Alter-Nomad: Endangered Nomads

Precarity targets modern nomads and sedentaries, but it is even more present among first peoples, who need us to urgently reintegrate them: they represent a population of 300 million individuals. Few nomad people survived till today. A few millions of individuals at most. A tiny portion of the overall population. A marginal lifestyle, barely represented in the current human population. Historical nomads are not against development - obscurantism. They still carry antique wisdom we lack. The first peoples remain the guardians of their territories and the life growing from it. Consider this quote of Sitting Bull: “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money”. The famous Native American chief said those words during the 19th century, but it’s only been a few decades since the “civilized” world decided to act. Bad treatments towards the first nomads are still an ongoing issue. Sedentaries feel at home everywhere thanks to modern telecommunication technologies. Historical nomads are nowhere home, except for a few transit camps.

To Ratzel, historical nomadism is a force to preserve, which managed to survive natural selection thanks to its flexible organizational structure. The tragedy lies in the fact that history is written by sedentaries, while nomads rely on an oral tradition. How can a way of life, which allowed humankind to get where it is today, be bound to disappear? Maybe it is time to ask ourselves how to go back to our nomad roots in a sustainable fashion.

Alter-nomadism includes the values of historical nomadism: simplicity (accumulate without harming, fight against the culture of the short-lived), ecology (understanding and protection of nature) and res publica (keep the common good in mind, refuse precarity, adopt a democratic behavior, not to tolerate a breach of the human rights), compassion (understand otherness to find your own benefit in the benefit of others), curiosity, sharing (transmit knowledge), solidarity and hospitality (welcome people like you want to be welcomed). As Maffesoli summarizes: “weaken the identity (to reinvent one’s self), commune with nature, reinvent a social link”. An ethic of travel arises from those values. This ethic demands respect, responsibility, and ecology: “to act during your travels as if you were in your own home country” (virtual sedentism principle).