Construction, Intervention and Lifelihood: Syrian Bedouin and the 'Development' of the Steppe by Government and International Organisations The study bases on the ethnological fieldwork undertaken with a Bedouin group (Haswa/ Bani Khaled) in the Syrian Steppe 2005-2007. The focus lies on three questions: (1) How do different agents (government, international development agencies, mobile pastoralists) construct a space named "the steppe"? (2) How do they use that space respectively how do they intervene into it? (3) What are the options for agency that mobile Pastoralists have, in order to react on the interventions into their life-world?

This essay collection brings together contributions from two research colloquia of the Collaborative Research Center “Difference and Integration. The interaction between nomadic and settled forms of life in the civilizations of the Old World”, based at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and the University of Leipzig. The colloquium “Symbolic Representations of Nomadic Identities” examined to what extent the representation of nomadic life from the “external” perspective of settled communities and the nomadic “internal” perspective has taken a symbolic form. The colloquium “Camel, Horse and Reindeer - Herd Animals and the Mobility of Nomads” engaged with the topic of nomad herd animals, which symbolically represent nomadic life and are also an essential element of the reality of nomadic life.

The contributions in this volume give an impression of contemporary archaeological, art historical, and historical research in military equipment of and under the influence of nomadic peoples in Eurasian history. The studies cover a considerably long time span and a broad territory: from the Iron Age up to the Middle Ages, and from Central Europe to the heartlands of China. One special value of arms and armour as an archaeological and art-historical source is its potential to indicate the sharing of knowledge, of technology, but also of experience in a broader sense among completely different cultures. For this reason, the articles in this volume are well established within the framework of the Collaborative Research Centre „Difference and Integration“.

The living conditions of former nomads in the arid mountain and desert regions of Morocco have been subject to dramatic change during the last decades. New economic and social dynamics imply new opportunities, but also entail risks, becoming manifest, for example, in increasing social polarization. Starting from local case studies, the book analyzes livelihood strategies, resource entitlements and (new) forms of spatial mobility, investigating how new complex livelihoods are constituted and how seemingly peripheral „nomadic“ regions are increasingly integrated into a globalizing world economy.

Historians of the Ancient and Roman Middle East, Anthropologists, and specialists of the Islamic Middle East explore changing conceptions of nomadic and sedentary life, and re-evaluate differing modes of nomad-sedentary interplay.

This volume deals with so called scythoid finds in Transcaucasia usually interpreted as traces of nomadic invasions. On contrary, the analysis of the archaeological material shows a several use of scythian weapons in different contexts. In most cases Scythian finds testify to peaceful contacts with neighbouring regions. On the other hand arrowheads in destroyed settlements refer to military struggles in the late 8th century B.C. in the eastern parts of the Southern Caucasus. At this time sedentary people already used Scythian arrowheads as well. Only a few Scythian finds give indication for nomads.

The papers in this anthology shed light on the political and military role and importance of nomadic groups in Iran and adjacent areas, using historical case studies that cover the tenth to nineteenth centuries. Some offer detailed historical snapshots, while others span several centuries. They have in common a concern to explore the relationships and balance of power between settled people and nomadic groups in changing circumstances.

Im Zentrum der Studie steht die Beduinenfigur, die im Kontext nomadisch-sesshafter Beziehungen untersucht wird. Sie erfüllt bestimmte Funktionen im arabischen Diskurs: Aufgrund ihrer Ambivalenz und Ambiguität eignet sich die Beduinenfigur in besonderem Maße dazu, heikle Themen anzusprechen und Standpunkte einzubringen, die die geforderte politische, religiöse und soziale Anpassung subtil unterlaufen. Bislang fehlte jedoch eine monografische Arbeit, die die Beduinen als literarisches Phänomen analysiert. Die vorliegende Studie schließt diese Lücke und stellt eine literarische Figur vor, die eine von ihrer Herkunft unabhängige eigene Wirklichkeit und Bedeutung im Diskurs erlangt hat.

The papers published in this volume go back to a conference held November 2011 in Hamburg. The conference was built around the question of domination: of nomads over sedentary people, of sedentary people over nomads, and of nomads over nomads. The contributions study how domination worked in a nomadic context, and how nomadic elites (aristocracies) related to imperial rule.

The essays collected in this volume discuss the construction, development and perception of spaces from an interdisciplinary perspective and demonstrate how they evolve into culturally or politically defined "areas," "landscapes" or "territories."