In many works on reindeer herding Komi people are considered as innovators who made reindeer herding not only a way of life but a profitable economy. One innovation that they did in the small village of Khongurei (see my fieldwork blog stephandudeck.wordpress.com) Nenets Autonomous Okrug, European Russian North, turned out to be rather counter-productive in …
Continue reading The cradle of fly-in/fly-out reindeer herding in Europe: greetings from Khongurei
Nina Meschtyb, postdoc research in our ORHELIA project, shares the following impressions from her fieldtrip Privet from Murmansk region. It is not very hot here – around 3-7 degree, but warm water was already switched off at houses for the summer period. I started my trip from Murmansk. The bus arrived late in the evening, …
I just read an interesting conference call for papers that centres on ethnography and biography, very much what we deal with in our oral history project work: In the ORHELIA project, we are all confronted as anthropologists with the methodological challenge of doing a sort of data collection based on interviews, be they audio, video …
Continue reading Ethnographic biography? What can oral history contribute?
I’m just back from the conference “Oral History – Dialogue with Society” in Riga that took place from 29th till 30th March. The conference was hosted by the Latvian National Oral History Centre of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Latvia in cooperation with the Association of Oral History Researchers of …
Continue reading Conference in Riga “Oral History – Dialogue with Society”
Nina Meschtyb's reconnaissance field trip Jona and Jonskaya, February 2012 My departure was sudden, as well as the place where I decided to go. The destination of my first trip for the ORHELIA project was a little village west of the Kola Peninsula – Jona (Ёна). When we think of Russian Sámi, everybody has the …
Continue reading Sámi and Finnish people West of the Kola Peninsula
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 …
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 …
Arctic Anthropology 