Бидний тухай
Багш ажилтан
This paper explores the ways in which 'nomadic people' are represented in public culture and questions the politics and ethics of the representer to the represented. While the stereotypical Eurocentric depiction based on the evolutionary schemes still remains in cultural practices, the knowledge creation of national elites opposes the colonial representation. The pathway can be framed as from 'barbarians' to 'aristocrats'. The discrepancy in the representations of nomadism is also seen in the existing (Western) academic knowledge and the public knowledge in contemporary Mongolia. The former focuses on pasture, migration, and herd-breeding, as a type of political economy and socio-economic system pastoralism. Meanwhile, the latter deals with historical styles, intellectual achievements, wisdom, and virtue to represent nomads. At the same time, the state seeks new applications of the notion of 'nomadic culture' to make a resource of commodification. In either way, it is the creation of the representer about the represented.
