Suchergebnisse

In going over submissions to Sibirica at the beginning of 2021, I found several articles related to culture and history in the Sakha Republic. Naturally, I thought it would be illuminating to bring them together to see how they might complement each other. Although this is not a typical special issue with a planned overarching theme, I found that these articles are not only geographically united but subtly reflective of broad underlying concerns—the revitalization and continuity of culture, and the agency of minoritized and indigenous peoples in striving for self-definition and survival. This issue is a way of "checking in" on the state of some of the diverse scholarly work happening in and on Sakha (Yakutia) in recent months and years—from the perspectives of researchers in anthropology, literary studies, history, and art history and criticism.

The town of Tiksi came into being in the 1930s, when the Soviet Union intensified its efforts to industrialize the Arctic. A critical element of that policy was to make the Northern Sea Route a viable Arctic shipping lane and Tiksi, located where the Lena River meets the Arctic Ocean, became an important transportation hub on that route. Post-Soviet transformations led to a rapid decline in population numbers and economic significance of the town, while climate change opened up new opportunities for shipping and mammoth tusk collecting. Today, the situation seems to have stabilized but the promises of a bright future pronounced in strategic papers by the government are yet to be realized. The article explores the socio-economic, infrastructural and environmental changes of recent decades in order to explore future development prospects for Tiksi. The infrastructural legacies of the Soviet past, combined with the environmental conditions of the region, result in the intertwined material dependencies of built and natural environments. Still, these material dependencies are neither straitjackets nor unchangeable. It is the interplay between global climate change, national policies, and local initiative that will challenge the material dependencies of the past and present.

Changes with regard to climate and permafrost are giving rise to new, interrelated processes and stressors, which in turn are creating new risk patterns for Arctic communities. Obtaining an increased knowledge of these new risks could be a starting point for understanding the opportunities for, and implications of, possible solutions. This article focuses on the social representations of permafrost thaw among people who were born or live in different regions of Sakha Republic (Russia). In this sense, our research aims to obtain a better understanding of the new risk patterns through the collection and subsequent analysis of narratives of personal experiences in order to identify the main concerns, how these are defined and framed and which coping strategies are considered by local inhabitants. We conducted fieldwork in Yakutsk (the capital city of Sakha Republic) in order to meet and interview a wide range of stakeholders including, among others, governmental authorities, people working in or representing research institutions, indigenous people, students and reindeer herders.

Changes with regard to climate and permafrost are giving rise to new, interrelated processes and stressors, which in turn are creating new risk patterns for Arctic communities. Obtaining an increased knowledge of these new risks could be a starting point for understanding the opportunities for, and implications of, possible solutions. This article focuses on the social representations of permafrost thaw among people who were born or live in different regions of Sakha Republic (Russia). In this sense, our research aims to obtain a better understanding of the new risk patterns through the collection and subsequent analysis of narratives of personal experiences in order to identify the main concerns, how these are defined and framed and which coping strategies are considered by local inhabitants. We conducted fieldwork in Yakutsk (the capital city of Sakha Republic) in order to meet and interview a wide range of stakeholders including, among others, governmental authorities, people working in or representing research institutions, indigenous people, students and reindeer herders.