Synopsis
Since the end of state socialism in Mongolia, animal ownership has shifted from being largely collective-based to being vested in private households. Much attention has been given to how herding households strive to increase the sizes of their flocks. From this perspective, increasing the quantity of herd animals is seen as a response to contemporary conditions of economic risk, precarity, and the self-sufficient nature of household economies.
This paper examines quantitative increases in livestock from another point of view. It argues that such increases are valued not just from an economistic perspective, but also in line with cultural systems of value that prize abundance and plenty, and endow livestock with particular attributes. Seen from this angle, quantity becomes a means for valorising various pastoral qualities. I make this argument with reference to a ‘festival of forty thousand horses’ celebrated in rural Mongolia in 2015.
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