CALL FOR PAPERS
Mobile pastoralism, mobility, local and national identities, and environmental issues viewed through the systematic research of local oral memories and local archives
Friday 4th - Saturday 5th April 2025
Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
The orally transmitted historical memories of pastoral communities in Mongolia and other parts of Inner Asia are at risk of being lost, as they have not established formal means for preserving and teaching these narratives. In response to this challenge, a new project by the Institute of Mongolian, Korean and Vietnamese Studies aims to document the adaptive strategies of mobile pastoralists through their oral histories and history-related oral tradition.
At this conference, we look forward to discussing the following questions:
What is the significance of local narrative histories from within local communities for historical studies of the Mongolian, and wider Inner Asian, cultural area?
Are there integrated historical-oral traditions in Inner Asian pastoral communities? How was the transmission of local historical oral memory carried out in the past and how does its current transmission reflect social change?
What can systematic research of the oral memory of local communities tell us about the adaptive strategies of mobile pastoralists, both in the past and in the present?
What valuable information can the systematic research of local oral history offer to environmental studies?
Conference organized by:
Department of Mongolian, Korean and Vietnamese Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
All currently living forms of local history-related oral tradition among the pastoral communities of Mongolia are non-professional in the sense that traditional society did not create targeted supporting activities to assist the transmission and learning of narratives of oral tradition within family or broader community life. The oral transmission of historical memory has been attributed to Inner Asian pastoralist societies based on analogies with other geographical regions, but this assumption has yet to be systematically verified. On the contrary, Mongolian pastoralist society is unique in creating its own written documentation, even as the local archives of many areas have been completely or partially lost.
Collectively speaking, the oral memory of Western Mongolia preserves a unique historical experience of sustenance and resilience in this mountainous, semi-arid steppe and semi-desert region — dominated by, but not limited to mobile pastoralism. These memories are at urgent risk of falling into oblivion. The current moment is indeed the last opportunity to record the complex oral tradition of selected communities and to describe its structure, internal processes of transmission, and current changes. These Inner Asian mobile pastoralists are facing far-reaching economic, social, and environmental changes, leading to intensive movement of people and information within hitherto geographically and administratively closed rural communities.
Based on this challenge and our ten year-long field research experience in Western Mongolia, in 2023 the Institute of Mongolian, Korean and Vietnamese Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University launched a five-year project “Changing Adaptive Strategies of Mobile Pastoralists in Mongolia: Dynamics in Community Histories and Movement Patterns Documented Through Oral Sources” (Czech Science Foundation, GM23-07108M), thanks to which a team of experts has been formed to study the adaptation strategies of mobile herders, mainly through the herders’ own oral memories. This project runs in synergy with the project “Evolutionary interferences of religion and governance in Inner Asia: Comparison of mutual impacts with tributary countries: Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam” led by Michal Schwarz, Ph.D. (Czech Science Foundation, GA23-06953S, 2023-2025).
The main objectives of the “Changing Adaptive Strategies of Mobile Pastoralists” project are:
To specify methods of gaining complex knowledge of currently living forms of localized, non-professional history-related oral tradition among Inner Asian mobile pastoralist communities.
To posit this oral tradition as a dynamic and living phenomenon — despite external endangerment and tendencies toward unification — and to propose non-invasive means of supporting the preservation of this living oral legacy.
To attain a better understanding of how local oral traditions relate to the formulation of identities of individual groups, their ties to certain territories, and their relations to larger political and national entities.
To verify the hypothesis that through the detailed systematic recording and visualizing of seasonal movements of mobile pastoralists, beginning from a micro-local level through orally remembered segments of the past, hitherto inaccessible chronological evidence of changes (or, in some cases, stability) in land use by mobile pastoralists can be attained. This evidence can serve as a key source for investigations concerning factors contributing to the current degradation of pastures.
The present conference will address issues of local history-related oral tradition as a hitherto neglected and hardly determinable, yet highly significant and frangible category of intangible cultural heritage. Our team members would like to present the current results of our attempts to describe the emic understanding of the concept of history by local communities, to define patterns in the transmission process of local oral tradition in Western Mongolia in the past, and finally, to assess its current state.
In our understanding, the concepts of oral history and oral tradition are separate yet closely interrelated and intertwined, requiring a parallel knowledge of accessible archive (and other forms of written) sources. We eagerly welcome researchers dealing with issues related to the local history of any region of Inner Asia, relations of local identities and landscape, sacred geography, oral cartography, microhistories, and genealogy to present their methodological approaches to the collection, sorting, processing and practical use of their materials from oral and archive sources.
ABSTRACTS
By 20th January 2025, please send a short (300 words or less) abstract of your talk to one or both of these addresses:
Acceptance of proposals will be announced by 30th January 2025. Participation is possible only in person. The expected paper length is 20 minutes, including discussion (the final length will be specified according to the number of participants). The language of the conference is English. Mongolian will be permissible in exceptional cases.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Participation in the conference is free of charge. Travel costs, accommodation and meals for the duration of the conference are the individual responsibility of each participant. If you need an official invitation for the purpose for visa purposes, please inform us as soon as possible and we will be happy to try to issue an invitation for you. Please be aware that in case of late registration, we cannot guarantee timely delivery of the invitation letter.
Organized within the projects:
“Changing Adaptive Strategies of Mobile Pastoralists in Mongolia: Dynamics in Community Histories and Movement Patterns Documented Through Oral Sources” (GM23-07108M), and “Evolutionary interferences of religion and governance in Inner Asia: comparison of mutual impacts with tributary countries: Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam” (GA23-06953S), supported by the Czech Science Foundation.
In free cooperation with institutions from Mongolia:
Department of Literature and Art Studies, School of Arts and Sciences, National University of Mongolia
The Chinggis Khaan Heritage and Cultural Institute (Ulaanbaatar)
International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations under the auspices of UNESCO (Ulaanbaatar)
Tod Nomiin Gerel Töv (Ulaanbaatar)
Please note that the conference “Textual Tradition of Mongolian Buddhism: Written and Oral Traditions. Fifth International Conference on Aspects of Mongolian Buddhism” will take place at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary on 8–9 April 2025. For details please visit: https://www.innerasia.hu/event/mongolian-buddhism-conference-2025/.
We look forward to welcoming you in Brno.
Yours sincerely,
Ondřej Srba and Michal Schwarz
12. listopadu 2024 se na našem semináři koná První vietnamistické kolokvium na volné téma „Vietnamská literatura v dějinách a dějiny ve vietnamské literatuře“.
One day workshop “Relinking Field, Archives, and Languages: Oral and Written Sources in Mongolia and Central Asia” will be held on Wednesday 8th November 2023 at our department.