States of Mobilities: Nomadic Institutions as the Foundations of Large-Scale Polities

Summary

This is an abstract from the "States, Confederacies, and Nations: Reenvisioning Early Large-Scale Collectives." session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Theories surrounding the rise of complex polities have long hinged upon large urban centers, fixed infrastructure, and the centrality of agricultural economies, leaving any societies without these as incapable of creating stable large-scales collectives that one could call a state. Taking the case of the first steppe empire, the Xiongnu (ca. 200 BCE–100 CE), this paper argues (a) that pastoralism can be a stable economic basis for a political economy and can provide institutional foundations for intensification of production and the maintenance of surplus, and (b) that mobility, being a strategy for community adaptability in response to shifting ecological or political circumstances, was not the antithesis of governance but rather could foster large-scale communication, exchange, and mobilization of resources to adeptly overcome the purported tyranny of distance. I propose a concept of states of mobilities, in which the political economies that bolstered these regimes hinged on the control not so much of static territories of resources but more so of the movements of numerous and diverse resources, including raw materials, labor, products, soldiers, administrators, and knowledge.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• States, Confederacies, and Nations: Reenvisioning Early Large-Scale Collectives.   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41634.0