Founded in the 1970s, the Journal Nomadic Peoples has a long and respected position in the scholarship devoted to peoples who maintain a mobile way of life. The journal's aim is to deal with all types of nomadic peoples, such as pastoral nomads, foragers, peripatetics (gypsies), and so-called sea nomads. Its aim is to provide the scientific community and the general public with new research on past and current aspects of the societies of mobile peoples, including their interactions with nation states and the wider society, development interventions and the global economy.

The journal crosses disciplinary and functional specializations, from academics to administrators and practitioners, and is international in geographical spread, as nomadic or recently-mobile peoples are found on all the continents. Since its establishment, the Journal has expanded its scope to encompass natural science perspectives on nomadic peoples along side anthropological and ethnological ones. Contributors and consulting editors include anthropologists as well as ecologists, economists, range and livestock scientists, policy-makers, and development operators.

Nomadic Peoples is indexed/abstracted by: Abstracts in Anthropology, Anthropological Index (On-line), Anthropological Literature, CABI, Emerging Sources Citation Index, eHRAF: Collection in Ethnography, Human Population and the Environment, Index Islamicus, Infotrac Online, International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBR), International Biblio of Periodical Literature (IBZ), Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, SCOPUS, Social Services Abstracts, Thomson Reuters Emerging Sources Citation Index, Sociological Abstracts, Worldcat, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.