Beyond the Settled State: Nomadic and Mobile Cultures in History and Today

In history and the status quo, a civilizational bias towards settled states has blinded us from a world that is heavily influenced, and in many ways kept together by “nomadic” groups. Because history is often written by settled states, we have largely come to accept this form of society as the norm. Whether it was Sima Qian on the Xiongnu, or Tacitus’s Germania, nomadic groups were repeatedly labelled as barbarians, not as the distinctly powerful political formation many probably were.

In the modern world, these stateless, “rogue” cultures are everywhere. The domination of Filipinos in global seafaring has led to unique ship cultures across the globe; the world of universities is shaped by mobile professing and international student networks; digital nomads travel the world, creating transnational communities; foreign correspondents and itinerant authors move from posting to posting, cultivating the information we depend on today. This topic seeks to bring awareness to these global cultures—to recognize that they are a permanent feature of the world we live in, not just to look at them with aberration, as people who have temporarily left a homeland. 

超越定居本位：历史与当下的游牧型文化

在历史进程与现实格局之中，定居文明本位偏见遮蔽了如下事实：游牧族群深刻塑造全球格局，并在诸多维度维系世界体系。鉴于历史叙事长期由定居国家主导，我们已然将定居型社会形态默认为范式。不论是司马迁对匈奴的记述，抑或塔西佗笔下的日耳曼部族，游牧共同体屡屡被冠以蛮族称谓，其本身具备的成熟强权政治实体属性却遭到普遍忽视。

步入现代语境，此类无国家依托的游离型文化群体广泛存在。菲律宾籍从业者在全球航海体系中的优势地位催生了各具地域特质的船舶亚文化；流动教职群体与跨国留学生网络重塑高等教育生态；数字游民开展跨境迁徙，构建跨国社群网络；驻外通讯员与巡回撰稿人辗转派驻岗位，生产当代社会赖以存续的信息资源。本议题旨在唤醒学界对该类全球性社群的认知：它们属于现代世界的恒态构成要素，不应被视作暂时脱离故土的偏离常态群体。