The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions / / ed. by David G. Anderson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2000-2013
• MitwirkendeR: Anderson, David G.,; Argounova-Low, Tatiana,; Glavatskaya, Elena M.,; Ineshin, Evgenii M.,; Jordan, Peter,; Klokov, Konstantin B.,; Semenov, Igor,; Thorvaldsen, Gunnar,; Volzhanina, Elena A.,; Ziker, John P.,
• HerausgeberIn: Anderson, David G.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (346 p.)

In 1926/27 the Soviet Central Statistical Administration initiated several yearlong expeditions to gather primary data on the whereabouts, economy and living conditions of all rural peoples living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic at the end of the Russian civil war. Due partly to the enthusiasm of local geographers and ethnographers, the Polar Census grew into a massive ethnological exercise, gathering not only basic demographic and economic data on every household but also a rich archive of photographs, maps, kinship charts, narrative transcripts and museum artifacts. To this day, it remains one of the most comprehensive surveys of a rural population anywhere. The contributors to this volume – all noted scholars in their region – have conducted long-term fieldwork with the descendants of the people surveyed in 1926/27. This volume is the culmination of eight years’ work with the primary record cards and was supported by a number of national scholarly funding agencies in the UK, Canada and Norway. It is a unique historical, ethnographical analysis and of immense value to scholars familiar with these communities’ contemporary cultural dynamics and legacy.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Note on Cyrillic Transliteration -- 1 The Polar Census and the Architecture of Enumeration -- 2 Seasonal Mobility and Sacred Landscape Geography among Northern Hunter-Gatherers -- 3 The Interpretation of Nenets Demography in the First Third of the Twentieth Century -- 4 Undaunted Courage: The Polar Census in the Obdor Region -- 5 Household Structure in the Multiethnic Barents Region: A Local Case Study -- 6 Statistical Surveys of the Kanin Peninsula and the Samoed Question -- 7 The Sustaining Landscape and the Arctic Fox Trade in the European North of Russia, 1926–1927 -- 8 The Origin of Reindeer Herding as a ‘Sector’ on the Kanin Peninsula -- 9 The Spatial Demography of the ‘Outer Taiga’ of the Zhuia River Valley, Eastern Siberia -- 10 Identity, Status and Fish Among Lake Essei Iakuts -- 11 Subsistence and Residence in the Putoran Uplands and Taimyr Lowlands in 1926–27 -- APPENDIX 1 The Manuscript Archives of the Polar Census Expeditions -- APPENDIX 2 Table of Measures -- Bibliography -- Notes on the Contributors -- Index