The ‘age of the market’ and the regime of debt: the role of credit in the transformation of pastoral Mongolia¹

Since the decollectivisation of the rural economy in the 1990s, Mongolian pastoralists have become subject to the new property regime of the ‘age of the market’ (). Formerly collective assets, such as livestock, machinery and buildings, have become private property and land is increasingly becoming a resource available for private ownership. International finance and development agencies have advocated credit schemes for pastoralists faced with uneven annual income and the servicing of debt has become a central burden for an increasing number of Mongolian households. In the neoliberal era, the pastoral sector has become highly vulnerable to climatic variation. The distribution of environmental risks alongside processes of collateralisation has expanded the sphere of monetised relations and made pastoralists dependent upon increasingly global markets for commodities and credit. This new regime of debt has interesting historical parallels with the Qing‐era barter trade that impoverished pre‐revolutionary Mongolia.