Chukchi communities of the Bering Strait region, a hundred years after Bogoras

Abstract

The Chukchi are the Indigenous people of the farthest northeastern part of Eurasia, nowadays called Chukotka. It happens that, at the dawn of the 20th century, Chukchi culture became the focus of a landmark publication The Chukchee, authored by a luminary Russian ethnographer Waldemar Bogoras. Produced as part of the special series Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, this voluminous monograph, overwhelmingly, continues to be a go-to resource to learn about the Chukchi customs, spiritual beliefs, material culture, and way of life. As an Indigenous Chukchi scholar who, to my knowledge, is the first of my people to be earning a doctorate degree in anthropology, I find it valuable to present a contemporary ethnographic portrait of the Chukotkan communities, drawn from my lived experience and the field research conducted a little over a century past the time of Bogoras. Featuring insights from several towns and villages, this dissertation focuses mostly on the Chukchi communities of Neshkan and Enurmino located on the Arctic Coast of Chukotka. Traditional subsistence continues to be a great factor in shaping the identity and worldview of the Neshkan and Enurmino residents. Subsistence, however, is not the only source of influence that builds the sociocultural pattern of these communities. Today's Chukchi are complexly integrated within a global society that permeates even seemingly the most remote and isolated settlements with information technologies. The clash of influences gives rise to a complex pattern of human passions and life goals. Exploring the socio-economic, spiritual, and other cultural dimensions of contemporary Chukchi life, my research converges on the question: what are the modern-day Chukchi communities? By what means do these social units sustain a strong sense of distinct cultural identity as their members adapt to globalizing influences and environmental changes? Such questions are broadly applicable across social and historical contexts and offer fruitful grounds for considering anthropological theories of adaptation and culture in the largest sense.