This ethnographic study examines how processes of impoverishment unfold among Shahsevan nomadic households in Meshginshahr, Iran, and how pastoralists respond to the economic and institutional pressures shaping their livelihoods. Rather than treating poverty as a fixed condition, the research explores the mechanisms through which productive assets, access to public support, and households’ capacity to sustain pastoral livelihoods may gradually erode. Data were collected during five fieldwork periods within a twelve-month research window, comprising 70 days of field presence across winter settlements, migration routes, and summer pastures. Participant observation, in-depth and semi-structured interviews, life histories, and documentary materials provided the empirical basis. Ninety-three participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling, and the data were examined through an iterative inductive–deductive analysis.

The findings reveal two interconnected dimensions: Bureaucratic encounters, and transformations in social support and household organization. The first concerns the mismatch between administrative service arrangements and seasonal mobility, difficulties obtaining subsidized supplies, discrepancies between recorded benefit delivery and participants’ reported receipt, and fluctuations in feed and livestock prices. In some households, these pressures were associated with livestock asset depletion and growing difficulties in sustaining production. The second dimension concerns changes in customary tribal support, migration patterns, and household divisions of labour, which influence families’ capacity to withstand livelihood pressures. Nevertheless, pastoralists are not passive recipients of these conditions. They draw on kinship networks, pursue administrative claims, negotiate access to resources, and adopt everyday strategies of adaptation and resistance.

The study concludes that impoverishment is a multidimensional, socially mediated process shaped by interacting market conditions, institutional arrangements, and changing social relations. Its consequences vary across households rather than following a uniform trajectory. The findings highlight the need to align public services with seasonal mobility, improve transparency and accountability in benefit distribution, and strengthen locally grounded representation. Accordingly, a proposed “New Khanbeygi System” is discussed as a participatory and accountable institutional arrangement connecting pastoral communities with formal authorities, subject to pilot implementation and independent evaluation.



Introduction: Nomadic communities in Iran, including the Shahsevan tribes, have long contributed to regional economic and political life. Yet state centralization, settlement policies, and changing institutional arrangements have reshaped the conditions under which mobile pastoralists sustain their livelihoods. Drawing on the capabilities approach and critical political economy, this study distinguishes poverty as a condition from impoverishment as a possible process of declining assets, access, and livelihood capabilities. Rather than estimating the prevalence of poverty, it examines how households experience changing feed and livestock prices, administrative barriers, uneven access to support, and shifts in collective assistance. It also considers how nomadic households negotiate these pressures without assuming that every hardship necessarily produces impoverishment.



Method: The study employed a qualitative ethnographic design in Meshginshahr County, Ardabil Province, over a twelve-month research period. Fieldwork included exploratory visits and 70 days of observation and residence alongside a nomadic family across winter settlements, migration routes, spring pastures, and summer grazing areas. Purposive and snowball sampling involved 93 participants, including herders, women, elders, local representatives, intermediaries, and officials, selected to capture differences in herd size, mobility, and access to services. Data came from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, life histories, and documentary examination of administrative and policy materials. Iterative inductive–deductive thematic analysis distinguished participants’ accounts from observed events and researchers’ interpretations. Triangulation, confidentiality, informed consent, and reflexivity guided the research; the sample was not intended for statistical generalization.



Findings: The findings are organized into two interconnected categories: bureaucratic encounters and economic pressures; and changes in social support and household organization. In the first, participants questioned the eligibility of some holders of nomadic documents, calling them “fake nomads,” and described difficulties obtaining subsidized flour, barley, and other entitlements. Some reported that allocations appeared as “delivered” in digital records although they had not received them. The expression “bureaucratic theft” captures this reported discrepancy analytically; it does not establish criminal wrongdoing or identify responsible officials. Delays, travel, and the timing of distribution could further burden mobile households. These experiences suggest unequal access to support, but their prevalence and administrative causes could not be independently established.

Livestock and feed prices formed another source of uncertainty. Herders described distress sales, livestock losses, and difficulties preserving productive assets during periods of unfavorable prices. One participant used the “golden number 11,” a locally derived livestock-to-barley price ratio, to assess pastoral viability. This is an emic rule of thumb, not a validated market indicator. Accounts of lost animals and diminished herds provide more direct indications of potential impoverishment than administrative grievances alone, although the longer-term trajectories of individual households require further verification.

The second category concerns changing forms of solidarity and family labor. Elders recalled the Khan-beygi system as providing mutual assistance, dispute settlement, and collective coordination; some considered its formal replacements less responsive. Households nevertheless drew on kinship ties, informal networks, document-related tactics, and persistent claims-making. These actions ranged from adaptation to everyday resistance, depending on participants’ purposes and circumstances. In some observed households, women and children spent more time in towns while men continued pastoral work. One herder called this the “masculinization” of pastoral labor. The term describes particular field experiences, not a general trend or an inherently negative outcome of women’s residential choices.



Conclusion: Impoverishment among the households studied is best approached as a possible erosion of productive assets and livelihood capabilities arising through interactions among markets, environmental constraints, administrative access, and changing support networks. Ethnographic accounts illuminate these pathways without establishing their population-wide frequency or assigning legal responsibility for alleged irregularities. The findings favor services aligned with seasonal mobility, transparent and contestable subsidy records, and stronger locally accountable representation. A proposed “new Khan-beygi” arrangement should therefore be considered only as a participatory pilot, with safeguards against conflicts of interest and independent evaluation, rather than as a return to traditional authority.