Overview

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.

Full Product Details

9781350507166

Table of Contents

Reviews

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. * Bruce Grant, New York University, USA * 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. * Igor Krupnik, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution *

Author Information

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

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