1.4.13 Social stability and human potential of small endogenous communities of the Circumpolar North and Siberia in extreme socio-economic and political conditions
Elena Pivneva
Project leader
Context of Research Project within a Subject of Human Capital
The relevance of the project is determined by the need to analyze and comprehend the features of the socio-cultural development of small indigenous communities of the Circumpolar North and Siberia in modern conditions of global challenges. The essence of the problem is that the market economy and industrial development projects in the northern regions have a powerful impact on the livelihoods of the northern aborigines, determining the need to adapt to existing conditions. Today, indigenous peoples are the focus of attention of various actors. On the one hand, it is a minority, often perceived by society as a marginal exotic alternative, on the other hand, it is both a participant and an instrument in socio-economic discussions about the prospects of the North and the Arctic. Disputes and even conflicts constantly arise around the status of the CMNSIDS of the Russian Federation, their legal requirements and cultural preferences. The question is whether the identity of indigenous peoples as a project aimed at changing their social position in society is a factor that undermines the stability of social systems, or whether it acts as a civil counterweight that contributes to the harmonization of ethnogroup interests in society.
In its applied part, the project is aimed at promoting and improving the organization of state monitoring of the situation of indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation, the development of social initiative among the CIS, their greater involvement in civil society and in management decision-making processes.
Project aim
Identification of factors of sustainable development in the northern regions of the Russian Federation in the context of drastic social and economic changes, in terms of overcoming risks and ensuring the national security of the country.
Key Findings
2020
The scientific project was launched in 2022
2021
The scientific project was launched in 2022
2022
Based on international approaches, a methodology has been developed to assess the well-being factors (including human potential) of people who are influenced by extractive projects. A table of correspondence has been created between the headings of the Circumpolar Census and the developed indicators of the well-being of small indigenous peoples for changes related to the impact of the extractive industry.
Using the example of various practices of interaction with "Kalevala" and rune singing (publishing runes, their execution, work within public organizations), the process of "heritage work" is studied. The interrelation of ethnic identification and objects of folklore heritage is revealed, patterns of behavior of various actors in the process of its preservation and (re)production are considered. It is shown that heritage can be considered as a kind of "industry of values", which reflects the trends of reflexive modernization of society, and in this regard, heritage can often become part of the process of "cultural extractivism" for economic, political and other spheres.
2023
Based on the materials of the general population censuses of the XX–XXI centuries, the issues related to the accounting identification of indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East are investigated. Special attention is paid to the results of the last 2020 census and related scientific and public discussions around the number of peoples of the North, including the rhetoric of "extinction". The materials of official statistics (the results of population censuses) have been identified and introduced into scientific circulation 1926/27, 1937, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 years), reflecting the ethnodemographic changes in the environment of the indigenous peoples of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug during the Soviet period. It is concluded that in the second millennium, the number of indigenous small–numbered peoples of the North in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug has remained at a stable level, with a positive trend of moderate growth, which is explained by the positive dynamics of natural movement.
The foreman's family. A summer camp in the Kyzym Cape. 1956 Photo by V.M. Busyrev. From the author's personal archive.
Based on the identified archival materials (funds of the State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Scientific Archive of the IEA RAS) and published sources, the dynamics of land relations among the indigenous peoples of Taimyr in the XX century is traced. The impact of socialist modernization, including industrial development, on the connection of the indigenous peoples of Taimyr with the land as a factor of their sustainable development is analyzed. It has been established that socialist modernization in Taimyr had an impact on the connection of indigenous peoples with the land not so much by creating a "modern" type of land use with the consolidation of territorial boundaries for specific users, but by building new social boundaries on which the regime of access to land depended: on the one hand, professional collectives of farms (collective farms, state farms and industrial farms), on the other hand, the bureaucratic vertical. In the case of the Norilsk Dolgans, this new social boundary also included the Norilsk Combine.
A map of Taimyr indicating the boundaries of the farms of the district and their centers (settlements) that received systematic patronage from the enterprises of the Norilsk Combine.
Publications
- Mochalova M. A. The “Kalevala” epic poem and the tradition of runosong in the heritage discourse and safeguarding practices // Ural Historical Journal, 2022, no. 3 (76), pp. 65−73. doi
- Pivneva E. A. Soviet ethnographic Northern studies in the second half of the XX century in the mirror of Z. P. Sokolova’s scientific heritage (Moscow School) // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2021. doi
- Pivneva E. A. “Our culture began to come out from within”: ethnocultural heritage in post-Soviet identification strategies and practices of the Ob Ugrians // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2022; 12 (4/51): 774–783.
- Pivneva, EA 2023, ‘Indigenous Small Peoples of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Dis- trict–Yugra in the Mirror of Nation Censuses of Russia (20th – 21st Centuries)’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 4 (16), pp. 87–110.
- Pivneva E.A. The discourse of backwardness in the Soviet policy of Northern modernization and its ethnocultural consequences // X International Siberian Historical Forum "Siberia and Russia: history and Culture". Moscow: Pero Publishing House, 2023. pp. 1257-1261.
- Starchenko R.A., Serin P.A., Donezhuk M.Yu. "Regional identity and migration orientations of residents of the Kaliningrad region" (RU). Research Digest – № 5 (34). - 2024.
Conferences
Section "Ethnographic Siberian studies in the labyrinths of history and Politics" (IX International Siberian Historical Forum, Krasnoyarsk, September 14-16, 2022) Discussion of issues related to the creative heritage of Siberian scientists of the past, as well as modern theoretical problems of ethnology/ socio-cultural anthropology. https://sibhistory.sfu-kras.ru/
Round table "Historical and cultural heritage of the peoples of the North: management practices and identification strategies" (Scientific and practical Conference "Women and the Cultural Heritage of the peoples of the Arctic", Moscow, November 17-18, 2022). Discussion of issues related to the historical and cultural heritage of the peoples of the North of Russia, as well as new theoretical approaches to the study of the heritage of indigenous peoples the small peoples of Siberia and the Far East.
Section "Institute of Mentoring in the cultures of the North of Russia: scientific reflections and social practices" (XV Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia, St. Petersburg, June 27, 2023).
Section "How life changed in Soviet Siberia: Socialist modernization and the situation of indigenous peoples in the 1920s and 1980s" (X International Siberian Historical Forum, Krasnoyarsk, October 18-20, 2023). https://sibhistory.sfu-kras.ru/