About the Book
This book explores the culturally significant objects of various Indigenous peoples in Siberia by considering the power, agency, use and evolving meanings of these objects over time. It acknowledges that top-down conceptualizations of heritage, in Russia as anywhere, are only one element of a complex story that is negotiated by multiple actors. The book further explores the shifting politics and spirituality of material objects and their role in the construction of heritage across this vast multi-ethnic region from Indigenous perspectives.
The regional case studies consider human–non-human interactions involving objects, which are more-than-things, such as ritual rugs, Buddhist relics, shamanic figurines and wooden carvings in contemporary Indigenous communities as well as in museum contexts. The overarching dominance of the Soviet state and now modern Russia, which had – and continues to have – conflicted bureaucratic views towards Indigeneity and heritage management, provides a crucial backdrop for the assessment of the resilience of Siberian Indigenous peoples.
Through the lens of critical heritage studies and decolonial methodologies, this book sheds new light on numerous cultural, political, social and economic processes that are currently unfolding in Siberia and in the wider Indigenous world beyond. Its case studies have implications for a range of contemporary debates in anthropology, religious studies, and the wider social sciences and humanities, including those on animism, human–animal relations, shamanism, secularization and the global repatriation of cultural objects.
Table of Contents:
List of Contributors
Preface: The Birch Bark Mask from the Mansi Bear Ceremony: The Story behind the Cover Image, Stephan Dudeck (University of Tartu, Estonia)
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Regimes of Indigenous Heritage in Siberia: Materiality, Power and Polyphony, Nadezhda Mamontova (University of Birmingham, UK) and Dmitriy Oparin (University of Bordeaux, France)
Part One: Regimes of Heritage in Russia
1. On the Margins of Heritage Empire, Ekaterina Melnikova (European University at St. Petersburg, Russia)
Part Two: Trajectories
2. How to Deal with 'Material Culture'?: The Case of the Local Museums in Altai Republic, Denis Maslov (Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia)
3. The Biographies of Entangled Humans and Non-humans: Nenets Reindeer Herders' Relations with Power Objects, Laur Vallikivi (University of Tartu, Estonia)
Part Three: Connections and Journeys
4. Evenk Shamanic Objects and the Logic of Performance: Mimicking the Other in Museum Context, Nadezhda Mamontova (University of Birmingham, UK)
5. The Journeys of the Nganasan Koika-Idols There and Back Again: Indigeneity, Ownership and Value in Heritage Production, Maria Mochalova (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)
Part Four: Layers of Meanings
6. 'You know that I can't walk without a Khanty dress': Exploring the Meaning and Practice of Indigenous Clothing in Western Siberia, Stephan Dudeck (University of Tartu, Estonia) and Marija Launonen (University of Helsinki, Finland)
7. The Fluid Nature of Ancestral Objects among the Asiatic Yupik: Heritage That Is Preserved and Destroyed, Hidden and Passed On, Dmitriy Oparin (University of Bordeaux, France)
8. 'Sia”mei does not stick to plastic': Modern Practices of Interaction with Sacred Impurity among the Yamal Nenets, Alexandra Terekhina (Arctic Research Station, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Russia) and Alexander Volkovitskiy (Arctic Research Station, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Russia)
Part Five: Sovereignties
9. Felting Indigenous Sovereignty: The Political Ecology of Ritual Rugs in Siberian Altai, Dmitry Arzyutov (Ohio State University, USA)
10. Museum Rituals: Contextualizing Buddhist Relics and Archaeological Human Remains in Two Siberian Museums, Ksenia Pimenova (Paris Nanterre University, France)
Part Six: Representations
11. Diversity of Attitudes towards the Nenets Sacred Objects in Western and Siberian Museums, Roza Laptander (University of Hamburg, Germany)
12. Construction of Heritage: Categorizing, Showcasing and Renegotiating Nanai Objects in Regional Museums in the Russian Far East, Anne Dalles Maréchal (Jean Monnet University, France)
Part Seven: Cosmologies
13. Emplaced Power and Generation of Luck: The Use of Anthropomorphic Wooden Carvings by the Evenks of East Siberia and Russian Far East, Donatas Brandišauskas (Vilnius University, Lithuania)
14. In the Presence of Power: The Bear's Head in Khanty Cultural Practice, Andrew Wiget (New Mexico State University, USA) and Olga Balalaeva (Independent Researcher)
Afterword: The Power of Objects: Critical Studies of the Indigenous Heritage in Other Circumpolar Areas, Gro Birgit Ween (University of Oslo, Norway)
Index
About the Author :
Nadezhda Mamontova is British Academy Newton International Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Dmitriy Oparin is a Researcher at the Université de Bordeaux - CNRS, France
Review :
Conversation and care are at the heart of this wonderful set of essays, taking up the objects that matter most to Indigenous worlds across North Asia, and brilliantly showing how people, spirits and animals circle around museum collections, private archives and everyday treasures – unseen by some, and everywhere to others.
This volume offers a breakthrough vision on the meaning of heritage objects in Siberian Indigenous cultures as they continue to live in people's hearts, as parts of memories, dreams and identities. Nothing of this kind has been published in terms of objects' diversity, geography and cultural power. It defies conventional catalogue-style analysis and introduces the objects as embodiments of ancestors' prowess, souls and wisdom.
