In a slightly different vein, post-structuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their book "A Thousand Plateaus" discuss the historical facts of nomadism and work it into a conceptual tool to describe not only societies and practices, but also aesthetics and just about anything else you can think of.
Starting from an older description of nomads cited in the book, they say that, counter-intuitively considering the nomadic tendency to wander, that in fact nomads are "those who do not move." And what they mean by this is that nomads have not responded to environmental cues in the same that that sedentary, agrarian, and ultimately urban societies have. While most societies either moved with changing climates to more productive lands and better temperatures, or produced the concrete jungles of the urban as population magnets for PERMANENT migration (and the word permanent is key here), nomads could in fact be looked at as the people who "stayed" in an area (even with their wandering), in spite of climactic change. This can be seen with the three major climates inhabited by nomades: temperate steppe, arctic steppe, and desert areas.
While a real understanding of Deleuze and Guattari's use of the nomad concept would require reading that section of the book (easily found online under the name "The Nomadology"), the fundamental descriptor of the nomad stems from the way that they understand and experience space, a description that then opens itself up to describing far more than simply nomadic societies.
In short, nomads can be seen to occupy "smooth space," while state societies (urban, agrarian, sedentary, etc) are seen to produce "striated space." A nomadic existence can be seen to occupy space in a fluid manner, lacking in many ways both roads and paths, but all the same maintain "flows" throughout space among various "waypoints" (oases, etc) as need be. Rather than occupied strict and rigid social hierarchies (although certainly not excluding the existence of hierarchies), nomads instead form bands based on numbers and intensities of use and force, and these bands are capable of dissolving and reforming.
This can be seen in contrast to so-called "state societies" that maintain not only the striation of physical space with roads, fences, buildings, and other structures, but also of social space with rigid hierarchies and social and economic roles.
The two types of societies, while possessing no need of animosity toward each other, are often mutually exclusive. Nomads, in their fluid occupation of smooth space, are by their nature opposed to the rigid striation of space by state societies. In this way, Deleuze and Guattari suggest that while war, and the "war machine" are not the OBJECT of the nomads, the war-machine is indeed a SUPPLEMENT to nomadic existence. And by this they mean that nomads occupy space fluidly, failing to recognize boundaries (especially of the state variety) and often occupying smooth space to the very limits as permitted by the utility of their systematic waypoints and the physical barriers presented to them.
When a nomadic society encounters the striations of a state society, the nomads must either flee and recognize the boundaries of the states as a physical boundary, be integrated into the state society, or often, transform from a simple nomadic society into a war machine whose goal is not animosity and therefore the destruction of a state society, but rather the destruction of state striations and the reclamation of smooth space. This can be seen time and time again in society, often under the guise of "barbarian invasions" (Rome, anyone?).
Interestingly, the latter sections of Deleuze and Guattari's Nomadology explores two very different and very curious extensions of nomadism. The first is the way state societies are able to capture and control the nomadic war machine to produce a captive society within, yet separate from, the state society: the military. This seems quite an odd proposition, but provides for a number of insights into social and political dynamics. The second is the way in which nomadism can exist WITHIN state societies, indeed in the form of the migrants, migrant laborers, and groups like the Romani mentioned above (and most of these mentioned in the Nomadology also), but also in the form of different mentalities and subcultures within the state society. The mentalities and subcultures, much like the literal nomads, seek to reclaim smooth space (including smooth mental space, smooth space of identity (racial and gender identities are included here), and many other phenomena) from state striations, and where the nomadic mindset encounters state striation, it must either submit and integrate, or transform into a war machine with the objective of reclaiming smooth space. However, nomads trapped within state societies can also occupy a strange middle ground of "holey" space, where feat of hiding and camouflage and subversion and subterfuge permit the extension of smooth space in all directions, by taking advantage of the cracks and fissures in state society.
This description is simplistic compared to the propositions and description found in the book, but I feel I have captured the general idea. It is a read that I found well worth the effort, and provides many insights into what nomadism is, and how many of the properties of nomadism find their way into our every day lives and the way our inner mental life, seeking freedom, acceptance, and growth, encounters and overcomes so many heavily differentiated barriers.
