Connectivity of the Environmental Components of the Inhabitants of Russkoie Ustie Village as an Adaptive Resource

The article explores the connectivity of the components of the environment of the inhabitants of the village of Russkoie Ustie, Allaikhovskii District, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The main source of the work is the data collected by the author during the fieldwork in 2019. The aim of the article is to identify the role of the components’ connectivity of the surrounding space of local residents in acting as a way of adapting to local environmental and economic conditions characterized by a shortage of resources, inaccessibility, and close social contacts. Components of the area of everyday interactions between people and the environment are analyzed, such as discursive, practical, material communication, family relations and memory, and two modes of functioning of the local space are identified: a single differentiated one (village as a whole) and divided into homogeneous modules of fishing areas. It is concluded that an increase in the number of connections between objects of the environment creates a suitable infrastructure for the individual components to give a synergistic effect and the result necessary for local residents to perform everyday tasks, achieve a sense of comfort and security. Because of the increase in connectivity, a field of relations is formed in which individual elements become not just a chaotic set of objects and practices, but act as “letters” of one “alphabet”. An addition to the concepts of T. Ingold and K. Barad is also proposed, according to which the principle of interconnected formation of objects does not act as a total and homogeneous attribute of all processes, but is positioned as a phenomenon with temporal and spatial localization, which is reflected in the form “increased mutual connection” between interacting components (Knorozov 2018). The author declares no conflict of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References