How the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Arctic Defend Their Interests: The Social, Economic, and Political Foundations of Indigenous Resistance

Abstract

The article analyzes a new social and political phenomenon of contemporary Russia: rising voices of Indigenous peoples in Russia’s North under conditions of state pressure and official policy attempting to suppress Indigenous concerns. Indigenous voices of Arctic peoples are analyzed in the context of accelerated industrial development of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YaNAO). These processes are conceptualized in terms of Indigenous resistance. Research focus is on social, economic, and political changes in polar communities that have given rise to the phenomenon of the Voice of the Tundra [Golos tundry] networked protest community. The author reconsiders long-standing approaches to social processes among the Nenets tundra aborigines. Relying on the materials of field research in 2018 and 2019 conducted in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YaNAO), the author formulates a “Yamal paradox”: contrary to expectations that difficulties and trials of nomadic life will inevitably push tundra Nenets into an urban milieu, the traditional nomadic way of life is becoming attractive to them. Demographic growth among the Nenets reindeer breeders and a twofold increase in the size of reindeer herds over the past fifteen years in combination with intensive industrial development of the region have led to a situation where the interests of the growing fuel-and-energy complex and the growing community of nomads have collided in the Yamal-Nenets tundra. Main respondents and informants were local politicians and government executives, as well as representatives of the intellectual elite of Indigenous peoples of the North, and Nenets reindeer breeders from the tundra. Regional statistics, legislative acts of the YaNAO in relation to the indigenous numerically small peoples of the North (INSPNs), and regional mass information media were also used. The author thanks Eduard Khabechevich Yaungad, president of the Yamal Potomkam [Yamal Descendants] Association and deputy to the Legislative Assembly of the YaNAO; Oleg Prokop’evich Siugnei, section chief of the department for Indigenous numerically small peoples of the North of the YaNAO; and Yurii Viacheslavovich Laptander, chief of the agroindustrial complex, tasked with Indigenous numerically small peoples of the North (INSPNs) issues for Priural raion YaNAO. Laptander organized a three-day trip to kin-group lands [rodovym ugodiiam] of Nenets nomad reindeer breeders, two hundred kilometers from Salekhard, passing through Pung-Yu, 96 km zheleznoi dorogi Obskaia-Bovanenkovo, Stepino, and Paiuta trade centers. The author is also indebted to Galina Pavlovna Khariuchi, ethnology sector chief of the state “Scholarly Center for the Study of the Arctic” (Salekhard); Yurii Andreevich Morozov, journalist of the city newspaper Poliarnyi krug (Salekhard); Konstantin Gennad’ievich Filant, leading research fellow at the state “Scholarly Center for the Study of the Arctic” (Salekhard); and Sergei Nikolaevich Khariuchi, head of the Center for the Development of Reindeer Breeding, deputy director of the Russian Center for the Development of the Arctic (Salekhard), for valuable advice and recommendations. Field results have enabled reevaluation of the key problems and challenges confronting Native communities due to the breakneck transformation of the YaNAO into Russia’s new oil-and-gas province. This change in the consciousness of Native peoples has created the potential for Indigenous resistance. Methods of transmission of Indigenous voices and local aboriginal concerns have become new media, such as the “V Kontakte” social networks. The Golos tundry project has reflected the main “sore points” of Indigenous development in the YaNAO: the shortage of lands for the growing reindeer herds due to alienation of kin-group territories to the benefit of the fuel-and-energy complex; the uncertainty of life prospects for nomads in the face of accelerated industrial development of the region, the crisis of Indigenous leadership and official aboriginal organizations.