[Discussion] CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS- Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Pastoral Nomadism

[sule tarakcioglu]

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS- Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Pastoral Nomadism

Publication project: Encyclopaedic Dictionary of pastoral nomadism

This announcement is a call for participation in the project to
interested specialists in various fields related with pastoral nomadism.

The International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations
(IISNC) is preparing in co-operation with UNESCO, with support from the
Organizations Division of Intercultural Dialogue, the publication of an
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of pastoral nomadism. This project is developed
in accordance with IISNC main goals: to associate discovering, studying
and preserving heritage of nomadic herders societies and cultures, to
provide research works and to elaborate experimental et practical
development patterns and techniques devoted to and fitting present needs
of these societies, to popularize and spread accurate and high quality
information in this field.

The dictionary is intended to be a practical tool and is aimed at
presenting richness and sophistication of nomadic societies and
cultures, too frequently represented as primitive and marked by their
lacks compared to sedentarized societies. The work will exemplify a
large set of nomadic experiences from East and Central Asia to Near East
and Africa. It will provide thorough and precise topics about ecological
conditions of pastoral nomadism, about nomadic herders techniques and
strategies, their social, historical, cultural and spiritual features
and traditions.

The project doesn't feature a collection of thematic and/or regional
monographs but a dictionary of current use, with entries and notices,
mainly short for majority of them, classically disposed in alphabetical
order. Due to the introduction of help and browsing devices, the work is
intended to be used either as a reference tool or as a more general
guidebook. Two types of publication are foreseen to be provided: paper
version and electronic version displayed either on CD-Rom or online. In
both versions, various illustrations (including sound and videos in the
electronic one) will improve the standard of the whole work and make its
reading more useful and attractive.

Adjusting the project development is now entering its crucial stage: to
decide about the set of notions and terms to be embedded in the
dictionary entries list. This first phase of this work is under
completion. In its present configuration, this corpus is created and
organized as a complex arborescence, from which alphabetical final list
of entries will be derived. Making an extensive use of hypertextual
links, this treelike structure is prefiguring some main features of the
electronic version of the dictionary.

Elaborated at once on the ground of Mongolian pastoral nomadic
realities, this arborescence is to be proposed to scholars specialized
in Central, Western Asian, African and other domains related with
pastoral nomadism. Although they will be provided with a simplified
version of the arborescence, in order not to hamper their freedom to
implement the set of proposed notions and terms they need, the Mongolian
version will be at their disposal as an illustration and possible
contribution to their own efforts.

These multiple more or less areal arborescences will be then collated
and edited together, necessary crosschecking of notions and contents
guaranteeing the overall unity and harmonization of the dictionary
without restricting or damaging its diversity.

The dictionary will contain about twenty central articles (4-8 A4 pages
including 1500-1800 signs or characters). To each of these articles,
five to ten secondary articles (2-3 page) are to be attached, with in
their turn 10 to 15 short notes (1/4-1 page). If needed, each of these
notes can be derivated with even smaller miscellanea notices, counting
no more than a few lines (short definition of a term, e.g. of some
measure unit, provided that general explanation of measuring categories
and tools are given in a more detailed article, mention of a historical
figure, etc).

As ambitious as it may seem, this project, being a first attempt of this
nature, has no pretension to be neither exhaustive nor definitive.
Potential contributors have to remain aware of this experimental and
tentative dimension of the whole work.

Responsible for this publication is Professor Jacques Legrand (INALCO,
Paris), Chairperson, IISNC Academic Council (jacques.legrand@inalco.fr,
jcq.legrand@wanadoo.fr).

More precise information about the project may be obtained from Prof.
Legrand and will be displayed on the IISNC Web site (www.nomadic.mn) in
near future.

 From the end of summer, 2004 (earlier e-mail communications will be
welcomed), Prof. Legrand will be pleased to examine with interested
scholars the form in which their contribution may be included in the
project.



Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian
Studies