Despite a half century of state-sponsored industrialization in the region, only with the more recent, abrupt exposure to global capitalism has Siberia become a hotly contested site of debates over both indigenous rights and resource extraction. The present study will explore the relationship between expressions of collective indigenous identity and debates over natural resources in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), a region of the Russian Far East. The Sakha Republic is now a particularly crucial site of contestation, boasting diamond reserves that produce almost 25% of the world's diamonds. The region is also home to a sizeable and highly educated indigenous population, the Sakha, who comprise almost 40% of the Republic's residents. Engaging contemporary debates within anthropology over the significance of a growing international "indigenous" identity, the research assumes that expressions of indigenous identity are neither natural nor inevitable, and are contingent upon a variety of intersecting global and local process. This study will examine those processes that give rise to expressions of Sakha indigenous identity, in particular: 1) the history of Sakha incorporation into the Soviet state; 2) the changing nature of Sakha engagement with the diamond industry; and 3) the increasing presence in the Republic of international organizations, such as UNESCO, the Northern Forum, and the Arctic Council. The study will entail eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Russian Federation, primarily in the Sakha Republic. Data collection will involve participant observation, semi-structured interviews and life history interviews with Sakha and non-Sakha residents of the region, in addition to some archival research. Examining a post-Soviet politics of indigeneity and the implications of this for the lives and livelihoods of individual Sakha, this research will contribute to a broader understanding of the relationship between global and local processes in the formation and expression of collective indigenous identities.
As a dissertation project, this research constitutes a significant portion of the co-PI's own training as a scholar and researcher. Moreover, the project will establish links between academics of Russia and North America, involving three institutions: the University of British Columbia, with strong links to the North American Arctic and Subarctic; the American Museum of Natural History, with a history of research in Siberia dating to the Jesup North Pacific expedition of the late 19th-early 20th century; and Sakha State University, the central state university of the Sakha Republic. The research will also involve extensive community involvement; data analysis will begin in the field and solicit the input of community members, research participants and a Sakha student employed as a research assistant and in transcription. Finally, the resulting dissertation will be professionally translated into Russian and disseminated widely. Paper and digital copies will be made available at collaborating institutions in Russia, the U.S. and Canada.
