Migration Flows Raise the Question: Who are the Indigenous Peoples of Russia?

Who are Indigenous Peoples? This question has several answers and causes a number of problems in domestic and international law. This brief article from Estonian World Review gives one view from the Russian perspective.

Migration Flows Raise the Question: Who are the Indigenous Peoples of Russia? Arvamus 21 Mar 2013 Paul Goble EWR

Staunton, March 21 – Sergey Sokolovsky, a senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, notes that the concept of “indigenous peoples” however strange it may seem entered into Russian anthropological discourse relatively recently and arose first in the sphere of law and administration.

Sokolovsky, who edits “Etnograficheskoye obozreniye,” says that “when we speak about statuses connected with the particular features of culture and language of communities … as indigenous peoples or national minorities, we inevitably land in [a complicated] inter-disciplinary situation,” where law, “powerful political influence, and everyday understandings” about indigenousness intersect postnauka.ru/faq/10578.

“How are indigenous peoples distinguished from others?” the ethnographer asks. What does this term refer to? Is it just an updating of the now outdated Russian term “tuzemnost’” and what do suggested replacements like “autochthonian, aboriginal, or indigenous” add or contribute to our understanding?

Continued at http://www.eesti.ca/migration-flows-raise-the-question-who-are-the-indigenous-peoples-of-russia/article38974