John P. Ziker

Introduction to the Special Issue on Siberian Demography

John P. Ziker et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:10 PST

This special issue of Sibirica features a selection of recent research on the demography of Siberians with a special emphasis on what Russian scholars call the etnodemografiia of the “sparse” (malochislennye) peoples of Siberia. Demographic analysis has occupied a privileged place in the study of Siberia serving interests that go well beyond the tallying of souls that one usually associates with this exercise. The very first Imperial-era surveys of Siberia, aside from providing a description of the geography, described the character and qualities of the people encountered (Castrén 1853–1858; Fisher 1774; Georgi 1799; Middendorf 1860–1869). Early scholars of Siberian peoples thought that they needed to understand both the size and social structure of local societies in order to tax them efficiently. Early registers of indigenous peoples in the seventeenth century tended to focus on the numbers of male hunters likely to provision the furs coveted by the Russian state (Bakhrushin 1955). However, by a very early date in the nineteenth century, the Russian state created regular tribute quotas matched to the “level of civilization” of specific nations (Raeff 1956). By contrast, what one today might recognize as a modern type of population survey based on the interviews of individual men and women came relatively late with the 1897 All-Russian Census and arguably was only implemented completely for the first time with the Soviet population census of 1926. The latter census incorporated an especially intensive survey of the “polar” and indigenous (tuzemnoe) population (Anderson 2006). The state curiosity in the populousness and professional structure of all of the discrete peoples in Russia continued as a constant concern throughout the Soviet period, and with a brief post- Soviet hiatus, is continuing in the Russian Federation. How can these three hundred years of surveying be best understood?

The Spatial Demography of the 'Outer Taiga' of the Zhuia River Valley, Eastern Siberia

David G. Anderson et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:08 PST

A census is often associated with the accounting of people; however people always live in places - and place is usually a silent partner in demographic research. In this chapter we present our interim results of a project reconstructing the cultural landscape of what is today a remote resource extraction outpost of Irkutsk oblast'. Our project used traditional ethnographic field research, ethnohistorical interpretation, and environmental archaeology to understand the intersecting environments of Evenki, Iakut, Russian Settler and Russian Industrial inhabitants. Here we focus upon the meaning of certain transitory spaces often described as 'encampments' [stoibishche] in official Soviet archival records but today are often called 'meadows' [poliana] or 'seasonal or overwintering cabins' [zimov'e] by local people. The Polar Census enumerator A. T. Samokhin wrote of the transitory spaces in his manuscripts with great energy and yet with great difficulty since they complicated the official distinction between 'nomadic' and 'sedentary' populations. Here we argue that a sufficient understanding of the interaction of people and place forces a broader understanding of the 'built environment' which includes meadows, trails and culturally modified trees as material signs of a flexible and autonomous hunting and herding culture. We propose that the material artefacts of what Samokhin described a 'chaotic' and 'semi-nomadic' [polukochevoe] existence can be better described as an adaptation focused upon the use of a 'river valley' [reka] as a territorial unit. Instead of concurring with older arguments that these 'not-yet' settled adaptations were signs of the half=completed pressures of cultural evolution and the incipient extinction of ancient nomadic forms, we argue that this semi-settled use of place if finely attuned to exploit the hunting and trade opportunities that mining and the fur-trade created. Our ethnographic work demonstrates that these adaptations are still viable today in the post-Soviet period. This chapter underscores the importance of the Polar Census archive for providing a frame for the project around which other types of data - such as landscape - can be arranged.

Пожар-Tent' Nenetses `на западной стороне реки Enisei: Экономия пропитания, образ жизни, и социальная организация

John P. Ziker et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:07 PST

Anthropology of Eurasia, Postsocialism and Beyond

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:05 PST

The four books reviewed here represent a range of studies and approaches dealing mainly with identity in postsocialist Russia, a growing trend in the anthropological literature on the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.1 Within the current period of expansion, anthropologists specializing in this geographical area have been initiating research on topics relevant to a wider audience, moving slowly away from postsocialist change per se. To varying degrees, these four books digress from postsocialism and link up to mainstream topics. The books range in difficulty from ethnography suitable for undergraduate courses (Kerttula) to texts appropriate for the graduate level (Ssorin-Chaikov). Topically, the books cover the issues of economy (Kertulla and Humphrey), politics (Ssorin-Chaikov and Smith), and identity (Humphrey, Kerttula, Smith, and Ssorin-Chaikov). Geographically, the books deal with the Russian Far East (Kerttula), Central and Southern Siberia (Ssorin-Chaikov and Humphrey), and Central Russia (Smith and Humphrey).

Subsistence and Residence in the Putoran Uplands and Taimyr Lowlands

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:03 PST

Histories from the North: Environments, Movements, and Narratives

John P. Ziker et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:02 PST

Costly Punishment Across Human Societies

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:47:01 PST

Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and (iii) costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic behavior across populations. These findings are consistent with models of the gene-culture coevolution of human altruism and further sharpen what any theory of human cooperation needs to explain.

Epilogue: From Indigenous Demographics to an Indigenous Demography

Per Axelsson et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:59 PST

There has always been a close association between enumeration, the classification of peoples and state power. Demographers working with indigenous populations find themselves at the intersection of these forces. Demographic arguments have often been marshalled when settler states have an interest in taxation, in 'protecting' rural minorities or enfranchising populations to vote in ethnically stratified parliaments. At the start of the twenty-first century there are now populations on all inhabited continents making claims to indigenous status, and with each of those claims some sociological and demographic representations of their entitlements in each place. The workshop and the dialogue which leads to this volume have aimed at the broader goal of sketching out what might be called an indigenous demography. Although the context of the indigenous situation in each place is important, the contributions here show that there are also commonalities which make it a good time to introduce a new field.

Food Sharing at Meals: Kinship, Reciprocity, and Clustering in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, Northern Russia

John Ziker et al. — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:57 PST

The presence of a kinship link between nuclear families is the strongest predictor of interhousehold sharing in an indigenous, predominantly Dolgan food-sharing network in northern Russia. Attributes such as the summed number of hunters in paired households also account for much of the variation in sharing between nuclear families. Differences in the number of hunters in partner households, as well as proximity and producer/consumer ratios of households, were investigated with regard to cost-benefit models. The subset of households involved in reciprocal meal sharing is 26 of 84 household host-guest pairs. The frequency of reciprocal meal sharing between families in this subset is positively correlated with average household relatedness. The evolution of cooperation through clustering may illuminate the relationship between kinship and reciprocity at this most intimate level of food sharing.

Tsentral'naia Taimyrskaia Nizmennost' v 1926-27 gg.: Samosoznanie I Sezonnyi Tsikl Peredvizheniia Korennykh Narodov

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:56 PST

Subsistence and Food Sharing in Northern Siberia: Social and Nutritional Ecology of the Dolgan and the Nganasan

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:54 PST

Traditional foraging activities and extensive food sharing are critical to the contemporary nutritional well-being of Dolgan and Nganasan people in the Taimyr Region, Russia. Despite recent economic transformations geared toward free-market capitalism in the post-socialist era, since 1991, a native communal resource-management regime has developed. This article outlines the social and nutritional significance of subsistence and food sharing within a remote indigenous community in Arctic Siberia. Empirical data on procurement processes and relationships, along with data on food distributions and rationales, are discussed. These data are relevant to questions about food sharing and its significance in hunting-and-gathering economies and the evolution of human sociality.

Stress, Alcohol, and Demographic Change in Northern Siberia

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:53 PST

Ust-Avam is an indigenous community of about 700 individuals 300 km north of the Arctic Circle on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia (Russia). The community is located at the tundra-taiga transition in the Central Taimyr Lowlands. Ust-Avam is ethnically mixed with Dolgan, Nganasan, and a small minority of non-native newcomers. I have conducted ethnographic work there since 1992.

The Dolgan population includes Sakha, Evenk, and Russian "tundra peasant" ancestries. Dolgan families traditionally practiced reindeer pastoralism, in combination with game hunting, fishing, trapping, and mercantile trading. The Nganasan traditionlly hunted wild reindeer herds. They rejected Russian Orthodox missionaries, unlike the Dolgan. After 250 years as subjects of czarist Russian, the Dolgan and Nganasan were incorporated intot he planned economy under the Soviets beginning in the early 1930s. As permanent settlements were built most adults came to work at state-managed rural enterprises, schools, the post office, and village administration. As a result of development, by the 1970s residents of Ust-Avam had lost their domestic reindeer (and their ability to travel independent of technology and fuel supplies).

The collapse of the USSR in the 1991 significantly affected Taimyr economy. In Ust-Avam, most working-aged adults were laid off their jobs in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, I documented drastic decreases in fertility rates and increases in mortality due to alcohol (Ziker 2002). Native community members across Siberia blamed uncontrolled sales of alcohol and binge drinking for many of the deaths.

The Social Movement of Meat in Taimyr, Northern Russia

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:51 PST

Continuities in social, economic, and religious organisation of the formerly nomadic Dolgan and Nganasan in northern Russia are described, along with the process by which key values and norms are perpetuated. Kinship, communal property concepts, and delayed reciprocity are integral to local resource allocation and resource management. Benefits of sales to outsiders are funnelled into local networks, a practice that should continue if traditional strategies are to thrive.

Assigned Territories, Family/Clan/Communal Holdings, and Common-Pool Resources in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:49 PST

This paper describes an indigenous hunting/fishing/trapping economy in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, northern Russia, and traces the continuities and developments in property since the collapse of the Soviet command economy in 1991. Indigenous relations to hunting grounds and renewable resources are discussed with ethnographic case material from Dolgan and Nganasan communities. Land tenure is analyzed in terms of inclusive and exclusive property and informal and formal resource management. The asymmetric growth and distribution of common-pool territories and private holdings is a central issue. A number of factors when examined together appear to favor common property and traditional management including ancestral frames of morality and access, crosscutting kin relationships, principles of ownership and mutual aid, cooperative hunting, sharing of meat and fish, as well as migration patterns of prey species and relative increases in the cost of freight transport since 1991. In addition, private holdings often make commercial sales and generally have better access to urban centers, while they are more closely regulated through land, tax, and environment offices of local government.

Property, Hunting, and Food Sharing in the Taimyr Autonomous Region ( North-Central Siberia )

John P. Ziker — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:46:48 PST