The Nenets Society in the Oil Age

THE NENETS SOCIETY IN THE OIL AGE
Trond Trosterud, Barentssekretariatet, Kirkenes, Norway.
A short look at a Russian map with administrative borders reveals that there is an almost systematic correspondece between on the one hand side areas containing very few people (and of them many non-Russians), nationally defined republics or autonomous areas (Okrugs) and rich oil, gas, or diamond fields, and on the other hand side areas containing neither of these, having instead more Russians, more agriculture, less natural resources, and being just oblasts. Two especially illuminating cases in point are the twin oblasts Arkhangelsk (with its Auto-nomous Okrug Nenets) and Tjumen (with the Autonomous Okrugs Jamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi), located on each side of the Uralic Mountains.
This ironic correspondence is a result of several historical processes. First, in the historical expansion that started from the Kiev-Moscow area and eventually was to end in Vladivostok, the Russians settled in the areas suitable for agriculture and left other areas almost untouched. The Non-Russian peoples that had reached an agricultural level before this process were big enough to resist assimilation. In Siberia hunting- and fishing-based peoples were assimilated in the areas that was to become inhabited by the Russian settlers, but in the north they were left alone. Thus, of the Samoyedic peoples only the northernmost ones (especially Nenets) were to survive, whereas southern Samoyeds like Kamass, Koibal, Mator disappeared. Of the Mansi, only Northern Mansi dialects are spoken today, the Southern Mansis were assimilated in the second half of the last centory, etc.
Secondly, as a result of Lenins and Stalins policy towards national minorities, tsarist administrative borders were completely redrawn, so that every national minority counting more than appr. 10 000 and dominating their areas demographically got their own administrative unit. Today we have finally found out that oil, gas, etc. are found in the north, thus, from an administrative point of view, the resources are systematically located on non-Russian territory, so to speak. Thus, Nenets has oil and Archangelsk proper has not, Khanty-Mansi has oil, Jamalo-Nenets has gas, and Tyumen proper has neither.
In Soviet times this fact was of no importance (except for the convenience of restricting natural damages to scarcely populated areas). Today, with a strong regionalisation of Russia, this is suddenly important. Who shall decide over the exploatation: The okrug, the oblast, or Moscow? Also, the (mostly Russian) okrug leaders in Narjan-Mar", Salehard and Khantymansijsk are forced to take the indigenous population outside the towns into consideration to an extent that they haven't done since the early thirties: After all, without their few percentages of Nenets, Khantys and Mansis, they would not have been separated from their oblasts in the first place, and the importance of the local political elite of these small towns would have been drastically reduced.
For western scholars, it is imperative to understand these processes. This obviously requires a multiple of research disciplines, including both political scientists, anthropologists, and others. Being a linguist, I will stress the importance of starting from basics: To understand the peoples that literally are walking around on top of all this oil we need to understand their languages, their mythology and their culture. Countries like Finland, Germany and Hungary already have a long and rich research tradition, from a Norwegian point of view step one must be to catch up with the state of the art.
Here I will sketch both how this catch up could take place, and strategies for subsequent research. I will also have a look at Nenets and Khanty/Mansi strategies for coping with the new political situation, and link our activities as researchers to this process.
The Arctic does not only contain oil, ice and northern lights, it also contains human beings. The human beings that deviate most from the observers, and that come closest to adjusting to the polar conditions, are the indigenous peoples. Thus, what I call Humanistic Arctic Research should be included in this picture.
The world is a messy place, and it should thus, according to the Norwegian social scientist Johan Galtung, be approached with messy tools as well. At least the approach should be interdisciplinary.
What brings these problems to the foreground of the agenda today is of course the oil and gas resources. I take it that the location and size of oil and gas fields in the relevant areas are known to the audience. Taking the Nenets people (appr. 35 000 according to the 1989 census) as an example, we find that they live mainly in 4 autonomous okrugs (Nenets in Europe, 6500 of the Nenets, Jamalo-Nenets (18 000), and Dolgano-Nenets (2500) and Khanty-Mansi (1000)). Of these, Nenets and Khanty-Mansi are rich on oil, and Jamalo-Nenets on gas.
Even though oil exploitation in NAO hasn't really started, already in 1993 oil accounted for 61% of its export income. A discussion on oil thus cannot be for or against, but rather on what area to utilize, and on how to deal with the social concequences.Rein deer herding utilizes appr. 73% of the land area of NAO. All known oil and gas fields are within this area, thus we have a possible conflict of interest.
For reasons to become clear, it is important both that we understand them, and that they understand us. By "we", I mean the research community, perhaps especially the western one, and by "them" I mean the indigenious peoples of the Russian Arctic. I will go through both these processes in turn, in each case addressing the question what, why and how in this fairly logical order.

We must understand them

* Starting from basic, in order to understand a people, we must understand their languages, their myths, and their literature.

* We should also try to understand their social structures, their place in the ecosystem and the way they cope with it.

* Because discovering and understanding new parts of the world is rewarding in itself

* In order to documenti disappearing languages. Languages are disappearing en masse, as much as 20% - 50% of the worlds lgs is not spoken by children. The situation in the north is even worse: Only 3 of 30 languagesin Northern Russia, 2 of 20 in Alaska, are learned by children.
These are alarming numbers. For comparision, compare the following numbers:

2,7% of the world's bird species
7,4% of the world's mammmals
20-50% of the world's languages
are threatened.

The supporters of birds and mammals have an impressive number of organizations, with much funding and publicity, whereas the alarming situation for the world's languages is not known outside the linguistic community. we are to blame for that of course, but still, something has to be done. We have some organizations, though, and one of them, called Terralingua, an organization for biolinguistic diversity, explicitly stresses the link between linguistic and biological diversity.
In most of the cases in the Arctic, the only thing left to do is to document whatever is left before it disappears. Som languages, like Nenets, Evenki and Northern Slope Iñupiaq, are quite safe for the time being, but also they will need special measures in order to overcome years of assimilation policy.

* The culture and mythological and religious universes of the indigenous peoples of the north are also radically different from the western ones. The modernization process will probably level these differences. If we want to understand them, we must do this before they disap-pear, and possibly also do something to preserve them.

* The original research programs that gave us knowledge on Old Norse, Proto Germanic, and the Finno-Ugric Proto Language were part of the nation-building processes of the last century. Today, this motivation is not that important. The states are fairly well established, and with the possible exception of a possible Sakha Republic, no new independent Arctic states are forthcoming. Still, the people has a right to a positive image of one's etnical identity, and a clarification of its linguistic roots is an important contribution to building such an image.

* From a Norwegian point of view I am tempted to say: Pretty much from scratch. We have done a lot in Greenland and Alaska, but where it comes to humanistic research in Russia

* We must discover the research that is not written in English, read it and comment upon it. Key countries here are Finland, Hungary, Germany and Russia itself.

* Summer schools should be arranged in order to teach research students basics (Russian and indigenous languages, etc)

They must understand us (the indigenous peoples must understand the west)

* What are the rules of a capitalist society?

* What are the rules of present-day Russia?

* What are the concequences of forthcoming oil and gas exploitation, and how can negative concequences be avoided?
What happens if, say, a small society faces an invation of thousands of rich, single males, age 30-50, what happens to the price level at a point with extreme high inflow of capital? Can loss of land be compensated by money, and if yes, how? there are several examples of help creating dependency: Give them a snowscooter, and they will show up next week asking for gas, to cite an actual example from Jamal. Further questions include how to build a sustainable native economy, with reindeer meat export, traditional handicraft, etc.
Clearly, a major task here is to seriously look into the experiences from Alaska and Canada, together with a thorough understanding of the Post-Soviet society, in order to at least somehow cope with the huge transitions to come, and also to avoid some of the negative possibilities.

In order to survive, as distinct peoples, and eventually also as human beings. We have already health surveys showing high suicide rates, alcohol and violence as death causes for the Kola Sámi, where at least a prominent reason for this is that the reindeer herding is hampered and made impossible for many, without there being any alternative.

* They can learn it the hard way, which they probably will anyway, or at least in some cases we can warn them in advance.

* Ex. A Nenets society in the eastern part of NAO, that survived during the Soviet Era without passport, i-e- without becoming part of the Soviet Union, now learn to read and write, in order to cope wih the modern society that finally approaces them.

* Ex. Just as we researchers today, in addition to our usual scientific journal articles now and then drop a chronicle in Aftenposten, Helsingin Sanomat, or some other leading daily, we might e.g. tell the Nenets about the Canadian experiences, do some popularizing for the research objects, not only for our fellow countrymen (even though they happen to be the electors of our founding agencies).

* Aleksander Pika: Neo-traditionalsim

* Own activity: home rule & international aboriginal cooperation

* Our activity as researchers: IWGIA-type activities.

Conclusion

Action items:
For oil companies, to take indigenous peoples into consideration
for researchers and research projects, not to forget that there are some peoples in the arctic as well.
A key person in the Norwegian Research Council has advised us to stay away from research in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples, since that would led to problems concerning research on the premises of indigenous peoples, etc. I could not possibly disagree more. Yes, there are potential difficulties, but they should not be overestimated. Thse concequences of following her advice are far more severe: We turn our back to central problems, not only for the peoples involved, but for all mankind.