Narrating the Road

Abstract

This article proposes that the term ‘road’ provides a concept of theoretical value for anthropological discussions of mobility. Based on ethnographic research in two neighbouring settlements in Siberia, I discuss the range of stories indigenous residents offered during our discussions of roads. Their definitions of roads contrast with those used more globally. A hodological approach to the concept of road demonstrates connections among ideas of kinship, movement, nomadism, metaphor and knowledge. Accounts from the social lives of travellers enlarge the possibilities of understanding the relationship between roads and narrative.

Key Words:

• Roads
• hodology
• narrative
• movement
• nomadism
• Siberia
• Sakha (Yakut)
• Evenki

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to The Leverhulme Trust for supporting my research as a Special Research Fellow in 2003–2005 and The British Academy for financial support of my project ‘Remembering Lost Connections: Past and Present of Two Native Villages’ (SG37857). Some data presented in this article have been collected under The Baikal Archaeology Project organized by the University of Alberta. I would like to thank two referees for this article for their constructive comments. I am also thankful to many people who helped me during fieldwork, especially to Antonina Alekseeva and Aleksei Beti in Yessei, Rosalia Ivanovna Poluektova and Nikolai Yakovlevich Semenov in Olenek, and Elena Serafimovna Maksimova in Kharialakh for their assistance and hospitality. This article is devoted to the memory of Vasilii Afanas'evich Nikolaev, a great collaborator and a great friend.

Notes

At present due to the lack of regular flights connecting Olenek and Yessei, the residents have to travel via Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Tura.

This word, a borrowing from Russian, was used in Olenek. In Yessei they use a regional variation of it—argish. I am not aware of the native terms to denote this kind of travel.

Author is grateful to Otto Habeck for his review of the article and this particular suggestion.