Novye Issledovaniâ Tuvy (Jun 2016)
Tuvan ethnicity and the society in ethnosociological and anthropological studies
Abstract
The article reviews the research which Russian ethnosociologists and European social anthropologists conducted in Tuva from 1970s to the early 21st century. Although short, the history of these studies is significant enough to help set priorities and prospects for further research. Our analysis of ethnosociological studies in Tuva is set against the background of historical developments ethnosociology underwent in USSR and Russia. Researchers from the Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, were the first to start working in the region in the 1970s. They included Tuva in their large-scale comprehensive study of peoples of Siberia, the Far East and the Far North. Researchers from Tuva also participated in the project, with its outcomes described and analyzed in a number of monographs published in the 1980s. Tuvan ethnosociology in the proper sense began in 1990s, with the help from the Moscow schools of research. Among other contributing factors were general liberalization in Russia and an increased influence the ethnonational factor had on various aspects of Russian society. Scholars from the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RAS, held nationwide surveys which now also covered Tuva. In late 1990s and 2000s Tuva was the field for surveys conducted by researchers at the Sector of Ethnosocial Studies, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch, RAS (Novosibirsk) At the moment, no research groups do ethnosocial studies in Tuva, with the main body of work done by individual authors and on a limited range of ethnosocial problems. It is clear that ethnosociology within Tuva has lost impetus for development due to the lack of qualified researchers and certain issues in Russian ethnosociology in general. Since the 2000s, field studies in Tuva have also been conducted by anthropologists from outside Russia, mostly those from the Max Planck Institute (Germany). They analyzed the legal status of land ownership and usage in rural communities of Tojin Tuvans (a Tuvan sub-ethnicity), specific forms of cultured leisure among Tuvans, as well as cultural patterns of their behavior. In Tuva, there are no local scholars doing research in cultural anthropology. Ethnosociologists and anthropologists suffered from a divide between their traditions, which made any dialogue impossible. However, we believe that they can find common language and engage in a meaningful dialogue by returning to the issues of correlation between the ethnic and the social, i.e. by means of a theoretical discussion. It is time to do more than set new challenges for researchers: these should be viewed and formulated from various methodological standpoints.
