skip to primary navigation skip to content
 

Amazonia & Siberia Workshop

Amazonia & Siberia Workshop

Cambridge Anthropology, Vol 26, No. 2, is devoted to the proceedings of this international workshop.

The 'frontier' in Amazonia and Siberia: Extractive economies, indigenous politics and social transformations

Scott Polar Research Institute, 26th June 2006

Amazonia and Siberia have much in common despite their contrasting physical features. They are both vast areas of land characterised by low density of population, high mobility and a 'shamanic' relationship between indigenous peoples and the living environment. They also represent in the Western imagination areas of hostility, at times contradictory sources of inspiration and epitomes of extreme climates, which have defied and engulfed people foreign to their lands. They are frontier zones, historically places of lawlessness and depositaries of the rejects of colonial societies, places where criminals or political opponents were sent to die exposed to the harshness of incarceration in the gulag and the bagne. Today the concept of frontier remains appropriate particularly where places are coveted for the natural riches in their subsoils, and are subjected to the interests of extractive economies either institutionalised or uncontrolled. The predation of natural resources, an important factor in histories of conflict with other segments of the national society and the State, has shaped the present context in which indigenous populations live. This has been characterised by the concentration of populations into larger settlements and the attempted suppression or submergence of endogenous belief systems in favour of world religions or political ideologies. New generations have consequently been obliged to balance different forms of expertise and knowledge: those passed on by their families and those required for interaction with encroaching national society. What common and distinct strategies have been developed by Siberian and Amazonian peoples to adapt to current social and political regional networks? How do they respond to pressures on their land? Can we talk of similarities, parallels, distinctions in the two cases?

The aim of this one-day workshop is to bring together for the first time academics and representatives of civil society working on land rights and indigenous politics in both Amazonia and Siberia. The short presentations will be aimed at encouraging discussion, debate and exchanges between different perspectives on field context.

Speakers:

  • Dr Tatiana Argounova-Law (University of Aberdeen): 'Sakha: 'largest diamond in the necklace of Russia' or 'Russia's diamond colony'?'
  • Mr. Alejandro Reig (University of Oxford): 'The Orinoco headwaters expedition as a turning point in the development of external territorialisation of Venezuelan Amazonia'.
  • Dr. Stephen Nugent (Goldsmiths) 'Frontiers and Enclaves: Peasants and Metaphors'
  • Dr. Casey High (LSE) "Oil Development, Indigenous Organisations and the Politics of Egalitarianism"
  • Dr Rane Willerslev, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester 'Theory of Conceptive Economy: Reversibility among the Siberian Yukaghir'
  • Dr Emma Wilson (Environment & Community Worldwide): 'Assessing the impacts of oil and gas development on indigenous communities in the Russian North: the case of Sakhalin Island.'

Discussants: Dr. Stephen Hugh-Jones (University of Cambridge) Dr. Evan Killick (LSE) Dr. Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (University of Cambridge) Dr. Piers Vitebsky (University of Cambridge)

Convenors:

  • Olga Ulturgasheva (ou202@cam.ac.uk)
  • Vanessa Elisa Grotti (veg21@cam.ac.uk)
  • Marc Brightman (mab64@cam.ac.uk)

With the generous support of:

  • Trinity College, Cambridge
  • Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
  • Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge
  • Stefansson Arctic Institute, Borgir, Iceland
  • Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge
  • Cambridge University Social Anthropology Society

Registration: (including lunch, tea and coffee): £7 (£5 students).

The workshop will start at 9.30 am with coffee and registration and finish at 6pm with wine reception. Payment method: either by cheque to the 'University of Cambridge' and sent to Olga Ulturgasheva, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER; or in cash at the door.

Programme

9.30am Registration. Tea and coffee.

10am Welcome introduction.

1st CHAIR: Dr. Stephen Hugh-Jones (University of Cambridge).

10.15am Dr. Emma Wilson (Environment and Community Worldwide, Cambridge): 'Assessing the impacts of oil and gas development on indigenous communities in the Russian North: the case of Sakhalin Island'.

10.55am Dr. Casey High (London School of Economics): 'Oil development, indigenous organisations and the politics of egalitarianism'.

11.35am Coffee break

2nd CHAIR: Dr. Evan Killick (London School of Economics).

12.00 Dr. Tatiana Argunova-Low (University of Aberdeen): 'Sakha: 'largest diamond in the necklace of Russia' or 'Russia's diamond colony'?'.

12.40 Mr. Alejandro Reig (University of Oxford): 'The Orinoco headwaters expedition as a turning point in the development of external territorialisation of Venezuelan Amazonia'.

1.30pm Lunch

3rd CHAIR: Dr. Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (University of Cambridge).

2.40pm Dr. Stephen Nugent (Goldsmiths College): 'Frontiers and enclaves: peasants and metaphors'.

3.20pm Dr. Rane Willerslev (University of Manchester): 'Reversibility among the Siberian Yukaghir'.

4pm Tea break

4th CHAIR: Dr. Piers Vitebsky (University of Cambridge).

4.30pm General discussion & summing up.

6pm Wine reception.

7.15pm Dinner at Lawyers Wine and Oyster Bar.