Administrations, herders, and experts. Crossing sources and scales to write a social history of overgrazing in Soviet Kazakhstan (1960–1980): Crossing sources and scales to write a social history of overgrazing in Soviet Kazakhstan (1960–1980)

Résumé En

Throughout the second part of the twentieth century, the world’s majorpastoral areas underwent a promethean exploitation, which was promoted bySocialist states (USSR, Mongolia, and the People’s Republic of China) andpost-colonial development policies (e.g. in the Sahel Belt) alike. Everywhere,but with varying intensity, these endeavours brought on forms of settlement,the development of mixed farming, urbanisation, and the deterioration of ecosystems.2 In Central Asia, overgrazing or desertification affected a significantpart of the steppe and semi-arid and arid lands.Over the years, this region had been shaped by interactions typical ofpastoral nomadism between humans, animals, and their milieus, but also bycautious and conservative water management, partly inspired by the technicalculture of neighbouring oasis societies. The Soviet industrial and technologicalshift led to a more intensive and invasive form of exploitation. A historyof Soviet high-productivity development cannot be confined to its ‘technical’dimension: it must rely on a variety of sources and the comparison of multifariousdocuments and actors. Because the Soviet State was the driving forcebehind transformations, one cannot do without sources emanating from it;these, however, tend to steer the reflection towards political and economicobjects. The prolific nature of Soviet bureaucracies at all levels can narrowthe field of investigation of the historian, whom the profusion of data mightseduce or overwhelm. This chapter means to compare this plethora of documentswith the voice of the parties involved in animal husbandry, thus addressingthe perspective and experience of all social groups involved in pastoralism,from herders, animal-husbandry officers to scientific experts. Different genresof sources are thus used: written documents (archives and press articles) arecross-referenced with testimonies, photographic documents, audio-visualsources, and more. Besides offering counterpoints to administrative sources,this method presents a view of the history of overgrazing through differentangles and at various levels – herders, communities of experts or ministries.Importantly, it allows us to grasp the role of each actor in the ‘objectivation’ (ina Durkheimian sense) of overgrazing as a social, economic, and environmentalissue, and the leeway these actors enjoyed in the face of the Soviet centralplanning steamroller.