Reindeer, Herders and War

In the study of many pastoralist societies, the military dimensions of animal husbandry have played an important role. Indeed, if we think for example about the horse among Central Asian nomads, and it's historical importance, e.g. for the expansion of Chingis Khan's Empire, it is hard to overestimate the military significance of pastoral animals. When …

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Oral history, European Nenets

Stephan Dudeck greets us from his fieldsite in the European Nenets Autonomous Okrug, North West Russia. He is there for starting the ORHELIA project life history work. He has put some great impressions and a very nice first round of oral history work on his own blog. Congratulations! Just quickly two things: I remember that …

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Gas and reindeer herders at the source of the heat for Europe

I just watched a two part programme by the english language Tv channel of Russia, Russia Today. It has some very good footage and visual impression of the situation at the place where most of our European Gas comes from (which is also my number one field site since the mid 1990s). Lots has changed …

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Living in the Taiga: moving in the field

I just had an inspiring phone talk with PhD student Evelyn Landerer, who returned from a year of fieldwork in some of the Russian North's remotest places, in the North of Irkutskaya Oblast and Krasnoyarski Krai. You need a month to even get there, if you get there, e.g. to the small village of Teteya …

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