Settlers On The Edge: Identity And Modernization On Russia's Arctic Frontier
by Niobe Thompson /
2008 / English / PDF
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Based on extensive research in the Arctic Russian region of
Chukotka, Settlers on the Edge is the first English-language
account of settler life anywhere in the circumpolar north to appear
since Robert Paine's The White Arctic (1977), and the first to
describe the experience of Soviet migrants in the Russian Arctic.
Covering a span from the beginning of mass settlement in the 1950s
to the present day, Niobe Thompson's ethnography is based on
settler life-histories, archival research, and close participant
observation over five years. Following a description of the high
modernist project of Northern settlement in the Soviet years,
Settlers on the Edge offers a unique portrait of an oligarchic
"take-over" in the contemporary Russian Arctic. This original
treatment of an almost unknown subject powerfully challenges the
image of the indifferent and transient "newcomer" evident in the
existing anthropology of the Arctic. Settlers on the Edge describes
the remarkable transformation of a population once dedicated to
establishing colonial power on a northern frontier into a rooted
community of "locals" now resisting a renewed colonial project.
Thompson provides unique insight into the future of identity
politics in the Arctic, the role of resource capital and the
oligarchs in the Russian provinces, and the fundamental human
questions of belonging and transcience.
Based on extensive research in the Arctic Russian region of
Chukotka, Settlers on the Edge is the first English-language
account of settler life anywhere in the circumpolar north to appear
since Robert Paine's The White Arctic (1977), and the first to
describe the experience of Soviet migrants in the Russian Arctic.
Covering a span from the beginning of mass settlement in the 1950s
to the present day, Niobe Thompson's ethnography is based on
settler life-histories, archival research, and close participant
observation over five years. Following a description of the high
modernist project of Northern settlement in the Soviet years,
Settlers on the Edge offers a unique portrait of an oligarchic
"take-over" in the contemporary Russian Arctic. This original
treatment of an almost unknown subject powerfully challenges the
image of the indifferent and transient "newcomer" evident in the
existing anthropology of the Arctic. Settlers on the Edge describes
the remarkable transformation of a population once dedicated to
establishing colonial power on a northern frontier into a rooted
community of "locals" now resisting a renewed colonial project.
Thompson provides unique insight into the future of identity
politics in the Arctic, the role of resource capital and the
oligarchs in the Russian provinces, and the fundamental human
questions of belonging and transcience.