Anthropologists discuss how pastoralists are coping and changing as the societies they inhabit change at an unprecedented rate. Joseph Ginat is the author of "Blood Revenge: Family Honor, Mediation and Outcasting", and Anatoly M. Khazanov is the author of "Nomads and the Outside World".

Pastoralists in the contemporary world - the problem of survival, Anatoly M. Khazanov; who are these nomads? what do they do? - continuous change or changing continuities, William Lancaster and Fidelity Lancaster; being Bedouin - nomads and tribes in the Arab social imagination, Dale E. Eickleman; coping with change in Arabia - the Bedouin community and the idea of development, Ugo Fabietti; continuing education and community development for Bedouin, Helmut Danner and Maha el-Rashidi; the Joz Musarrib - an unusual form of marriage among the Arabs, Frank Stewart II; the segmentary lineage system - a reappraisal, Sharon Baruj; the cactus was our kin - pastoralism in the Spiny Desert of Southern Madagascar, Jeffrey C. Kaufmann; changes among the Bedouin in Israel, Joseph Ginat; understanding reindeer pastoralism in modern Siberia - ecological continuity versus state engineering, Igor I. Krupnik. (Part contents)