National communities, native land tenure, and self‐determination among the Eastern Khanty

Abstract

Field work conducted among the Eastern Khanty between 1993 and 1996 disclosed that patterns of land use, community development, and political activity among the Eastern Khanty, while motivated in part by external ideologies and the collapse of the Soviet system, also represent transformations of historical models adapted to resist the impact of petroleum development in the post‐Soviet era. The argument is presented and elaborated that, apart from an improvement in broader institutional problems that undermine local development everywhere in the former Soviet Union, a secure future for the Khanty requires that some aspects of the legacy of native‐state relations peculiar to pre‐Soviet Russia be restored in the present circumstances—specifically investing family‐kinship communities with effective local political power to manage their lands.