Mark Moritz

The workshop focuses on a key anthropological problem: why, how, and when do people start to value animals and the natural environment as capital. The goal of this workshop is to critically examine a theoretical model that we developed to analyze the transition from pastoralism to ranching. This transition involves not only a major shift in the management of land, labor, and livestock, but also entails a societal reconfiguration with major implications for economic inequality, community relations, and management of natural resources. In the workshop we want to go beyond the stereotypes that oppose ranching and pastoralism by bringing together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds with an expertise in the study of a wide range of livestock husbandry systems across the world to critically examine that model and develop a new research program that examines the diversity and dynamics of livestock husbandry systems at the intersection of pastoralism and capitalism.