The making of a home in a changing northern context: an ethnographic account of contemporary housing practices among Russian reindeer nomads

Abstract

The article offers an ethnographic account of contemporary housing practices among nomadic reindeer herders in the Russian North. We draw on the results of an extensive fieldwork in several locations to describe how the making of mobile homes incorporates traditional and advanced technologies, and implicitly reflects the ongoing changes in the living and working environment of the communities under study. By observing the actions of planning, building, inhabiting and resettling embodied in a variety of dwelling designs, we have identified and documented three distinctive modes of resilience expressed in variations of mobile housing in a changing northern context, as follows: (1) facilitating full-time, family-based migration by exercising a well-established local practice of making and using a traditional conical tent; (2) maintaining full-time mobility under changing social and economic circumstances by inventing/developing a genuinely new type of portable dwelling; and (3) compensating the increasing mechanization of work with spontaneously growing complexity of the structure of stationary houses. The article aims to contribute to the emerging field of local adaptation and resilience by shedding light on the materiality of adaptive strategies and human creativity involved.

Keywords:

• Russian North
• reindeer nomads
• mobile dwelling
• adaptation and resilience
• fieldwork

Acknowledgement

We thank our anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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⁵ Meike Schalk, “The Architecture of Metabolism. Inventing a Culture of Resilience,” Arts 3, no. 2 (2014): 279–97. doi:10.3390/arts3020279.

⁶ In this article, we refer to polar regions as extreme, severe and unpredictable environment (Szilvia Gyimóthy and Reidar J. Mykletun, “Play in Adventure Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 31, no. 4 (2004): 855–78. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2004.03.005; G.M. Sandal, G.R. Leon, and L. Palinkas, “Human Challenges in Polar and Space Environments,” Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology 5, no. 2–3 (2006): 281–96. doi:10.1007/s11157-006-9000-8; European Safety and Reliability Conference, T Aven, and Jan Erik Vinnem, eds., Risk, Reliability and Societal Safety: Proceedings of the European Safety and Reliability Conference 2007 (ESREL 2007), Stavanger, Norway, June 25–27, [London: Taylor & Francis, 2007]), having in mind that – with the ongoing speed of climate change – in the near future, any environment can become considerably more risky and less predictable; this widens the application area of our research.

⁷ Tim Ingold, The Appropriation of Nature: Essays on Human Ecology and Social Relations, (Manchester University Press, 1986); Krupnik, Arctic Adaptations (1993); Peter C. Dawson, “Interpreting Variability in Thule Inuit Architecture: A Case Study from the Canadian High Arctic,” American Antiquity 66, no. 3 (2001): 453–70. doi:10.2307/2694244; A.V. Golovnev, Nomads of the Tundra the Nenets and Their Folklore / Kochevniki Tundry Nentsy I Ikh Folklor (UrO RAN, 2004); David G. Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life: The Case of the Conical Skin Lodge in the Putoran Plateau Region,” Les Civilisations Du Renne D’hier et D’aujourd’hui. Approches Ethnohistoriques, Archéologiques et Anthropologiques. Antibes: Editions APDCA, 43–64 (2007); David G. Anderson, Robert P. Wishart, and Virginie Vaté, About The Hearth: Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North (Berghahn Books, 2013).

⁸ V. Vasiliev, Yu. Simchenko, and Z. Sokolova, “The Problems of Changements in the Everyday Life of Minor Nationalities in the Arctic,” Soviet Ethnography (1966): 9–22.

⁹ David G. Anderson, “Dwellings, Storage and Summer Site Structure among Siberian Orochen Evenkis: Hunter‐Gatherer Vernacular Architecture under Post‐Socialist Conditions,” Norwegian Archaeological Review 39, no. 1 (2006): 1–26. doi:10.1080/00293650600703894; Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life,” (2007).

¹⁰ Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture (UNM Press, 1964). http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=F_khGKj2sKwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=%22from+November+9,1964+to+February+7,+1965,+was+commissioned+by+the%22+%22grants+might+never+have+been+given+without+the+enthusiastic%22+%22Myron+B.+Smith,+Islamic+Archives,+Washington,+D.C.+Research+assistance%22+&ots=tDN3pOZ63O&sig=qFx1iQsn91GsX4PY7AkKTgRRztM.

¹¹ Gregory Cowan, “Nomadology in Architecture: Ephemerality, Movement and Collaboration,” Thesis, 2002. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/37830.

¹² Torvald Faegre, Tents: Architecture of the Nomads, 1st ed. (John Murray Publishers Ltd, 1979).

¹³ N.A. Saprykina, Mobil’noye zhilische dlya Severa [Mobile Dwelling for the North] (Leningrad: Stroi’izdat, 1986); James J. Potter, X. Winston Yan, Nathan S. Krug, Karl C. Kuivinen, and Marijane E. England, “Polar Field Tent Shelters and Well-Being of Users,” Environment and Behavior 30, no. 3 (1998): 398–420.

¹⁴ Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life,” (2007).

¹⁵ A. Panfilov, “Evolution and Features of Formation and Classification Framework Mobile Housing for Temporary Stay,” Architecture and Modern Information Technologies 4, no. 17 (2011).

¹⁶ European Safety and Reliability Conference, T. Aven and Jan Erik Vinnem, eds., “Risk, Reliability and Societal Safety,” (2007).

¹⁷ Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life,” (2007).

¹⁸ Faegre, Tents (1979).

¹⁹ L.V. Khomich, Nentsy. Istoriko-Etnograficheskiye Ocherki [The Nentsy. Historical and Ethnographic Outlines], (Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo" Nauka, 1966); Faegre, Tents (1979); Z. Sokolova, Zhilische narodov Sibiri: opyt tipologii [Dwellings of Siberian peoples: the experience of typology], (Moscow: IPA “Tri L.”, 1998); Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life,” (2007).

²⁰ V. Chernetsov, “Chum,” Soviet Ethnography 6 (1937); Khomich, Nentsy (1966).

²¹ A.V. Golovnev, S. Lezova, I. Abramov, S. Belorussova, and N. Babenkova, Ethnoexpertiza na Yamale: nenetskie kochevia i gazovye mestorozhdeniya [Ethno-expertise on Yamal: Nenets routes and gas fields], (Ekaterinburg: ABM Рress: Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ural Branch, 2014).

²² Bruce C. Forbes, “Equity, Vulnerability and Resilience in Social–ecological Systems: A Contemporary Example from the Russian Arctic,” In Research in Social Problems and Public Policy 15 (2007):203–36. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1016/S0196-1152(07)15006-7; Golovnev et al., Ethnoexpertiza na Yamale (2014).

²³ Florian Stammler, Reindeer Nomads Meet the Market: Culture, Property and Globalisation at the “End of the Land,” (Münster: Lit, 2005); Forbes, “Equity, Vulnerability and Resilience in Social–ecological Systems,” (2007).

²⁴ Sven Haakanson, Living with the Nenets, (Learning Media Ltd, 2004); Florian M. Stammler, “Mobile Phone Revolution in the Tundra? Technological Change among Russian Reindeer Nomad,” Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 41 (2009): 47–78; Florian Stammler, “Narratives of Adaptation and Innovation: Ways of Being Mobile and Mobile Technologies among Reindeer Nomads in the Russian Arctic,” In Nomadic and Indigenous Spaces, Productions and Cognitions (2013): 221–45 (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd).

²⁵ Stammler, Reindeer Nomads Meet the Market (2005); Ole Henrik Magga, Svein D. Mathiesen, Robert W. Corell, and Anders Oskal, Reindeer Herding, Traditional Knowledge and Adaptation to Climate Change and Loss of Grazing Land (Arctic Council, IPY EALÁT Consortium, 2012).

²⁶ While the original Nenets name for a mobile home is mya’, the term chum (originated from Komi tsum) is nowadays widely used in Russian language as a common term for conical portable tents.

²⁷ In case of the cylinder/cone combination of compound tents, the windage is inevitable. To reduce it or to prevent it from overturning, a yaranga is always anchored with large stones or wedges fixed into the soil.

²⁸ In Yamal, an average-sized chum usually accommodates members of one extended family (6–12 people on average).

²⁹ Khomich, Nentsy, 102 (1966).

³⁰ Khomich, Nentsy (1966); Faegre, Tents (1979).

³¹ Khomich, Nentsy (1966). More on the gender structure and flexible distribution of tasks see e.g. A.V. Golovnev, and Gail Osherenko, Siberian Survival: The Nenets and Their Story (Cornell University Press, 1999); Elena Liarskaya, “Women and the Tundra: Is There a Gender Shift on Yamal?” Anthropology of East Europe Review 28, no. 2 (2010): 51–84.

³² A. Popov, Zhilische: Istoriko-etnographicheskii atlas narodov Sibiri [The Dwelling: Historico-Ethographic Atlas of the Peoples of Siberia], (Moscow, 1961); Khomich, Nentsy (1966); fieldnotes.

³³ M.J. Dwyer and K.V. Istomin, “Theories of Nomadic Movement: A New Theoretical Approach for Understanding the Movement Decisions of Nenets and Komi Reindeer Herders,” Human Ecology 36, no. 4 (2008): 521–33. doi:10.1007/s10745-008-9169-2.

³⁴ Vasiliev et al., “The Problems of Changements in the Everyday Life of Minor Nationalities in the Arctic,” (1966).

³⁵ N. Garin, “Design for the environment of Far North: the Principle of Borrowing from Indigenous Material Culture” (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Moscow, Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry, 1991); Golovnev and Osherenko, Siberian Survival (1999); Stammler, Reindeer Nomads Meet the Market (2005).

³⁶ The increased height and more even distribution of the internal space have also influenced the “ergonomic shift” in the furniture design: from tiny low tables that are in use in a traditional chum (combined with sitting on the floor) to normal-sized tables and stools/chairs.

³⁷ The wood per se comes from two seasonally separated sources, i.e. from the seashore (driftwood) and forests in the area of winter pastures.

³⁸ For more information about the sacral and practical meanings of the interior of the conical tents, see e.g. Khomich, Nentsy (1966); A.V. Golovnev, Govoriashchie Kultury: Traditsii Samodiitsev I Ugrov = Talking Cultures : Samoyed and Ugrian Traditions (Seriia “Panorama Kultur IAmala”), (Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, Uralskoe otd-nie, In-t istorii i arkheologii, 1995); Golovnev and Osherenko, Siberian Survival (1999); Anderson, “Mobile Architecture and Social Life,” (2007).

³⁹ In order to make reindeer herding more profitable (meat production), one has to increase the number of females while decreasing the number of castrated bulls, i.e. transport reindeers. One of the ways to do it is to transport fewer and lighter things in the caravan, i.e. the total weight of the cargo should be decreased.

⁴⁰ Olga Povoroznyuk, Joachim Otto Habeck, and Virginie Vaté, “Introduction: On the Definition, Theory, and Practice of Gender Shift in the North of Russia,” Anthropology of East Europe Review 28, no. 2 (2010): 1–37.

⁴¹ The term refers to the concept of “fluid technology” (Marianne De Laet and Annemarie Mol, “The Zimbabwe Bush Pump Mechanics of a Fluid Technology,” Social Studies of Science 30, no. 2 (2000): 225–63), emphasizing that the physical boundaries of the objects under study are not solid and sharp. In the context of this article, the term intends to deliver a framework for defining continuous structural changes that emerge in response to changing circumstances, and correspondingly changing functionality of the main system/building.

⁴² The majority of reindeer livestock belongs to the state, and the herders (usually hereditary) are allowed to keep their own reindeer inside the main herd. According to the informants, privately own reindeer is the only economic stimulus for people to keep on working here in post-Soviet times, when the wages are not high anymore. For detailed typology of property in reindeer husbandry in Russia, see Anatoly M. Khazanov and Gunther Schlee, Who Owns the Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals, (Berghahn Books, 2012; Khazanov and Schlee, 2012).

⁴³ The only “career opportunity” for women in the today’s reindeer husbandry is the so-called “chum-worker”, i.e. a housemaid (Joachim Otto Habeck, “Dimensions of Identity,” in Rebuilding Identities. Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia, edited by Erich Kasten, 9–26 (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 2005); Povoroznyuk, Habeck and Vaté, “Introduction,” (2010)).

⁴⁴ Dessislay Sabev, “Central Planning, Market and Subsistence from a Tundra Perspective: Field Experience with Reindeer Herders in the Kola Peninsula,” Rangifer 22, no. 4 (2002): 15–26; Y. Konstantinov, “From ‘Traditional’ to Collectivized Reindeer Herding on the Kola Peninsula: Continuity or Disruption?” Acta Borealia 22, no. 2 (2005): 170–88. doi:10.1080/08003830500370168; Yulian Konstantinov and Vladislava K. Vladimirova, “The Performative Machine: Transfer of Ownership in a Northwest Russian Reindeer Herding Community (Kola Peninsula),” Nomadic Peoples 10, no. 2 (2006). doi:10.3167/np.2006.100210; Vladislava Vladimirova, “Just Labor: Labor Ethic in a Post-Soviet Reindeer Herding Community,” (2006) Uppsala University. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A169276&dswid=-609; Helena Ruotsala, “The Komi of the Kola Peninsula,” in International Handbook of Research on Indigenous Entrepreneurship, edited by Leo Paul Dana and Robert Brent Anderson, 302–6, (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2007).

⁴⁵ Pertti J. Pelto, Snowmobile Revolution: Technology and Social Change in the Arctic, (Waveland Pr Inc., 1987).

⁴⁶ K.V. Istomin, “Living in Chum: Social Relations and Personal Behavioral Strategies among Komi Reindeer Herders,” in Arctic Studies 4 / Pro Etnologia 10 (2000), 49–76. (Estonia).

⁴⁷ Knut Helskog, “Reindeer Corrals 4700–4200 BC: Myth or Reality?” Quaternary International 238, no. 1–2 (2011): 25–34. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2010.10.001.

⁴⁸ This particular consideration is extracted from a conversation with the head of the Polmos camp (December 2014), though he did not express a serious concern: “We will move, if we have to; it’s not a problem”.

⁴⁹ Klaus Georg Hansen, Søren Bitsch, and Lyudmila Zalkind, Urbanization and the Role of Housing in the Present Development Process in the Arctic, (2013) Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:700282.

⁵⁰ Vasiliev et al., “The Problems of Changements in the Everyday Life of Minor Nationalities in the Arctic,” 15 (1966).

⁵¹ According to Vasiliev et al. (1966), first attempts to fence autumn and summer pastures in Kola appeared already in 1939–1941, and after the Second World War, they continued on a larger scale.

⁵² Since the late 1990s, there have been snowmobiles in personal ownership, but they were not used for carrying out the work tasks. Since approximately 2006, the herders, who travel to the seaside to gather the herds, have been supplied with cooperative snowmobiles that partly replaced draught reindeers: 7 machines per 14 workers. Others, who work in the tundra area nearby the camp, are still using the reindeer mode of transportation.

⁵³ Nowadays, “fencers” and “sailors” (Russian “ogorodniki” and “moryaki”) are stable semi-formal names in everyday language of locals that underpin the professional distinction of workers of the “Tundra” cooperative.

⁵⁴ Pelto, Snowmobile Revolution, (1987).

⁵⁵ In terms of numbers, the carrying capacity of a snowmobile is about 500 kg, while a team of four reindeers can carry no more than 200 kg on a cargo sled.

⁵⁶ Tim Ingold, “The Temporality of the Landscape,” World Archaeology 25, no. 2 (1993): 152–74. doi:10.1080/00438243.1993.9980235.

⁵⁷ Janne Hukkinen, Hannu Heikkinen, Kaisa Raitio, and Ludger Muller-Wille, “Dismantling the Barriers to Entrepreneurship in Reindeer Management in Finland,” International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 3 (2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 251111] of 2011 “Oral History of Empires by Elders in the Arctic”; the Russian Science Foundation [grant number 14-18-01882] “Mobility in the Arctic: ethnic traditions and technological innovations”.