Abstract
In the nineteenth
century, most people in the Maghreb and Afghanistan were pastoralists.
They possessed a sophisticated body of ecological knowledge complemented
by indigenous veterinary knowledge. Transformations of the Maghreb
political economy under French colonialism had deleterious effects on
indigenous ways of life. The French state appropriated land and forests,
banned common management techniques like firing for pasture
regeneration, and, later, criminalized traditional veterinary medicine.
These changes and those in trading systems with the imposition of
western veterinary medicine and land-management techniques reduced
indigenous knowledge and practice. These trends have continued in the
postcolonial Maghreb and have been exacerbated by many “development”
projects, especially under neoliberalism. Similar development projects
in Afghanistan threaten to destroy the sophisticated indigenous
veterinary knowledge of Koochi nomads, especially among women. This
knowledge, highly valued by Koochi women, is being eroded and their
position marginalized by the implementation of patriarchal, western-led
development projects operating in a conservative religious climate
during reconstruction.
