Suchergebnisse

This article deals with the ethnographic analysis of the history and social life of electricity among Nenets in the Yamal Peninsula. Based on historical documents and field data the author reconstructs a history of the electrification of the northern part of the peninsula. This work also includes the reflections on social and cultural meanings of electricity among Nenets in and out the tundra. Through these historical and current dynamics, the author suggests analysing the life of electricity in off-the-grid settings through the lens of transnational technological entanglements in the Arctic

The article investigates how in the Soviet Arctic researchers and indigenous communities searched and understood the mammoth before and during the Cold War. Based on a vast number of published and unpublished sources as well as interviews with scholars and reindeer herders, this article demonstrates that the mammoth as a paleontological find fusing together features of extinct and extant species, plays an in-between role among various environmental epistemologies. The author refers to moments of interactions among these different actors as "environmental encounters," which comprise and engagement with the physical, political, social and cultural environments of the Arctic. These encounters shape the temporal stabilisations of knowledge which enable the mammoth to live its post-extinct life. The article combines approaches from environmental history and anthropology, history of science and indigenous studies showing the social vitality of a "fossil object". ; QC 20191001

What does an anthropologist's archive look like? Where is it located? And is the anthropology of archives important for the understanding of anthropological thinking today? Here we answer these questions by analysing the various life histories of the archival fragments of one of the most puzzling and influential anthropologists in the history of Russian and Soviet anthropology: Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogoroff (1887–1939). Shirokogoroff is credited as being one of the authors of the etnos theory — one of the main instruments of identity politics in Russia, China, Germany and also, in part, Japan and South Africa. The transnational life histories of Shirokogoroff and his wife Elizaveta [Elizabeth] Nikolaevna (1884–1943), and of their ideas, suggests a conception of the archive not as a single whole, but instead as a collection of forgotten, hidden, obliterated, or, on the other hand, scrupulously preserved fragments. These fragments are not centred in one place or organized around any one reading, but they nevertheless represent "partial connections". Moreover, as we can see today with hindsight, none of these archival fragments lay inert. They have been intertwined in local political and social ontologies. Our text has an autoethnograpic quality. While illustrating separate episodes from the life of the Shirokogoroffs we also will tell of our search for the manuscripts through which we were forced onto strange paths and encounters. These greatly deepened our understanding both of the life of documents and their material links to the lives of researchers. Our article is an attempt to illustrate this complex picture which, in the end, will allow us to conclude that we have only just begun to understand the workings of the anthropologist's archive in the history of anthropological thought. ; QC 20220530

Intro -- Contents -- Notes on Transliteration and Place Names -- Notes on Referencing Archival and Museum Collections -- Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Grounding Etnos Theory: An Introduction -- Defining Etnos -- Empires, Scientific Traditions, and Etnos -- Life Histories, and Field Histories, of Etnos Thinking -- Etnos and Contemporary Identity Movements -- Published References -- 2. Etnos Thinking in the Long Twentieth Century -- What's in a Term?: The Etnos Term and the Institutionalization of Ethnography in Russia -- Etnos and Biosocial Science in Russia -- Etnos and Soviet Marxism -- Etnos in the Long Twentieth Century and Beyond -- Published References -- Archival References -- 3. Ukrainian Roots of the Theory of Etnos -- St Petersburg Anthropology before Volkov -- The Ukrainian National Movement and the Definition of Nationality -- Volkov and the Politics of Ukrainian Identity in the Russian Empire -- The Ukrainian People in its Past and Present as a Joint Project of the Russian and Ukrainian Liberal Intelligentsia -- Etnos, the St Petersburg Paleoethnological School, and the Teaching of Ethnography -- Museum, Fieldwork, and Etnos: The Role of Ethnographic Exhibits -- Physical Anthropology and Etnos: Dmitriĭ Anuchin Challenges Volkov's Ukrainian "Anthropological Type" -- Mogili͡anskiĭ in Exile: Political Activism and Teaching -- The Legacy of Volkov in the USSR and Ukraine -- Conclusion -- Published References -- Archival References -- 4. Mapping Etnos: The Geographic Imagination of Fёdor Volkov and his Students -- Map, Archive, Museum: the Sources and Methods of the Commission's Work -- Ethnographic Map-Making -- Language: Creating a Dialectological Map -- Museum Activities as a Platform for the Commission's Work -- Organization, Methods, and Results of the KSEK Commission's Work.

The idea of etnos came into being over a hundred years ago as a way of understanding the collective identities of people with a common language and shared traditions. In the twentieth century, the concept came to be associated with Soviet state-building, and it fell sharply out of favour. Yet outside the academy, etnos-style arguments not only persist, but are a vibrant part of regional anthropological traditions. Life Histories of Etnos Theory in Russia and Beyond makes a powerful argument for reconsidering the importance of etnos in our understanding of ethnicity and national identity across Eurasia. The collection brings to life a rich archive of previously unpublished letters, fieldnotes, and photographic collections of the theory's early proponents. Using contemporary fieldwork and case studies, the volume shows how the ideas of these ethnographers continue to impact and shape identities in various regional theatres from Ukraine to the Russian North to the Manchurian steppes of what is now China. Through writing a life history of these collectivist concepts, the contributors to this volume unveil a world where the assumptions of liberal individualism do not hold. In doing so, they demonstrate how notions of belonging are not fleeting but persistent, multi-generational, and bio-social.