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Volume 8
Studies in the Circumpolar North
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Raven Country
Essays on Indigenous Kamchatka
Edited by Alexander D. King, David Koester and Jonathan D. Bobaljik
286 pages, bibliog., index, 36 illus.
ISBN 978-1-80768-060-2 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (January 2027)
Description
Focusing on the Indigenous peoples of Kamchatka, this volume brings together decades of field research by anthropologists from around the world, including Indigenous Kamchatkan scholars. It examines the lives of Itelmens, Koryaks, Chukchis, Alutors, and Ainus through topics including relationships to the landscape and mapmaking, storytelling, fishing and making a living, social and political life, rituals and personhood, and histories of cultural exchange, trade, and migration. It addresses Kamchatka’s distinct history of settler-colonial occupation and its contemporary legacies. Offering a broad anthropological perspective on this diverse region of Russia, the collection also speaks to scholars of folklore, religion, geography, and related disciplines.
Alexander D. King has been working with Indigenous Kamchatkans for over 30 years. He was previously Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at University of Aberdeen and is now Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Franklin & Marshall College. His most recent research is documenting the last generation of fully fluent Koryak speakers with Valentina R. Dedyk.
David Koester is Professor of Cultural Anthropology Emeritus, University of Alaska Fairbanks. His field research has been conducted in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, more specifically in Iceland and Kamchatka, Russia. He began working with Indigenous Itelmen people in Kamchatka in 1992.
Jonathan David Bobaljik is Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University. He previously held faculty appointments at McGill University (Canada) and the University of Connecticut (USA). His publication Universals in Comparative Morphology (MIT Press,2012) was awarded the Linguistic Society of America’s Leonard Bloomfield award. He has worked with members of the Itelmen community since 1993.
Subject: Anthropology (General)Cultural Studies (General)
Area: Circumpolar
Contents
Of Related Interest
Embodied Communities
Dance Traditions and Change in Java
Modalities of Change
The Interface of Tradition and Modernity in East Asia
After the Cult
Perceptions of Other and Self in West New Britain (Papua New Guinea)
