Changing Pastoralism in China: The Reconstruction of Livestock Value and Herders’ Negotiation Practices under the "Tuimu Huancao" Policy

Abstract (English)

Since the 21st century, environmental protection has become a key agenda for the Chinese government, leading to major interventions in pastoral areas through policies such as tuimu huancao ("retiring livestock to restore grasslands") (Yeh, 2009). This policy seeks to reduce grazing intensity and rehabilitate degraded ecosystems, often framing herders as primary agents of environmental degradation. Drawing on David Graeber’s anthropological theory of value—which conceptualizes value as "the way actions become meaningful to actors by being seen as embodying larger social ideals" (Graeber, 2001)—this paper examines how the value of livestock among Kazakh herders in Ili, Xinjiang Province has been reshaped under tuimu huancao.
Traditionally, livestock in Kazakh pastoral life functioned not merely as economic assets but as carriers of social relations, moral prestige, and ritual significance (Chen, 2017; Hutchinson, 1992). They were integral to practices of gift exchange, kinship alliances, and communal identity. However, under the influence of environmental governance, livestock are increasingly assessed through bureaucratic categories such as ecological quotas, grazing permits, and subsidy schemes (Yeh, 2009). These new regimes of value detach livestock from their traditional social meanings, embedding them instead within technocratic discourses of ecological restoration and sustainable development (Swyngedouw, 2011).
Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores how Kazakh herders actively negotiate these shifting frameworks. Rather than passively accepting state mandates, herders develop strategies to reconcile governmental demands with the preservation of cultural practices—for instance, by selectively maintaining ceremonial herds even under restrictive quotas, or by symbolically reinterpreting subsidies within existing systems of reciprocity.
By critically analyzing how state-driven ecological narratives interact with pastoralist value systems, this paper highlights the contingent, negotiated nature of pastoral adaptation. It argues that climate change discourses serve not only as environmental imperatives but also as instruments of political restructuring, reconfiguring the social meaning of pastoral practices. At the same time, the resilience and creativity of Kazakh herders demonstrate how alternative value logics persist alongside and within regulatory regimes. Ultimately, this study foregrounds the agency of herders in navigating the entangled terrains of environmental responsibility, cultural continuity, and political constraint, offering insights into the complex interplay between value transformation, policy intervention, and local practice in contemporary China.