Suchergebnisse

Abstract
While Henri Lefebvre used his rhythmanalysis for analysing urban spaces and the effects of those rhythms on the inhabitants of those spaces, I attempt to apply it to a more rural and non-European environment, the comparatively small and familiar space of a Mongolian nutag. Case studies based on oral and written Buryat and Barga Mongols' accounts demonstrate that entering the spiritually thick atmosphere of the nutag (crossing its borders) requires a certain slowing down and tactical deceleration to adjust to local rhythms. To examine the hierarchy of the various contingent forces that influence people and their movement either in their own or in khari nutag [foreign land], I elaborate host–guest relations into a triangulated arrangement of relations between ezed masters, guests and the locals. To borrow an expression from physics to add to our analytical vocabulary of writing on slowness and deceleration, each nutag appears to be a sort of a 'viscous medium' with different rhythms and fluids creating more drag on objects (people) moving through it.

The conceptual framework of this paper is to view Mongolia as a 'contact zone' which geographically bridged the gap between two rapidly growing Eurasian empires—Russia and China. It allows a rethinking of the historical and social circumstances that led to the formation of Chinese Pidgin Russian (cpr)1 by highlighting the lexical and grammatical influence of the Mongolian language on contact languages in the China–Russia border area. In particular, it discusses Mongolian language in various encounters in Russian–Chinese interactions, such as the use of Mongolian as mediation language during the initial stage of Qing–Russian diplomatic relations and as lingua franca in caravan trade and border relations between Russia and China, as well as its influence on the formation of Transbaikal dialect (or Zabaikal'skoe narechie), which was widely spoken by Russians in Mongol-speaking colonial frontiers of Russia in Eastern Siberia. Moreover, the paper highlights the Mongolian elements in the first cpr, questioning a common scholarly perception that Kiakhta (or Maimacheng)2 pidgin consisted primarily of Russian and Chinese borrowings. Therefore, unique language hybridisation of these three languages continues to be noticeable in Russia–China trade hubs in Inner Mongolia nowadays, where transborder ethnic and economic contacts between Russia, China and Mongolia are becoming more complicated and diverse.

AbstractThe significance of the kinship relationship between the mother's brother and sister's son (avunculate) was one of the most discussed topics in the history of social anthropology. Two theories of pre-Schneiderian age – descent and alliance approaches – both consider avuncular relations as being tense and contradictive, associated with certain privileges of the maternal uncle and his senior hierarchical position in relation to Ego. This paper tries to establish the relevance of this classical anthropological theme to contemporary social and political realities in Buriad society, specifically to extend the discussion of the classificatory/metaphorical use of avuncular kinship terminology to a new context – that of diaspora relationships with homeland and host society. A recent tendency in kinship studies argues that kinship terminology can be employed flexibly to handle relationships of various kinds, and suggests that kinship terms should often be understood as referring to a kind of social relationship rather than to a specifically genealogical connection. Two cases, which I present in the paper, show how Buriad diaspora communities in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (China) involve the avuncular relationship to define their concerns and tensions in relation both to colonisers in the homeland in Russia and to the social inequality of migrants in their host societies. This local phenomenon shows that kinship terminology continues to have a wider social significance, being used, for example, to express current inequalities of power and the impact of political changes on local experience.