Country: Russia

Group: Nenets

Date Finalized: 04/12/2022

Team: Isabella Booker (lead), Ashlee Greenier (lead), Natasha Chandra, Lauren Poklar

Content Warning: Forced displacement, discrimination

Approximate Time Period: 16th Century – Present

The Nenets people are native to Siberia, and depend on reindeer herding and transporting as a method of survival and income (Minority Rights Group 2020). From the sixteenth century onwards, they came under Russian influence (Minority Rights Group 2020). When the Soviet Union took control of their land, they implemented a collectivization policy that forced many traditionally nomadic Nenets to move into sedentary villages. Transitioning to life away from the tundra left men without a valuable societal role (Anderson, D.G. 2000; Borealia, 2001). Overall, Russian control led to the forced settlement of 13,000 inhabitants, prompting them to leave the Yamal Peninsula (Nenets, 2015). The first half of the 20th century marked Russia’s expansion of forest resources, coal, metals, and minerals at the expense of the natural landscape and Nenets cultural heritage (Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University & Sokolova, 2016). In the 1990s, Gazprom, the Russian energy company, exploited the peninsula’s gas reserves (Minority Rights Group International, 2020). In 2012, billions of cubic meters of gas went to Western Europe (Minority Rights Group International, 2020). Nenets activists have called for the protection of traditional economies in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, but political nationalism among the Nenets remains weak (Minority Rights Group 2020).

Data Quality: The data quality is rated a 2/3 because there is enough information regarding forced away however, there are few credible sources.

Sources

  1. ​​Anderson, D.G. (2000), Siberian Survival: The Nenets and Their Story.. American Anthropologist, 102: 942-943. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2000.102.4.942
  2. Borealia, A. (January 2001). The displacement of Nenets women from reindeer herding and the tundra in the Nenets autonomous Okrug, Northwestern Russia. ResearchGate.
  3. Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University, & Sokolova, F. (2016). Migration processes in the Russian Arctic. Arctic and North, 25(4), 158–172. https://doi.org/10.17238/issn2221-2698.2016.25.158
  4. Minority Rights Group International. (2020). Nenets. Retrieved 28 March 2022 from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/nenets/#:~:text=The%20Nenets%20are%20an%20indigenous,Nenets’%20shamanist%20religion%20was%20attacked.
  5. Peler, G. Y. (n.d.). GÖKÇE YÜKSELEN PELER. 9, 28.