Tundra Passages: Gender and History in the Russian Far East
By Petra Rethmann
Koriak have been described as a nomadic people, migrating with the
reindeer through rugged terrain. Their autonomy and mobility are salient
cultural features that ethnographers and state administrators have found
equally fascinating and menacing.
Tundra Passages (Penn State Press, $19.95 paper) describes how this
indigenous people in the Russian Far East have experienced, interpreted,
and struggled with the changing conditions of life on the periphery of
post-Soviet Russia.
Rethmann portrays the lives of Koriak women in the locales of Tymlat and
Ossora in northern Kamchatka, within a wider framework of sexuality,
state power, and marginalization, which she sees as central to the
Koriak experience of everyday life. Using gender as a lens through which
to examine wider issues of history, disempowerment, and marginalization,
she explores the interpretations and strategies employed by Koriak women
and men to ameliorate the austere effects of political and socioeconomic
disorder. Rethmann's innovative work combines historical and
ethnographic descriptions of Koriak life, narration, and practices of
gender and history.
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http://www.psupress.org