Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University.

Wilson Center Project

Autonomy and Self-Determination in Indigenous Russia

Project Summary

Examines the indigenous cultural rights movement on federal, regional and local levels, and their influence and interaction with the government and legislators, seeking the right to self-determination and land. Discusses the ways this fight is viewed as a struggle for social justice vs. a link in the privatization battles, rooting causes either in traditiona or social justice. Asks what self-determinations means in the new democratic Russian Federation, for both government and indigenous representatives, and how practices of the past nation-making/nation-building inform it.