Ykhanbai (2004) notes that
allocation of summer and autumn pastures even under use,
much less possession, contracts is not fully supported by the
2002 Law. Furthermore, during interviews conducted by the
author in 2006, UNDP and Center for Policy Research
(CPR) staff in Ulaanbaatar argued that the 2002 Law actually
represented a backwards step with respect to secure land ten-
ure for herders, as in their view it permitted only use contracts
for pasture, while the 1994 Land Law did at least leave the
way open for granting of possession rights for pastureland.
Thus debates continue over the precise limits and interpreta-
tion of current legislative provisions, although these have
not prevented the formal allocation of pasture rights to herd-
ers groups in parts of rural Mongolia. 10 Concerns have also
been raised over issues such as inclusivity and representative-
ness of such groups, relationships with non-group members,
whether membership should be inheritable, and how to resolve
issues of group and resource boundaries (e.g., Morton, Am-
gaa, & Enkhbat, 2002). It is to specific examples of these ini-
tiatives that I turn in Section (e).
(d) Otor, dzud, and conflict: the decay of reciprocity?
Before considering these latest manifestations of state and
development-led tenure reform, further aspects of the fluidity
and constantly reworked nature of customary rights must be
addressed.
Conflict has been deemed a core aspect of pastoral systems,
due precisely to such ongoing reworkings and reinterpretation
of rights (Bruce & Mearns, 2002). Indeed, in case study areas
activities at the borderline of established rules were variously
interpreted by herders, with constant renegotiation and chal-
lenging of rules commonplace. Definitions of ‘‘trespassing,”
that is, use of another’s pasture in contravention of established
rights, varied between herders, with identical behavior re-
ported as trespassing by some, being interpreted by others as
within the boundaries of acceptable, dynamic, and constantly
reworked practice. Where herders raised issues of disagree-
ments or debates around such ‘‘marginal” practice, these were
presented as part of daily realities rather than overt expres-
sions of serious conflict. Rights and norms for pasture use
have adapted to suit the post-decollectivization situation, at
least in the minds of some herders. For example grazing on
winter pastures in the summer months, although not in the au-
tumn, was presented as part of a new norm by some herders in
Bulgan sum, despite the fact that the revised 2002 Land Law
forbids any out of season grazing of winter or spring pastures.
In the Tariat study areas herders in particular valleys also re-
ported a change in practice whereby they had begun to return
to winter pasture early, and graze it in the autumn, with the
expectation that they would go on otor, that is, undertake ra-
pid long distance movements to other pasture areas in order to
fatten livestock, in the winter months.
The fluidity and varying interpretations of internalized rules
and norms governing acceptable practice emerged from these
analyses, with herders engaged in constantly reworking cus-
tomary rights and practice in a process akin to Cleaver’s insti-
tutional bricolage (Cleaver, 2001). Collective-era rules
specifying timings and distances of movement from winter
pasture also contributed to this bricolage, being accorded
the status of ‘‘custom” in the accounts of some new herders.
As Ward argues, ‘‘what may be new and controversial today
may well become ‘traditional’ in the future” (Ward, 1997, cited
in Fitzpatrick (2005, p. 455)).
Equally, well-established traditional or customary tenets of
herding rights and practice may be eroded or challenged.
The principle of reciprocity and also flexibility of social and
spatial boundaries is encapsulated in the traditional practice
of otor. Over 80% of herders in the Tariat case study areas
were compelled to undertake otor, for many for the first time
without state (negdel) assistance, in 2000–01 in response to
winter dzud (natural disasters). Herders at the Bulgan sites
were required to act as hosts for incoming herders from other
dzud affected districts in 2001, often to the detriment of their
own pasture use and access, especially following the break-
down of one of the few functioning mechanical wells.
Although the principle of reciprocity survived these events, it
was evidently under strain, especially in the latter bags as herd-
ers became more defensive of the perceived boundaries of their
property. Events of 2000–01 in case study areas thus in differ-
ing ways challenged both the inclusive and exclusive aspects of
the pastoral system. Otor herders expressed concerns over per-
ceived hardening of boundaries to resources, while recipient or
host herders were instrumental in generating community-led
pressures for greater clarity and enforcement of rights, hence
suggesting changing attitudes toward more exclusive concepts
of property, at least amongst the latter category of herders.
Reconciling these tensions remains a key challenge for the
new policy initiatives, as evidenced by subsequent develop-
ment interventions and tenure reforms in bag C.
(e) Development, groups, and devolution
In the following section I consider, briefly, the nature and
impact of the recent tenure reforms in bag C, the only one
of my four case study bags in which the presence of interna-
tional development projects had impacted substantially on
customary patterns of social organization and land rights by
2004, under the auspices of two distinct projects. 11 Such re-
forms may be considered state-led and initiated, but also com-
munity-led in that, through devolution of rights, they opened
up new spaces for reworked and reinvented customary prac-
tices to shape land tenure and use.
The joint Mongolian/German (GTZ) Nature Conservation
and Bufferzone Development project commenced activities in
the bag in 1995, with the stated aim of contributing to the sus-
tainable conservation/protection of Mongolia’s ecosystems.
The bag lies within Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park
(GGSNP). Community groups formed in multiple bags
through the GTZ project intervention were not intended by
project staff to be the foci of an overt tenure reform program,
but rather to facilitate biodiversity conservation, livelihood
improvements and co-operation and collective action between
herding households. However, despite these priorities, one
community group had concluded a contract with the relevant
sum administration and the Protected Area Authority (PAA)
by 2001, by which resource use rights and management
responsibilities for all four seasons grazing areas were trans-
ferred to the community for an initial period of 15 years. Is-
sues of exclusion of non-community herders were yet to be
fully resolved. No such formal agreements had been concluded
 ‘‘CUSTOM” AND CONTESTATION: LAND REFORMIN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA
in bag C at the time of writing. However, the creation of six
active, formalized herders groups or communities in the study
bag by 2004, under the auspices of the GTZ project, had none-
theless begun to exert influence on pasture use, rights, and ten-
ure in the bag.
GTZ communities, or nukhurlul, to use the Mongolian term,
typically comprised between 10 and 15 households, some of
whom may be part of khot ail, or between 40 and 60 people
(see Table 1). In the following sections of the paper, any refer-
ence to community denotes these specific groups, rather than
community in its more general sense. Each community or nuk-
hurlul had an elected leader and committee, selected by mem-
ber herders. Community membership in no way implied
formation of a single herding camp, although community
households typically had winter shelters in close proximity.
Thus, community members were not co-resident in the sense
of khot ail, but households and khot ail of one community usu-
ally shared the same key seasonal grazing areas. Community
membership was based on individual subscription, but typi-
cally required a financial contribution or contribution in kind,
for example a goat and one kilogram of cashmere, or up to
50,000 tg in cash. 12 Members typically included both relatives
and non-relatives, although kinship assumed greater impor-
tance in particular communities. In 2004 52% (n = 100) of
households/khot ail in bag C claimed membership of one of
the bag’s six active communities. Patterns of community mem-
bership differed geographically throughout the bag territory,
with factors such as labour power and wealth assuming vary-
ing degrees of importance. Non-membership did not necessar-
ily imply exclusion; for a small minority of non-member
herders, community membership held no appeal. However,
in 2004 non-members typically espoused positive attitudes to
community membership, but felt unable to join communities
for a variety of reasons. The westerly part of the bag was char-
acterized by particularly low rates of community membership
in 2004 (20%, n = 40), attributed by herders to their relative
isolation from the bag center and thus from sources of infor-
mation such as bag meetings, and in some instances to their
own lack of confidence in nukhurlul due to the recent demise
of one community group in the area. Thus, although former
members of that community continued to reside in the area,
they no longer considered themselves part of a formalized nuk-
hurlul, and group meetings or activities under the banner of
the nukhurlul had ceased to occur. Not all non-community
members had discounted the possible benefits of community
membership. However, many cited a growing sense of exclu-
sion from more distant ‘‘successful” communities around the
bag center and from grazing areas in these parts of the bag.
During earlier fieldwork events mobility between the eastern
and western parts of the bag was evident amongst a minority
of herders. However one such herder observed: ‘‘. . .now the
community people have gathered and stay close to each other
and it’s difficult to move to these community areas. . .other
people can’t move there. . ..”
Non-members in the eastern part of the bag cited both finan-
cial and labour constraints as barriers to their membership,
with some households viewing inability to send family mem-
bers to participate in all community activities as necessarily
precluding their membership. Concern was widely expressed
amongst non-members regarding a perceived ‘‘hardening” of
communities’ social boundaries, for example, where communi-
ties had reached an optimum size for efficient co-operation
and organization, or where community leaders favored the
recruitment of wealthy rather than poor households in the fu-
ture. Thus, non-community members throughout bag C cited
multiple axes of exclusion as precluding their membership of
1407
nukhurlul; with poverty and lack of labour power emerging
as material issues, particularly in the east. However, data from
the western part of the bag suggest the importance of issues
such as trust and confidence in new institutional forms as fac-
tors shaping nukhurlul membership (for a detailed analysis of
social capital amongst emergent community groups, see Up-
ton (2008)). Physical proximity to the existing community
members also shaped prospects for membership of established
communities throughout the bag.
The impacts of these institutional innovations on pasture
rights and norms of pasture can only be indicative at present
and grounded in the perceptions of non-members, rather than
more concrete experiences of exclusion, given the very recent
appearance of these groups. However, given the typically
internalized, partial, and flexible institutions governing re-
source rights and access amongst herders, such perceptions
should not be discounted, even in the absence of more legible
formalized manifestations of change. A number of the recent
manifestations of successful collective action by functioning
communities, notably the repair of old mechanical wells and
creation of new surface water points in dry steppe areas, have
contributed to a sense of more exclusive rights to surrounding
summer pasture on the part of some community members,
thus extending notions of exclusivity in pasture use from win-
ter and spring to other seasons’ grazing areas. During inter-
views in 2004 one non-member herding family complained
that ‘‘community herders. . .are mainly just relatives. . .they
don’t involve other people and behave as if their community
owns the pasture.” Another cited a specific incident in which
a non-member family was refused permission to stay in sum-
mer pasture around one of the new water points by commu-
nity members. While these are isolated incidents, they serve
to highlight the potential for and arguably nascent forms of
both social and spatial exclusion linked specifically to the re-
cent development-led institutional transformations and associ-
ated incremental changes in norms and rights of pasture use.
This is not to deny that community membership has proved
to be very beneficial for some herders in bag C. During inter-
views with community members in 2001 and 2004, positive ac-
counts of the impacts of nukhurlul membership on livelihoods,
for example through labour sharing and processing of live-
stock materials, were commonplace. Rather the intention here
is to highlight the nature of and potential implications for non-
member and excluded households, who are often absent from
project evaluations. Empirical data for bag D, where the GTZ
project was not active, underline the absence of nukhurlul or
comparable institutional forms in this bag, thus highlighting
the role of development interventions in the emergence of
these sometimes beneficial but also potentially exclusionary
institutional forms. However, more detailed, comparative,
and longitudinal analysis of institutional transformations
within and without project areas is necessary before firm con-
clusions can be drawn concerning the nature, causes, and out-
comes of exclusion on the ground.
A further twist has been added in bag C by the arrival of the
World Bank Sustainable Livelihoods Project, in 2003. This
project explicitly included mapping and delineation of herders’
territories as one of its activities. The entire territory of bag C
has been divided into territories of six groups, with member-
ship based on co-residence of herders within an area contain-
ing all four seasonal pastures. According to the World Bank
staff, territories of groups were not identified in order to delin-
eate exclusive rights of a particular group. As stated by the
project representative in Bulgan sum: ‘‘we have just identified
the territories of the groups—but they can still move to other
groups’ territories, depending on rainfall and grazing, in the
1408 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
traditional way. . .” However, a further institutional innova-
tion related to the Sustainable Livelihoods project represented
the most significant evolution in tenure. By 2004 three bag
communities had formed NGOs under the auspices of the
World Bank project and concluded land use contracts with
the sum administration. One NGO comprised self-selected
members from two different GTZ communities, not all of
whose members were included in the new NGO, although
NGOs were required by the project to include a certain num-
ber of poorer and female-headed households. These contracts
were for an initial period of five years, with the potential for
subsequent extension of the contract. Under the contract,
NGO members were required to use in the land in accordance
with the provisions of the Land Law, particularly in respect of
rotational and seasonal use of pastureland, to avoid overgraz-
ing and not to use the pastureland of other herders. Herders
were also supported in protecting their pastures from lengthy
periods of use by non-members, with the option of informing
sum and bag governors of problems, where necessary. How-
ever, contracts also included a provision requiring sum gover-
nors to make provision for those on otor from other group
territories and to assist them in negotiating with resident herd-
ers. They also required resident herders to allocate seasonal
pasturelands and a winter camp to new couples or households,
including those from other groups, whom the resident herding
group agreed could stay.
Clearly, the intention of such contracts is to facilitate more
sustainable use of pastureland and enhance tenure security,
while retaining a degree of flexibility in group/NGO member-
ship and in land use rights. However, the position of non-
member herders who relied on the same pasture areas as
NGO members was unclear in 2004, as was the ability of these
new NGO groups and institutional forms to respond flexibly
in times of dzud. In 2004 non-NGO members, especially those
from communities with some members involved in the new
NGOs, expressed concerns over their own exclusion from
these latter groups. These concerns related both to their own
pasture rights and to their perception that preferential alliance
of NGO members to the NGO at the expense of the commu-
nity was beginning to undermine the cooperative functions of
the latter. Thus increasingly complex social boundaries (mem-
bership/non-membership of GTZ communities, World Bank
groups and NGOs), and the diverse relationships of these
groups to the spatial boundaries of seasonal grazing territories
and the pasture rights associated with their membership create
a very complex terrain in which possibilities for exclusion of
particular herding households or khot ail are enhanced.
5. CONCLUSION
The present study highlights the limitations of both state
and a particular variant of community-led land reform.
State-led reforms are shown to be reworked and reinterpreted,
often with unexpected outcomes. The recent focus on devolu-
tion and customary tenure may also fail to realize livelihood
goals, through ceding control to the ‘‘community” and facili-
tating expression or exacerbation of local inequalities. The
assumption of clear dichotomies between land rights and prac-
tices of state or customary origin, often apparent in the litera-
ture, are challenged by examination of the dynamic nature of
‘‘custom” and its reworking to include aspects of the previous
state regimes. Herders’ rights are grounded to varying degrees
in historical claims, forms of social organization and direct
allocation of rights through formal legislative frameworks.
Institutional bricolage, adaptation and the constant reworking
of rights and norms challenge static notions of customary
rights, and problematise categories of behavior such as ‘‘tres-
passing,” which emerge as subject to interpretation of particu-
lar herders. They further highlight the limitations of the state
in promoting desirable or predictable trajectories of change.
It may be expected that the ability to challenge the system of
rights and rules, or to have one’s behavior interpreted as legit-
imate institutional innovation as distinct from ‘‘trespassing,”
may be dependent on social attributes, such as wealth or sta-
tus. However, such distinctions did not emerge in case study
areas at the time of investigation. The recent reports of ‘‘pred-
atory pastoralism” in parts of Mongolia, by which wealthier
herders use their access to transport to move their large herds
to the best pastures, irrespective of the rules and norms of pas-
ture use (Blench, personal communication), suggest that such
reinvention and reworking of norms may be strategically em-
ployed by the wealthiest and most powerful to their own
advantage. However, this is by no means an inevitable trajec-
tory of change: in her work in Tanzania, Cleaver (2001) noted
that bricolage and strategic reinvention of ‘‘the rules” could on
occasion favor the poorest and most vulnerable households.
Overall, examination of land rights amongst socially differ-
entiated categories of herders did not reveal simple, legible
patterns of rights and exclusion, for example along lines of
wealth or ‘‘new herder” status. Rather, these interacted in
complex ways to determine effective land rights and herders’
own perceptions of these rights. Central to property rights
were the formal allocation of winter shelters and camps at
decollectivization and through the Land Laws (1994 and
2002), which to some degree reflected the ‘‘reinvention of cus-
tom” in the collective era, but also a more recent reinvention,
particularly in desert steppe bags, through the construction of
new winter shelters.
The evolution of development-led groups or communities
must be understood as the most recent factor in promoting
changes in property rights systems. This is occurring not only
through formalized, visible manifestations of change, such as
through the land use contracts concluded under the World
Bank Sustainable Livelihoods project, but also more subtly
as a result of the formation of herders’ nukhurlul, under the
GTZ project, and the repercussions of such institutional inno-
vations for social and spatial boundaries. The very recent
appearance of these projects in the case study area precludes
a detailed evaluation of their longer-term impacts. However,
early indications suggest an extension of more exclusive no-
tions of rights beyond winter and spring pastures and a sense
of increasing rigidity of boundaries amongst non-member or
excluded herders. Axes of exclusion variously relate to factors
such as wealth, labour power, kinship, and geographical prox-
imity, but also, over time to the perceived hardening of com-
munities’ social boundaries.
It is important to stress that empirical material from bag
C supports aspects of donors’ claims concerning the benefits
of nukhurlul membership. However, interviews with non-
members reveal issues that frequently escape detailed donor
evaluation, namely the experiences and concerns of non-
group members, and the implications of project interven-
tions for their livelihoods. As such projects proliferate
across Mongolia detailed longitudinal examination of con-
tingent trajectories of institutional change becomes increas-
ingly important in understanding outcomes, especially with
reference to livelihoods and to equity. Peters’ stated con-
cerns with tenure reforms and arrangements that may end
or limit the power to negotiate for certain more vulnerable
groups or individuals are particularly timely (Peters, this
volume). In particular this study suggests the necessity for
 ‘‘CUSTOM” AND CONTESTATION: LAND REFORMIN POST-SOCIALIST MONGOLIA
more explicit donor engagement with broader social and
geographical landscapes in which they intervene, through
greater emphasis not only on members, but also on non-
members of emergent herders’ groups. Understandably, such
considerations may be masked by a focus on more tangible
outcomes and indicators such as numbers of new herders’
groups and checklists of activities, on occasion at the ex-
pense of their content and meaning, while non-members
may fade into invisibility. Greater attention to the precise
nature, processes, and outcomes of local exclusion and to
ways in which external projects may support, challenge, or
undermine the existing power structures would seem to be
NOTES
1. Aimags, sums, bags are administrative units in Mongolia. Aimags or
provinces are the largest, followed by, sums (districts) and bags (sub-
districts).
2. Khot ail are herding camps, comprising groups of households, and are
usually kinship based.
3. Growing sedentarisation of herders has been widely reported in the
recent literature (e.g., Fernández-Giménez, 2002). However, movement
between seasonal pastures remains a central aspect of the Mongolian
pastoral system.
4. Administrative reorganization, resulting in reduction in size of key
herding territories, has, however, been linked to reductions in overall
mobility in the collective era (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004).
5. This predominance of individual households in the Gobi region has
caused some authors to deny local existence of khot ail. However, this term
was specifically used by herders themselves in my case study area and thus
is retained here.
6. ‘‘New herders” are defined as those who adopted herding as their main
livelihood strategy only following decollectivization in the early 1990s (see
Table 1, note f).
7. According to Cleaver (2002), institutional bricolage is a process whereby
stakeholders consciously or unconsciously draw on existing cultural and
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1409
warranted, as would continued project engagement with
non-group members, commitment to protection of their
interests and to facilitation of dialogue between members
and non-members. In policy terms, Fitzpatrick’s conclusion
that ‘‘there is no single ‘‘best practice” model for recogniz-
ing customary tenure” appears apposite (Fitzpatrick, 2005,
p. 471). However, detailed, historically grounded studies
that map the processes of change contingent on external
interventions must be at the forefront of future attempts
to develop both typologies of appropriate tenure reform
and more nuanced understandings of customary rights and
tenure.
social arrangements, ways of thinking and the legacy of historical institu-
tional arrangements in shaping and justifying new institutions.
8. ‘‘tursun nutag” denotes one or all of the customary four seasonal
pasture areas inherited by a herder from earlier generations. I use the term
here specifically to refer to pre-collective customary pastures.
9. Land possession may be understood as conferring a ‘‘right to manage
land with some degree of exclusivity” (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan,
2004, p. 146). In contrast, use rights enable rights holders to use land, but
without any rights of disposal, and by implication are less exclusive. In
practice the distinction between use and possession rights often lacks
clarity (Fernández-Giménez & Batbuyan, 2004, p. 146).
10. At the time of writing a new Pastureland Law was under
discussion by the Mongolian Government and its advisors. Among its
provisions, this was expected to allow for possession of winter and
spring pastures by herders’ groups.
11. Both the World Bank Sustainable Livelihoods project and the GTZ
Nature Conservation and Bufferzone Development project are or have
been active at multiple sites in Mongolia. The comments based on
empirical material in this paper relate only to bag C and should not be
read as a countrywide critique of the projects or their implementation.
12. 1000 tugrug (tg) were approximately equivalent to $1 US in
summer 2004.
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