Davydov V., Davydova E. Field Research in Chukotka 2022: Strategies for Maintaining Food and Energy Security by the Dwellers of a Reindeer Herding Village

Vladimir Davydov
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-2738-4609
E-mail: davydov.kunstkamera@gmail.com 

Elena Davydova
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-9299-7551
E-mail: elenav0202@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. The article presents the results of a trip to Chukotka in July-August 2022. The authors carried out fieldwork in Egvekinot, Amguema and at the summer reindeer camp (yarangi) of the third brigade of the municipal unitary agricultural enterprise “Amguema”. The main task of the trip was to study the strategies of autonomization, maintaining food and energy security by local people in settlements and tundra in Chukotka. The research focus was on the ways of obtaining, using and distributing resources in the context of remoteness, as well as the practices of pendulum movements between the village and reindeer herders’ camps. The authors gathered the data concerning the supply of the village of Amguema with food, water, and fuel. In this settlement, the authors investigated the practices of greenhouse farming, the technologies and equipment used by Arctic vegetable growers, and conducted in-depth interviews and conversations with members of reindeer herders’ families, local intelligentsia, education workers, staff of the local agricultural enterprise, rural and district administrations. The interviews included a number of main thematic blocks: the organization of food supply in the village and the changes that have taken place in recent years, the use of infrastructure and utility rooms; nutrition and dietary transformation; vegetable growing in the Arctic, the use of greenhouses, soil fertilization and yield increase technologies, greenhouse heating system and resource recycling strategies. The authors also studied the design features of greenhouses in Amguema.

 

KEYWORDS: Arctic, Chukotka, Chukchi, resources, energy, fuel, supply, nutrition, food, subsidiary farming, vegetable growing, greenhouses, infrastructure, Amguema 

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2022-4(18)-217-229

 

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