Educating for Ethnicity: Local Cultural Vitality Among the Challenges of a Global Economy in Post-Soviet Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

• Main Author: Hicks, Susan Michelle
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Sakha; Sakha Republic; Yakutia
• Online Access: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/8783/; http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/8783/2/main-file-etd-08012005-122825.pdf; http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/8783/1/IRBApprovalform.pdf

This thesis examines ways in which indigenous educators in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation, maintain, revive and transform indigenous linguistic and cultural traditions in the contexts of the Russian Federation and the increasingly global economy. Through an analysis of a revival of ethnically-based education in the Republic, I argue that indigenous educators promote Sakha ethnicity in a way that also actively works to maintain harmonious relationships with the Russian Federation and the globalizing economy. First, educators present Sakha ethnicity in a global context, comparing the Sakha ethnicity to that of more established nations such as the French, Germans, British, and Russians in order to assert the distinctiveness of the Sakha ethnic group. In doing so, however, educators simultaneously promote the importance and value of Russian language and culture, safeguarding against the possibility of destructive Sakha "nationalism" that could spur a tension with continued Sakha participation in the Russian Federation. Second, educators actively work to break down a historical dichotomy between "traditional" and "modern," which associates Sakha culture with the traditional and Russian/European cultures with the modern. In this way educators embrace "modernization" and a global economy and retain the relevance of the Sakha ethnicity.