Little Nadia was born in the taiga. Here she is riding for the first time 'by herself' on horseback, i.e. sitting in front of her mother.

Why do some people in some regions of the world opt for non-migration despite the global ideal of mobility? A lot of social science research has been devoted to cultures and societies that are “on the move”, to rural exodus, travel tourism and other kinds of mobility and migration. Much less work has been done on non-migration and the phenomenon of staying “at home”.

The project focuses on people in Northern Russia, more precisely, on inhabitants of the Bystrinskii District in Central Kamchatka, especially the indigenous group of the Evens and, among them, on young women. Although the Evens represent a numerically small ethnic group, they are extremely widely spread about the Russian Northeast. Until the early Soviet period their subsistence was based on a combination of hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding, which called for a nomadic way of life. While today Even men in the Bystrinskii District still live and work predominantly in the forest and tundra, Even women for the most part reside in settlements. Despite the unfavourable local job market, young Even women do not show strong inclinations to leave the rural settlements. This contrasts with the fact that in many other regions of the world young people leave economically weak areas in order to make a living in urban settings.

The project explores the scope of freedom that determines the life management of young indigenous women in Northern Russia, depending on where they live: in the forest/tundra or village and city. The research investigates three domains of young Even women’s everyday life:

1. the practical and symbolic meaning of forest/tundra, village and city as physical spaces,
2. the chances of earning a living and also the strategies and practices of household budget management and of consumption, i.e. economic conditions within the spheres of forest/tundra, village and city, and
3. the social relations young Even women have to deal with in the spheres of forest/tundra, village and city.

Fishing on the Ulakavchan River, 300 km northwest of the village of Esso. Since his father died in 2002, Sasha has become responsible for preparing the fish supplies for the winter season.

It requires great skill to lasso one particular reindeer out of a herd of a thousand without scaring away the whole herd.

The research is guided by the question, how these three domains influence the women’s decision to stay in their villages and to refrain from a life in the forest/tundra or in the city.

With regard to theory, five conceptual fields are brought together: “Lebensgestaltung” (life management), “resilience”, “agency”, “social status”, and “migration”:

The notion of “Lebensgestaltung” (life management) is understood as different from “life planning” and similar other notions. The planning or designing of the long-term future is of much importance in the Western-European world, on the societal as well as on the individual level. It is not, however, a natural concern of all human beings and it does not respond to a general necessity. For some people, coping with the challenges of the upcoming tomorrow and even more so with the present day has priority. This comparatively narrow temporal horizon brings about specific possibilities and necessities, freedom and limitations for the ways of managing one’s life.

In connection with the notion of “Lebensgestaltung” (life management), the notion of “resilience” is used. Resilient behaviour can mean resistance as well as adaptation. Between those two poles unfolds a broad spectrum of attitudes which rest on flexible strategies of muddling through with the aim to get by as well as possible despite unfavourable conditions, without risking dangerous conflicts, and yet without completely abandoning one’s own interests. Such muddling through constitutes a dominant strategy in the lives of many indigenous people in Northern Russia whose overall situation is characterised by precarious circumstances. Therefore, resilience is viewed as a characteristic aspect of their life management.

“Social status” represents a fourth concept relevant for the research. One’s social status can exert strong restrictive effect on one’s life management, e.g. in view of decisions about where one should live. However, the relationship between social status and locality is not unidirectional. It is characterised by mutuality with neither of the two sides predominating over the other. Thus, it is not clear, whether the indigenous people in the Bystrinskii District live in settlements, because their social status urges them to do so, or whether their social status is determined by the fact that they live in settlements. What observations have brought to the fore at least is that neither a life in the forest/tundra nor a life in the village or in the city provides young Even women with an all around advantageous social position. Therefore the social status cannot be a factor that makes them unequivocally prefer this or that spatial sphere. Obviously, their wish to stay in the villages is influenced by other, stronger, or at least additional, factors.

This leads to the fifth conceptual domain within which the research is situated: migration. Starting from an example of non-migration, the project explores the necessity to engage not only with the classical pull and push factors that induce movement from rural to urban areas and which are amply discussed in the literature on migration, but also with the forces that work into the opposite direction and prompt people to stay in certain places and keep away from certain other places, i.e. the so-called retain and repel forces.

The argumentation points to the phenomenon of place attachment as an important factor for the non-migration of young indigenous women from the Bystrinskii District. Their place attachment is caused in great part by social relations, mainly kinship bonds. These bonds are strongly emotional, which makes them particularly effective and allows them to contribute to the resilience of the young indigenous women in a special way. The integration into kinship relations unfolds its force above all in the villages where the threads of kinship networks come together.

References

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