Ndigenous peoples of the North in the polycultural space of Western Siberia: on the problem of ethnic identification

The purpose of the article is to study the collective identification strategies of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North in the projection on their ethnic identity. The work is based on field materials obtained during some years in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Ugra; regulatory documents, scientific literature and publications in the media are also used. The specificity of the ethnic situation in the KHMAO-Yugra is revealed; the features of the Ob-Ugric ethnic mobilization are highlighted; identification strategies of the Ob Ugric peoples associated with their integration into the world indigenous movement are traced; the practice of constructing regional identity is studied. The author proceeds from the fact that the mechanisms of ethnic identification are of subjective in nature, but at the same time ethnicity can find expression in collective forms, is conditioned and supported, including by external factors. Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North are primarily a legal category, belonging to which serves as the basis for providing state support to certain groups of the population. The symbiosis of ethnicity with rights creates conditions for the emergence of special identity configurations among representatives of these peoples. The study showed that in the late 1890s and early 1990s, resistance to oil dominance became a powerful factor in the consolidation and growth of ethnic self-consciousness of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North in the KHMAO - Yugra. The Northern aborigines achieved certain results in the struggle for their rights, and a set of new identities was supported by the legal basis. Being implemented as a political project, new identities are reproduced considering the support on the international movement of indigenous peoples. The tendency towards indigenization, which expresses the desire of Northern aborigines independently determine their own development prospects, leads to fundamental transformations of the actors themselves. It is concluded that the considering case reflects a situation when the organization of ethnic identities of the North indigenous small-numbered peoples is based rather not on objective cultural characteristics, but on the attribution of certain social values to a limited features set. The considered forms of collective identity are in various ways correlated with the practices of personal ethnic identification. In this regard, one of the most promising research tasks is studying of transcultural identities, i.e. when people simultaneously live and think of themselves in different cultural dimensions.

Keywords

Authors

References