A Legal and Historical Study of Mongolia’s Changing Meat Standards
Prof Uradyn Bulag will focus on the legal history and politics surrounding the legislation of Mongolia’s livestock and pastures that has prohibited them from private ownership for ‘national security’ reasons. His research will be set against the historical and geopolitical process whereby ‘mal’ (livestock) has become a symbol of Mongolia’s national identity and guarantor of its independence, and the figure and/or category of ‘malchin’ (herder) has transformed from something backward to be eliminated to become the national paragon, in whose name Mongolia as a nation now exists. Bulag aims to understand the legal framework that might facilitate or impede the nation’s livestock trade with China and other countries and how it might support or obstruct the mobilization of herders in the revitalizing pastoral industry of meat production and circulation (and trade).
Spanning China and Inner Asia, Prof. Uradyn Bulag’s research centres on the historical processes whereby Mongols have sought to establish their identity and sovereignty in the course of communist and nationalist revolutions, ideological and cultural transformations, and state-orchestrated violence and pogroms. With a history that encompasses both world conquest and colonial subjugation, Mongolia and the Mongols furnish a rich ground for exploring a range of theoretical and empirical issues, from nation-building and sovereignty, settler colonialism and genocide, statecraft and minority governance in multinational states, to diplomacy and and international relations. As a historical and political anthropologist, Prof. Bulag combines local studies with regional, national and global historical/theoretical perspectives and addresses pressing contemporary political questions.