Recent emergence of ancestral commons in Southern Siberia : a case study of reindeer husbandry in Todzhinskii County, Tyva Republic

• Main Authors: 室田, 武, ムロタ, タケシ, Murota, Takeshi, リトビネンコ, タマラ, Litvinenko, Tamara V.
• Language: English
• Published: 同志社大學經濟學會 2012
• Subjects: 642.293; ancestral commons; Todzhu-tyva people; reindeer husbandry; Tyva Republic; taiga; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doshisha.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/22940/files/034064010001.pdf

Based on field research, this paper describes the recent emergence of the ancestral commons (rodovaya obshchina in Russian) of reindeer herders in Tyva Republic, Russia. After the collapse of the state farm (sovkhoz) system under the Soviet regime, which had previously supported their relatively stable lives, the futures of reindeer herders suddenly became unpromising. As an institutional solution to this problem not only in Tyva but also in other provinces in Russia, the federal government started to allow small groups of people to form ancestral commons with certain privileges. In Tyva, most reindeer herders are Todzu-tyva people who live in the mountain taiga in Todzhinskii County in the northeastern region of the republic. Although the formation of ancestral commons in the county has been late compared with other provinces, five commons have emerged there since the beginning of the 21st century: four related to reindeer husbandry and one to hunting and gathering. This paper describes these five commons using a recent data set. 論説(Article) application/pdf departmental bulletin paper