What is it about?
Peoples of Inner Asia whose life depends on mobility, such as herders, hunters and traders, have their own means of estimating temporal-spatial processes, and they have to operate by coordinating their velocities with those of others (e.g. other-then-humans, spirit-masters of the land, animals, etc). Based on Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis, I tried to review some of multiple temporalities of existing cosmologies in Inner Asia (religious and political) with example of a Mongolian nutag (homeland/birthplace).
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Why is it important?
Examining the hierarchy of various contingent forces that influence our life I wanted to demonstrate that people of this region (Inner Asia) though have long engaged in relations with abstract political entities ('modernity', 'progress', the state, the nation, the homeland), they still explicitly understand their subordinate position and know techniques how harmonize social relations with with more powerful Other-then-humans.
Perspectives
I hope that ethnographic material presented in this article will be helpful to rethink the world as being less anthropocentric and take into account powerful presence of Other-then-humans around us and to learn again that humans are just 'custodians' and 'stewards' (not owners) of the environment due to the short temporality of human life.
Dr Sayana Namsaraeva
University of Cambridge/ Palacký University
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This page is a summary of: Rhythms of nutag, Inner Asia, April 2020, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/22105018-12340137.
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