“Fifty Shades of Toyota”

Abstract

The article presents a social biography of the automobile in the urban society of the Republic of Altai in the 1990s–2000s. In this region of southern Siberia, the Turkic population has a predilection for various models of Toyotas. Traditional ritual practices stimulating a mutual relationship between a person (a nomad) and a horse are transferred to the relationship between the person and an automobile. Examined in the article are various practices of shamans and fortune-tellers connected with the choice, purchase, and breakdown of an automobile. Altai concepts concerning automobiles, bicycles, electric appliances, and electronic gadgets as living, functioning actors are described.

Notes

English copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text “‘Piat'desiat ottenkov Toioty’: zhizn’ mashiny v altaiskom gorode. ” Author copyright. Dmitry Yurevich Doronin is a researcher in the Siberia Sector of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences. The article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund within the framework of the project “(Antropologiia rynka i transformatsiia sotsial'nykh sviazei u korennykh narodov Severa, Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka” (project no. 15-01-00452). The author would like to thank E.V. Enchinov and D.A. Funk for help on the article. Translated by Stephan Lang.

^1.Altai kiji—one of the six (along with the Telengit, Teleut, Tubalars, Kumanda, and Chelkan) native Turkic peoples of the Republic of Altai. According to the 2010 All-Russian Census of the Population, they number 68,814.

^2. Modern forms of semiotic study of the automobile [and] the transferral to it of models of the relationship between a rider to a horse are examined by S.Iu. Nekliudov in his article based on Mongolian material: “There are indubitable analogies between the horse and the automobile, with transference—specifically at the magical level—of many features of horseback riding” (Nekliudov 2013, p. 140). He recorded the practice of some Mongolian drivers slipping bridles onto automobile seats.

^3. That is, he got into a minor accident.

^4. All-wheel-drive—4WD/AWD, using the Russian nickname “Vedovye.”

^5. A low-growing mountain shrub—the savin juniper (Juníperus sabína) or the Turkestan or dwarf black juniper (Juníperus pseudosabína) [also called Cossack and false-Cossack juniper in Russian].

^6. Evil, malevolent, bringing misfortune.