Settlers on the Edge
Settlers on the Edge
Identity and Modernization on Russia's Arctic Frontier
Based on extensive research in the Arctic Russian region of Chukotka, Settlers on the Edge is the first English-language account of settler life anywhere in the circumpolar north to appear since Robert Paine's The White Arctic (1977), and the first to explore the experiences of Soviet-era migrants to the far north. Niobe Thompson describes the remarkable transformation of a population once dedicated to establishing colonial power on a northern frontier into a rooted community of locals now resisting a renewed colonial project. He also provides unique insights into the future of identity politics in the Arctic, the role of resource capital and the oligarchs in the Russian provinces, and the fundamental human questions of belonging and transience.
Settlers on the Edge benefits from a prose style that, while sophisticated, is clear and free of jargon. Thompson presents a number of insights about late Soviet and post-Soviet society in general, and certainly about Chukotka itself. The stories of his informants are often affecting. Students and specialists in Russian history and arctic studies will find this is a most welcome addition to their libraries, as will anyone interested in anthropological research and colonial and post-colonial studies. It should appeal to a wider audience as well.
Niobe Thompson's pioneering and sophisticated work makes an original contribution to the ethnography of settler colonialists in the Russian Arctic, and more broadly, to the anthropological theories of migrant communities and identities.
Deeply researched and eloquently written, Settlers on the Edge shines light onto hitherto unexplored territory in the literature of the Arctic, namely the tortured birth and mercurial fortunes of Russia's large arctic settler population. Thompson reveals how the orphan children of a grand Soviet project to ‘civilize’ the North wrought from their post-Soviet misfortunes a new sense of themselves. The picture that emerges – of a people of the arctic landscape – makes an important and long-overdue contribution to our understanding of who belongs in the North.
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Part 1: The Soviet Years, 1955-91
2 Northern Settlement and the Late-Soviet State
3 Arctic Idyll: Living in Soviet Chukotka
Part 2: Transition to Crisis, 1991-2000
4 Idyll Destroyed
5 Surviving without the State
Part 3: Reconstruction, 2001-5
6 Modernization Again: The State Returns
7 Two Solitudes
8 Conclusion: Practices of Belonging
9 Afterword
Appendices
1 List of Informants
2 Glossary of Russian Terms
Notes
References
Index
