Alla Bolotova explored relationships with the natural world of people living in the industrial areas of the Soviet/Russian North. In order to extract the rich natural resources of the North, numerous new industrial towns were founded from the ground up in areas with no previous permanent human settlements and were populated by migrants from all over the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities motivated people to go to the North by material benefits but also by an intense ideological campaign with a rhetoric of 'conquering nature' and 'mastering the North'. Bolotova conducted research on perceptions of the environment and practices of interaction with natural environments at the Northern periphery of the Soviet Union/Russia as well as concepts of nature characteristic for the official Soviet discourse.

In her dissertation Bolotova argued that for an understanding of human-environment relations in the Russian industrialised Arctic, it is necessary to analyse the Soviet dominant discourse on nature and its transformation over time on one hand, and the lived experience of the implementers of Soviet industrialisation and their engagement with the natural world on the other.

"Establishing permanent settlements from the ground up at previously uninhabited locations was a rather hard task, as the towns were planned and built by outsiders – distant planners, visiting officials and recent newcomers. Most of them had either no experience or only limited experience of living in the locality and in the North, so they were not very familiar with local conditions and the Northern environment and hence made numerous mistakes", Alla Bolotova explains.

Gradually people who were on the State's mission to 'master the North and nature' came to feel a strong emotional attachment to and love for the Northern environments. Based on empirical materials from three industrial towns in the Murmansk region, Bolotova analysed how new Northerners combined both their involvement in the extractive approach to natural resources and their lived experience of dwelling in Northern environments.

"The main dividing principle is between the spheres of work and of leisure in both the physical space and in residents' ideas about the place. Outside the industrial zone and work, the main function of the natural environment for local residents is recreation", Bolotova states.

In the existing scope of social science scholarship on non-indigenous residents of the Russian North, studies of people's engagement with the natural environment are usually separated from studies of the State's strategies and discourses of nature. This dissertation focuses on the so far understudied relations of the urban population of the Russian Arctic to their environment.

Theoretically this thesis bridges these gaps by innovatively combining the concept of 'discourses of nature' (Macnaghten 1999) with the building and dwelling perspectives suggested by Tim Ingold (Ingold 2000), in analysing the dominant discourse on nature in the USSR and engagements with the natural environment of people working for extractive industries.


Information on the public examination of the dissertation:

Alla Bolotova's dissertation Conquering Nature and Engaging with the Environment in the Russian Industrialised North will be examined on Wednesday 3 December 2014 at 12 noon by the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Lapland. The opponent is Professor Peter Schweitzer from the University of Vienna, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. The custodian is Research Professor Florian Stammler from the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland. The public examination will take place in Lecture Hall 3 (main building of the University of Lapland, address Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi). Welcome!


Information on the doctoral candidate:

Alla Bolotova completed her senior secondary school diploma in Murmansk region, Russia in 1991. She obtained her Master of Environmental Studies at the State University in St. Petersburg in 1998 and her Master of Sociology in 1999 at the European University at St. Petersburg.

Bolotova has worked as researcher at the Centre for Independent Social Research (CISR) in St. Petersburg and at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. Currently she is working as researher at the European University in St. Petersburg, Department of Anthropology.


Further information:

Alla Bolotova
alla.bolotova (at) gmail.com
Tel. +795 00 27 75 51

Press copies of the doctoral dissertation are available in the Lapland University Press, tel. +358 40 821 42 42, publications (at) ulapland.fi


Publication data:

Alla Bolotova: Conquering Nature and Engaging with the Environment in the Russian Industrialised North. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 291. University of Lapland: Rovaniemi 2014. ISBN 978-952-484-779-7. ISSN 0788-7604. Online version (pdf): Acta Electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 159. ISBN (pdf) 978-952-484-780-3, ISSN (pdf) 1796-6310.


Sale:

Academic and Art Bookshop Tila (ULapland Main Library, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi), tel. +358 40 821 42 42, publications (at) ulapland.fi, online orders www.ulapland.fi/lup


ULapland/Communications/RJ