Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / Adaptation of Energy Infrastructure to the Arctic Yakutia Conditions (Experience of Local Communities)

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2025 18 (7)
Authors
Goncharov, Nikolai S.
Contact information
Goncharov, Nikolai S.: Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS St. Petersburg, Russian Federation;
Keywords
Arctic; Yakutia; space; infrastructure; diesel power plant; boiler room; consistency; relation
Abstract

The article analyzes the features of the infrastructure using by residents of hard- to- reach settlements in northern Yakutia. The publication is based on field materials collected by the author during fieldwork in the Allaikhovskii (2019) and Nizhnekolymskii districts (2021). The goal of the survey is to study relationships between local communities and energy infrastructures. The main methodologically concepts are “a world without objects” (Ingold), the theory of affordances (Gibson), as well as developments in the field of urbanism (Sendra and Sennett). Key methods of field research are observation, interviewing, questioning, recording through a field diary, photo, video and audio devices. Empirical materials studied through structural-functional and systemic approaches. As a result, article demonstrates that the key factor in the normal operation of infrastructure is its integration into the local environment: natural, technical and social spheres. Furthermore, the smaller and more inaccessible the village, the stronger the connections between people (including non-professionals) and infrastructure. Consequently, consideration of technical infrastructure as an external, foreign component of local space, resulting from the division into the categories of “modernity” and “non-modernity” does not correspond to the way of using of infrastructures by local communities. The study shows that the infrastructures of northern Yakutia are the most important parts of the livelihoods of local societies. Intensive integration of Infrastructure into the social and environmental contexts ensures the functionality of energy technologies and opens up additional affordances for the societies

Pages
1332–1352
EDN
YTUHZO
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/156647

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