Full Description
In the mid-2000s, the Russian government began to merge Siberia's smallest Indigenous territories into larger administrative regions. Among Buryat Mongols living to the west of Lake Baikal the state promoted a policy of "National Cultural Autonomy," which sought to separate culture from territory amid this consolidation of land and people. Although public performances of Buryat culture were mobilized to show support for the policy, Joseph Long's compelling ethnography provides alternative ways to understand the meanings attached to these displays. At the same time, the book documents how resurgent local rituals demonstrated enduring ties to the land.
Drawing on classic theories of ritual and performance, Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage explores how Buryat shamanism and state-sanctioned performing arts have allowed Buryats to negotiate and express different kinds of belonging to people and land. Based on several years of anthropological fieldwork in Western Buryat communities, this book provides new insights into the ways that these forms have influenced one another over time.
While Buryat experience has been fundamentally shaped by Soviet communism and its aftermath, Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage shows how this history parallels the experience of Indigenous peoples worldwide.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Notes on transliteration, terminology, and style
Acronyms and abbreviations, groups and associations
Introduction
Mankhai, October 2005
1. Western Buryats in Context
2. Hospitality, Reciprocity, and Everyday Ritual
3. Kinship, Ritual, and Belonging in Western Buryat Communities
4. Constructing Culture, Framing Performance
5. Territorial Unification and National Cultural Autonomy in Cisbaikalia
6. Buryat Dance and the Aesthetics of Belonging
7. Institutionalized Shamanism and Ritual Change
8. Mankhai Revisited: Place-Making and Precedence after Territorial Autonomy
Conclusions, Returns, and Reflections
Bibliography
Index
