BelONGinG TO THE LAND in TURA: ReFORms, MIGRAtiOns, AND IDentitY POlitiCS in EvenKIA OLGA POVOROZNYUK Candidate of Science in Ethnology, Senior Researcher Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Sciences Leninskiy Prospect 32a 119991 Moscow, Russia e-mail:
[email protected] AbstRACT Tura is a mixed community where Evenks live alongside other indigenous groups and Russians. The establishment of Evenk autonomy, with the centre in Tura, in 1930 strengthened Evenk ethnic identity and unity through increased political and cultural representation, as well as through the integration of migrants from other regions. In the post-Soviet period, the community witnessed a population loss, a declining socio-economic situation, and the abolition of autonomy. In the long course of reforms and identity construction, the indigenous intelligentsia has manipulated the concept of belonging to the land either to stress or to erase cultural differences, and thus, to secure the access of the local elite to valuable resources. Currently, the most hotly debated boundaries are those dividing Evenks into local and migrant, authentic and unauthentic, urban and rural. The paper* illustrates the intricate interrelations between ethnic, indigenous, and territorial identities from an identity politics perspective. KEYWORDS: belonging to land • Evenks • reforms • identity politics • migration INTRODUCTION Tura1 is the administrative centre of Evenk Rayon (municipal district, referred to below as Evenkia) situated in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Western Siberia. Its population was formed in the course of state administrative and territorial reforms, migrations, and identity construction politics. With the establishment of Evenk autonomy in 1930, nomads were sedentarised in ‘ethnic’ villages (natsional’nyi poselok) and a labour force was drawn to Tura from district settlements (faktoriya) and more distant places.