Nomads in a world of modernity and post-modernity. Experience of and prospects for adaptation

The article explores issues in the research on nomadic peoples and cultures in early modern and contemporary times. The author believes that the currently used scientific approaches toward studying Eurasia's nomadic civilizations as, for the most part, a relic of the pre-industrial development period and the way to see their economic activities and social organization as a phenomenon indicative of their archaic nature have to be revised, for the long period of existence of the past and present nomadic societies in the context of contact and interaction with the world of modernity and post-modernity resulted in the introduction of many - now functionally necessary - novations and innovations into the life of these societies. This experience and the effects of influence exerted on the nomadic way of life by the relationships with the cultural world of the industrial and post-industrial periods have to be studied and systematized which is, in turn, needed for the understanding of prospects for reproduction and change in the ethno-culturally distinctive characteristics of today's nomads. The author provides certain examples of changes in a number of peoples in Russia and adjacent territories (i.e. numerically small indigenous peoples of Siberia, nomads of the steppe zone) showing the basis for ethnic identification and its preservation or transformation in the context of change, and analyzing possible prospects for and specificities of reproduction of nomadic peoples and of their traditions facing the realities of the post-industrial world.

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