Who Owns the Stock?—Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals

This collection explores different forms of property rights in livestock in pastoralist societies. Editors Khazanov (emeritus, anthropology, U. of Wisconsin-Madison, US) and Schlee (director, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany) present 12 contributions that provide a cross-cultural and comparative perspective on multiple forms of rights in livestock and the changes they are undergoing under the influence of modernization and globalization processes across three major regions: The Far North and Siberia including the Chinese taiga, the Eurasian steppes, and Africa (this also allows for comparisons across types of stock, respectively reindeer, multispecies stock, and cattle). Papers offer not only descriptive discussion of the types of stock ownership arrangements that typify specific societies, but also analyze the role of stock ownership in relation to various anthropological questions of economic, social, and symbolic significance. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Anatoly M. Khazanov is Ernest Gellner Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His publications include Nomads and the Outside World (1st. ed. Cambridge University Press, 1984) and After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Comonwealth of Independent States (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995).