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Inspired by the conceptual frame of reference of Appadurai (2004), this study explores how public administrative officers can make formal resources available and accessible for ger residents while recognizing the ‘capacity to aspire’ among migrant ger residents in the Tahilt area of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We argue that building people’s capacity to aspire, consisting of (1) internal efforts to (2) consensus building, resulting in (3) practices of voice being heard, and (4) bottom up collaborations between public administrative officers and residents, represents a strategy towards alleviating difficulties encountered in the new urban space collectively. The ethnographic findings of this study illustrate inaccessibility of formal resources, spatiality and aspirations in an effort to incorporate residents’ voices for more collaboration. The paper calls for public administrative officers, such as public administrative officials, planners and social workers, to negotiate between policy objectives and ger residents’ agency, so that the capacity to aspire is nurtured for a collaborative culture.
During the last two decades, internal rural-urban migration has rapidly increased in the capital city of Mongolia. This process has resulted in a large number of internal migrants settling formally and informally in peri-urban settlements as they aspire to educate their children, access resources and services (Narantulga, 2010). Yet many of them live in situations of poverty and social inequality (Terbish et al, 2020).
Based on extensive ethnographic research into internal rural–urban migration dynamics and circumstances in Mongolia, this article discusses lived citizenship practices in the ger areas situated in the country’s capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Inspired by findings showing how newly-migrated residents conduct their citizenship individually as well as collectively in peri-urban and informal settlement environments, the study explores the socio-spatial aspects at stake in ger residents’ lived citizenship when residing at the edge of the capital city. We aim to identify the role of social work and public administration in the provision of resources and support, and we rely on a conceptual and analytical framework that captures the ‘matterscape, mindscape and powerscape’ of meaning-making processes in terms of symbolic boundaries and opportunities. The paper calls for a meaningful role for social work and public administration to support internally migrated residents, as they face numerous challenges and uncertainties.
Citizen Groups, almost exclusively comprising women, are emerging in ger district, an intriguing mix of the nomadic culture and rapid urbanization with significant social challenges. Current knowledge and policy to support citizen-led initiatives is limited in Mongolia. except for those successful examples of micro-financing and micro enterprising in Southern and South East Asian countries. In Mongolia government policies and funding schemes lack mechanisms to financially support groups like CGs.This paper draws on insights from research with three Citizens Groups seeking to build social and economic opportunities for ger residents through collaborative partnerships with governments, NGOs and the business. The paper argues that whilst Citizens Groups create bonding and bridging social capital that reduce the social, economic, and environmental vulnerability of ger residents their capacity to mobilise linking social capital remains tenuous. Citizens Groups remain institutionally weak, and this paper calls for greater recognition and support of their activities.
This article explores the types of actions that are dramatically shaping the formation of the peri-urban economic landscape of the ger areas in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Drawing from numerous interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in and around a bus stop on the northern edge of the city, we trace the experience of two different women who each carve out a life and livelihood on this urban fringe. Examining the types of strategies they employ to secure land and employment, we argue that negotiations, speculation and enactions of relationships are vastly influential in shaping Ulaanbaatar’s urban economy from the ground up. Drawing from the anthropology of generative capitalism and the fungibility and heterogeneous nature of money, we discuss how the making of capitalist urban economies in Ulaanbaatar implicates a variety of decisions and materials, perceptions of the state, and local economies of exchange and reciprocity. Central to the shaping of these urban economies, we argue, are emerging moral quandaries and ethics arising out of these entanglements.
