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Ethnocultural Landscape Zoning of Traditional Reindeer Husbandry in the Context of Municipalities of the Russian Federation

  • NATURAL RESOURSE MANAGEMENT
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Abstract—

Traditional reindeer husbandry is a specific form of nature management for many northern peoples, and their way of life and original culture are based on it. It is an essential part of their intangible cultural heritage. Despite the fact that many ethnological studies are devoted to reindeer husbandry, it has not yet received adequate understanding in terms of the theory of the cultural landscape and zoning of the ethnocultural environment. This article presents a system of ethnocultural landscape zoning of one of the most peculiar types of traditional nature management of the indigenous peoples of Russia: reindeer husbandry. Each zoning unit covers a number of landscapes marked by a certain type of relationships between reindeer husbandry and the geographic environment. Zoning was carried out by combining approaches used in natural landscape theory and in social geography. It covers all territory of the country, where traditional reindeer husbandry still continues to exist. The authors propose a multistage zoning scheme using previously identified environmental, social, and institutional factors. At the upper level, ecological and economic types of reindeer husbandry were taken as a basis; in accordance with these, zones of large-herd tundra, small-herd taiga, and mountain types of reindeer husbandry were delimited. At the second level, delimitation was carried out ethnoculturally, with identification of four ethnocultural types of reindeer husbandry: (1) Nenets–Izhma Komi, (2) Tungus, (3) Chukchi-Koryak, and (4) Sayan. The identified ethnocultural types are closely related to the settlement pattern of reindeer husbandry peoples. At the third level, the so-called floating feature technique of zoning (regionalization) was used. The study yielded a zoning map of ethnocultural landscapes of traditional reindeer husbandry with 33 units at different taxonomic levels. The resulting zoning scheme makes it possible to systematize ideas about ethnocultural landscapes; to take into account ethnocultural landscapes features when implementing state measures to support traditional reindeer husbandry and take a diversified approach not only on regional level, but as well in each specific zoning unit.

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Notes

  1. Village councils and rural settlements (municipalities) the lowest units of administrative-territorial/municipal division, respectively in the USSR and modern Russia.

  2. Municipality Indicators Database of the FSSS of the Russian Federation (MIDB FSGS RF). https://www.gks.ru/dbscripts/ munst/munst.htm. Accessed March 4, 2022.

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Funding

The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 22-28-00665, “Ethnocultural Landscapes of Peoples of Russia Engaged in Reindeer Husbandry: Structure and Spatial Contexts.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg State University, 199034, St. Petersburg, Russia

    K. B. Klokov & E. V. Antonov

  2. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119017, Moscow, Russia

    E. V. Antonov

Authors
  1. K. B. Klokov
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  2. E. V. Antonov
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Correspondence to K. B. Klokov or E. V. Antonov.

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Klokov, K.B., Antonov, E.V. Ethnocultural Landscape Zoning of Traditional Reindeer Husbandry in the Context of Municipalities of the Russian Federation. Reg. Res. Russ. 13, 577–594 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S207997052370065X

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