Desert Entanglements - The Making of the Badiya By Sahrawi Refugees of Western Sahara

"The word "desert" comes from the Latin desertus, which means forsaken, empty. To this view, the Sahrawi camel pastoralists of Western Sahara contrapose the Arabic term badiya to describe an animated landscape. After five decades of exile as refugees in southwestern Algeria, the Sahrawi have struggled to reconfigure the badiya, recovering camel husbandry and access to part of the former rangeland, and weaving it back as seasonal nomadism. Desert Entanglements analyzes this process as an act of place-making focused on refugees' agency. Drawing from approaches in environmental and multispecies anthropology, ethnobiology, and political ecology, it contributes to the exploration of human-nature relationships in these unraveling times"-- Provided by publisher.

About the author

Gabriele Volpato is a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. He has investigated different facets of human-nature relationships among Cuban peasants, Sahrawi refugees and nomads of Western Sahara, and Kenyan pastoralists and beekeepers.

Product details

• Authors: Gabriele Volpato
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.2025
• EAN: 9781805398165
• ISBN: 978-1-80539-816-5
• No. of pages: 218
• Series: Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, NATURE / Ecosystems & Habitats / Deserts, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Refugees, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Conservation of wildlife & habitats, Social and cultural anthropology, Refugees and political asylum, Refugees & Political Asylum, Western Sahara, Restoration ecology / rewilding, SDG 11