No 5 (2023)

In an interview to S.S. Alymov, the ethnographer and philologist N.S. Polishchuk talks about her biography, academic career and work at the Institute of Ethnography in the 1960s-90s. The conversation covers topics such as the development of studies in the area of ethnography of the city and workers, the activities of the journal “Soviet Ethnography”, and the international contacts of Soviet ethnographers. N.S. Polishchuk further shares interesting information about the everyday life of scholars at the Institute of Ethnography, the fate of P.G. Bogatyrev, and much more.

In an interview to S.S. Alymov, the ethnographer and historian M.A. Chlenov, honorary vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, talks about his biography, academic career and work at the Institute of Ethnography in the 1960s-90s. He reflects on his fieldwork in Indonesia and the Russian North, as well as his research among the Nenets and Inuit, and discusses his work in the areas of kinship studies, Inuit studies, and Jewish studies, further recounting the story about the discovery of the Whale Alley archaeological site. The interview conveys important information about the Jewish movement in the USSR, the relationship between scholars and authorities, the life at the Institute of Ethnography and in Soviet academia generally.

The article is based mainly on the materials of the expeditions of 2021-2022 to the areas of close cohabitation of Evenks and Russians - the Verkhnebureinsky district of the Khabarovsk Territory and the Severo-Baikalsky district of the Republic of Buryatia. The territories adjacent to the Baikal-Amur Railway were under the influence of an aggressive policy of modernization, which led to significant transformations in the habitual way of life of the indigenous peoples of the North (often abbreviated in Russian as KMNS , standing for korennye malochislennye narody severa ) - in the conditions that prevailed after the construction of the highway and related infrastructure, it became impossible to use traditional ways of subsistence such as reindeer herding, hunting and fishing. Many representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North were unable to adapt to the changed realities. We argue that there is a need for close cooperation between federal authorities, such as the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs of the Russian Federation, with the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North and with Evenk business entities. The central federal authorities should rely less on the reports of local authorities, while constantly monitoring the real situation. It is necessary to pay as much attention as possible to protecting the rights of the indigenous peoples of the North to conducting a traditional economy. This means not only combating violations or abuses within existing laws, but also overhauling the existing model, which often leaves the Evenks vulnerable to exploitation of their lands by private entrepreneurs and tenants. In addition, it is the government of the country that is responsible for creating favorable conditions for changing the activities of those Evenki who do not want or cannot run a traditional economy, which implies improving access to education and creating new jobs, as well as strengthening social support measures.

The article discusses personal and collective life ways of native people residing in remote settlements of the Cape York Peninsula, Australia, and offers a number of observations on the native population of Central Australia. It is drawn on the authors’ field materials collected in 2005, 2007-2009, 2015, and 2022. If set against the backdrop of the likewise framed project exploring the Evens and Evenkis of Eastern Siberia, the situation in faraway settlements of Australian Aboriginal people manifests both substantial similarities and important differences. Neither in the past when the colonization began to unfold, nor in the present did the Aboriginal people, for the most part, willingly join the commercial and entrepreneurial activities of the Australian mainstream circles or get involved in trade and economic relationships with the newcomers. They rather resisted, and still do, the authorities' and entrepreneurs' attempts at getting them involved in such relationships. We argue that the underlying reason behind that is the very character of the local traditional culture, the key aspects of which are consciously and resiliently preserved - even if sometimes in a transformed or deviant manner - by the native people.

The article presents the results of testing the concept of media generations, focusing on media users in pre-digital and digital information and communication spaces. To identify the characteristics of the media generation of the “digital frontier”, I rely on the concepts of the generations of C. Mannheim and M. McCrindle, the model of conjugation of technology and the human body by M. McLuhan, the ideas of the phenomenologist T. Fuchs about procedural memory, the explanatory model of the formation of generations by H. Becker. The application of qualitative research methods based on in-depth interviews (N = 30; Urals Federal District, Russian Federation) allows us to understand the essence of the media generation and identify its unique features: its transitional nature and role as a kind of frontier between “analogue” and “digital” audience media. The most significant markers of the “digital frontier” are ambivalent media patterns in the information technosphere, which are due to the sustained interest in the media of the analog period and the possession of digital skills that let one join the “digital lifestyle”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the worst public health crisis in modern history. Stress in the face of the disease threat, a global restructuring of the common way of life, uncertainty and fears for the health and well-being of relatives and friends have led to an increase in anxiety among the population of all countries. Important risk factors for increased stress during the pandemic are sex, age, epidemiological experience, and place of residence. Large cities become centers of the spread of diseases due to the high population density, high mobility, and the presence of large transport hubs. The article examines the dynamics of anxious behavior during three waves of COVID-19 in 2020-2021, taking the cases of two largest Russian cities - Moscow and Rostov-on-Don (total sample - 4884 people). The analysis explains the regional and sex differences in anxious behavior and demonstrates the two main trends: on the one hand, there is an adaptation to the prolonged stress; on the other hand, the numbers of respondents with anxiety and depressive disorders are increasing, which may indicate the presence of post-traumatic stress.