#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Sociological Institute and Geographical Institute jointly began interviewing representatives of the Taimyr indigenous peoples. On average, each interview will take between 30 and 145 minutes. Residents of Taimyr will answer dozens of questions from sociologists and anthropologists.
“As part of the interviews, we are collecting data for fundamental research throughout the Arctic. We are interested in issues of preserving the language and traditional economic activities, the formation of public opinion in the North indigenous peoples’ communities, the indigenous peoples penetration into the Internet and the specifics of their behavior on social networks, health protection issues for the tundra and taiga inhabitants, the nomads’ children socialization mechanics”, said the Clean Arctic–East–77 expedition’s scientific director Veronica Simonova.
The research takes place as part of the Clean Arctic–Vostok–77 expedition, whose participants worked in Taimyr from November 10 to 25. They collected data and found the Taimyr indigenous peoples’ representatives to interview.
“We needed to find 42 Taimyr indigenous representatives who met certain requirements: different ages, types of activities, degrees of proficiency in their native language and, of course, different nationalities. This study involves people belonging to four nations: Nenets, Enets, Dolgans and Nganasans. We will study the issues of the Evenki people separately in the spring, starting in April”, said Andrey Nagibin, the Clean Arctic–East–77 expedition’s head.
This study is the result of three years of preparatory work. Since 2020, a group of scientists from the RAS Federal Scientific Research Center’s Sociological Institute has been studying communication in instant messengers and social networks of indigenous peoples of nine regions of the Russian Arctic. This group was called the long-term monitoring group and was preparing the future study.
“For three years, our specialists, with the permission of administrators, were members of networks chats of indigenous peoples, recording areas of interest that aroused the greatest attention of indigenous peoples’ representatives. We joined dialogues, raised various topics and formulated a pool of questions for the upcoming in-depth interview of almost eight hundred representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North”, said Dmitry Belov, the long-term monitoring group head, researcher at the Center for Arctic and Siberian Research.
It is expected that the survey will not only answer questions in the sphere of the North indigenous peoples’ life. It turns out that the Arctic people’s opinion is also important in solving problems for the entire planet.
“What will the social networks of the future be like? – this is the question that a deeply analyzed opinion of reindeer herders and fishermen who have only recently started using social networks will help us answer. These Internet neophytes, of whom there are many in Taimyr, Yakutia and Kolyma and Chukotka, perceive virtual space differently than most earthlings. With their “unclouded” gaze, they see what we cannot understand, and open our eyes to the obvious inconveniences and dangers of social networks”, said Dmitry Belov.
Interviewing will last until February 2024. In addition to scientists, Taimyr cultural figures will talk with representatives of indigenous peoples on particularly sensitive topics. The first research results will be published in the spring.
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Text: Ekaterina Maksimova, Photo: Denis Kozhevnikov, Artyom Achkasov
