Ethnography of a Post-Soviet Landscape: Exploring the Dynamics among Forests, People, and Resource Use in Central Kamchatka.

Abstract

To understand natural resource use patterns in central Kamchatka (in the Russian Far East) I used an integrated geographical approach in which I wove historical, ecological, ethnographic, and spatial strands into an ethnography of landscape. Forming the core of the dissertation, this ethnography encompassed an examination of the complex landscape in central Kamchatka and the ecological processes defining it. It also included a study of the human communities inhabiting this region and how they interact with the natural world through their resource use. I explored this human-environment interface at a unique time juncture: the post-Soviet period. Marked by severe socio-economic and political crises, this period has distinctly influenced people’s relationship with the environment.

I began this ethnography by tracing the current state of the landscape to large-scale industrial logging in the mid-twentieth century, which was the outcome of relationships among the Soviet state, the people in this region, and the forests. People have responded to ecological transformation, and to sweeping socio-economic changes in the post-Soviet period, through their resource use decisions and behaviors. One prominent strategy to support livelihood has been the gathering of non-timber forest resources (e.g. berries, medicinal herbs, and mushrooms). This study focuses on lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), which is widely distributed throughout central Kamchatka and has strong economic and cultural value.

By linking ecological and ethnographic data to spatial data in GIS (Geographical Information Systems), I looked systematically at how land cover, distance, and accessibility shape lingonberry gathering patterns. Land cover was the most important determinant in gathering patterns: sites with high gathering intensity and marketing of harvests had larger proportions of early to mid-successional forests. These sites also tended to be located further from villages, which was expected given logging trajectories that radiated outward from these villages. These sites were, however, very accessible due to high road densities within them, and to the post-Soviet spike in individual car ownership. Overall, this linking of non-spatial and spatial data in an ethnography of landscape made people’s interactions with the landscape explicit, thereby deepening our understanding of human-environment relationships during a time of great ecological, socio-economic, and political change.