Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / Natural Disasters and the Changing Materiality of Indigenous Peoples of the Amur and Sakhalin

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2024 17 (4)
Authors
Bereznitsky, Sergey V
Contact information
Bereznitsky, Sergey V: Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), RAS Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation;
Keywords
indigenous peoples of Amur and Sakhalin; natural disasters; changing materiality
Abstract

Natural disasters (earthquakes, fires, floods) have a transforming effect on human culture, causing not only its change, population and animal migrations, but also the development of new territories. In traditional culture, the indigenous peoples of the Amur-Sakhalin region were less dependent on the effects of natural disasters because they had no industry, urban infrastructure, roads and bridges, agricultural land, and power plants. In the second half of the 20th – first quarter of the 21st centuries, they borrowed many components of industrial civilisation, as a result of which they are no longer able to eliminate the destruction after disasters on their own. It seems relevant, based on the concept of anthropology of catastrophes, to trace the most obvious examples of transformation of materiality, features of adaptation to negative natural and social events. In order to collect ethnographic materials on the aftermath of the flood in July 2023, field research was conducted in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur and in the villages of Belgo and Verkhnyaya Ekon in Khabarovsk region. The vast majority of Amur Nanais people affected by the floods did not break ties with their native culture, did not change their places of residence, and retained their crafts, household activities, subsistence technologies, arts and crafts, and musical folklore. Synthesis of the collected materials showed that the impact of the natural disaster (floods in 2013) has both negative and positive sides. The changes affected not only the sphere of materiality, but also spiritual culture, historical memory in the form of a new ethnographic museum, new mechanisms and opportunities for people’s real influence on various branches of government

Pages
792–800
EDN
OLIKNJ
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/152837

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