A form of social organization where people move from place to place. Nomadism incorporates the advantage of mobility; traditionally nomadic groups were able to exploit natural resources at dispersed locations. ‘In the discourse of modernization and social change nomadism’s place is usurped by agriculture’ (Kreutzman (2003) Geog. J. 169, 3). As international boundaries are increasingly well defined, with border guards, nomadism declines: N. M. Shahrani (1979) uses the term closed frontier nomadism, with sedentarization and confined migration cycles.

Governments try to immobilize nomads for the purposes of taxation as well as to improve their health and literacy; the mobility of capital and labour in the age of empire produced a spatial order where nomadism had to be seen as a cultural problem (Noyes (2000) Cult. Geogs 7). Conversely, Drakakis-Smith (2007) Mobilities 2, 3 shows how local authorities keep some families mobile and excluded. Mouffe (quoted in Pugh (2007) Area 39, 1) writes: ‘against those who…advocate “nomadism” I am convinced that radical politics cannot avoid “territorialization” and that all forms of territorialization should not be perceived as machines of capture.’ B. Jordan and F. Düvell (2003) argue that global economic nomadism requires a redefinition of citizenship beyond national borders which involves shared duties for those who have access, and rights for those who remain on the outside.