Homewarding Remoteness Representations, Agency and Everyday Life in a Tundra Village (NW Russia)
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Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education Homewarding Remoteness Representations, agency and everyday life in a tundra village (NW Russia) — Petia Mankova A dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor – September 2017 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................ II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................... VII PART ONE CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 KRASNOSHCHELYE ............................................................................................................................. 1 TRACKING TRAJECTORIES .................................................................................................................... 6 SCULPTING THE THESIS ..................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY AND ETHICS ........................................................................................ 17 FIELDWORK IN RUSSIA ..................................................................................................................... 17 ENTANGLEMENTS............................................................................................................................ 22 Serendipity and chance ......................................................................................................... 23 Life entanglements and emotions ........................................................................................ 26 Intertextuality: Grandma Lyuba............................................................................................ 31 INTERSUBJECTIVITY AND ETHICS ......................................................................................................... 34 PART TWO CHAPTER THREE: ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................ 41 CHAPTER FOUR: REMOTENESS AS REPRESENTATION ............................................................................. 47 APPROACHING REMOTENESS ............................................................................................................. 47 REMOTE PLACES AS NON-MODERN ..................................................................................................... 52 REMOTE PLACES AS NON-METROPOLITAN ............................................................................................ 61 REMOTENESS AND THE ABSENCE OF STATE ........................................................................................... 67 Northern colonialism ............................................................................................................ 69 Russian colonizations ............................................................................................................ 72 CHAPTER FIVE: REMOTENESS AS AGENCY .............................................................................................. 77 AGENCY AT THE MARGINS ................................................................................................................. 77 THE EVERYDAY LIFE AND ITS POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE .............................................................................. 79 RUSSIAN/SOVIET INTERPRETATIONS OF EVERYDAY LIFE ........................................................................... 80 SPANS OF AMBIGUITIES .................................................................................................................... 83 "THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY" .............................................................................................................. 88 ii TEMPORARINESS AND UNPREDICTABILITY ............................................................................................. 92 ENJOYMENT ................................................................................................................................... 93 CHAPTER SIX: REMOTENESS IN THE EVERYDAY LIFE ............................................................................... 97 CARE ............................................................................................................................................ 97 Migratoriness ........................................................................................................................ 97 Healthiness of places ............................................................................................................ 99 Extended mothering ........................................................................................................... 103 GENEALOGIES .............................................................................................................................. 106 "My Family Roots" competition .......................................................................................... 107 Genealogies and Ancestors ................................................................................................. 109 The non-glorious narratives ................................................................................................ 113 Album & photographs......................................................................................................... 116 HOMES AND HOUSES ..................................................................................................................... 118 Rebuilding houses ............................................................................................................... 119 Redistributing homes .......................................................................................................... 122 The balagan & the tent ....................................................................................................... 126 REMOTENESS INTO INTIMACY .......................................................................................................... 128 PART THREE THE KOMI OF THE KOLA PENINSULA WITHIN ETHNOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS AND STATE POLICIES .... 131 A SAFE HARBOUR IN STORMY WINDS: EDUCATIONAL REFORMS AND SOCIAL POETICS IN A RUSSIAN TUNDRA VILLAGE ................................................................................................................................. 157 MAKING SENSE OF THE REMOTE AREAS: FILMS AND STORIES FROM A TUNDRA VILLAGE ................... 189 HETEROGENEITY AND SPONTANEITY: REINDEER RACES, BUREAUCRATIC DESIGNS AND INDIGENOUS TRANSFORMATIONS AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE NORTH IN MURMANSK ............................................... 215 CONCLUSIONS ”HOMEWARDING” REMOTENESS ........................................................................................................ 243 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................... 251 iii Map adapted from Administrative Map of Murmansk region (1971) Map of the Komi migration to Kola Peninsula as seen in the Lovozero School Museum iv Krasnoshchelye in the winter Krasnoshchelye from the air v Krasnoshchelye in the summer The School in Krasnoshchelye vi Acknowledgements One summer day I was walking in Krasnoshchelye. A girl of about 10 stopped her bike right in front of me, looked at me and said “Mum says, you are writing a book about Krasnoshchelye!” I was a bit perplexed and answered “Well, yes. I do. But…” She did not wait for me to finish the sentence. Just said: “Cool!”, got on her bike and vanished as quickly as she had appeared. Only I did not write a book about the village. I wrote a dissertation. And it is about what I learned from the people who live there. Therefore, I feel eternally indebted to Valentina, Tatiana, Irina, Vassiliy, and many other krasnoshcheltsy who shared their time with me. I hope I will not disappoint their expectations. Many would say that thesis writing is a lonely process. It is, nevertheless, a social one as well. Throughout the writing process I also felt the strong presence of people backing me up. Working closely together with Jens Petter Nielsen on the book project “Neighbourly Asymmetry: Norway and Russia 1814 -2014”, taught me a lot about the art and craft of writing. More importantly, I admire the integrity in his texts, the playful control of language and his remarkable ability to write in his own voice. As supervisor, he has given me unwavering support from the very beginning of the project. My supervisor Rossella Ragazzi has always been there for me for the last two years, wholeheartedly allowing me to benefit from her endless intellectual vitality and personal warmth. Since the first classes in visual anthropology in 1998, Rossella has been a source of inspiration, always pointing out new possibilities, elevating my thoughts, opening new horizons, lifting me up and making me feel wiser. vii I am also deeply indebted to Finn Sivert Nielsen for reading through the thesis in the final phase and for providing his invaluable comments – detailed and comprehensive, critical but fair; challenging but appropriate, and sometimes disarmingly witty. I owe him for always intellectually stimulating discussions and pleasant conversations. Further on, I am grateful to Vladislava Vladimirova and Yulian Konstantinov for conversations both face-to-face and through the texts they have written; to the INPOINT