Nomads: Behavioral and Psychological Adjustment to Sedentarization
Abstract
This paper concerns the sedentarization, concentration, and urbanization of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. Nomadism involves a way of life which historically has characterized human groups on a world wide scale, on all six inhabited continents. Examples of nomadic groups include not only the relatively well-known Bedouin. Bedu, Danakil, Basseri, Papago, and Tuareg of Southwest Asia and North Africa, and the Tarahumara and Navajo of North America, but the Gypsies, Tinkers, and Lapps of Northern Europe as well. Cultures which have maintained this ecological solution have recently been subjected to increasing political and economic pressures toward sedentarization. The current paper presents detailed information concerning the psychological and social aspects of this type of environmental change. The general purpose of this analysis is to initiate the study of behavioral changes resulting from disruptions in group spatial organization produced by sedentarization. Two general frameworks are proposed: the first is concerned with characteristics of the sedentarization process itself; the second with the application of behavior setting analysis, derived from Ecological Psychology, to radical environmental adjustments required by sedentarization.References
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