Krupnik I., Oparin D. Ainana: from “Ethnographers’ Friend” to Partner to National Symbol

I. Krupnik
National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution
Washington DC, USA
ORCID: 0000-0003-1954-9848
E-mail: krupniki@si.edu

D. Oparin
Passages (UMR 5319 Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Université Bordeaux, CNRS)
Bordeaux, France
ORCID: 0000-0002-1895-5564
E-mail: dimaoparin@hotmail.com

 

 Download  |  Go to Issue #3. 2022

 

ABSTRACT. A tribute to the late Yupik intellectual, political and cultural leader, Lyudmila Ainana (Aynganga, 1934–2021), this paper explores more generally the transitions in collaboration between anthropologists and their partners among Arctic indigenous people. Since the 1960s, Aynganga interacted with almost every researcher who visited Chukotka to study culture, language, and ecological knowledge of her native people, the Siberian Yupik. Thanks to her multi-faceted biography, she helped connect and transcended many cultural ‘worlds’: of the contact-traditional Yupik society and the Soviet-era Chukotka; of urban ‘intelligentsia’ in Moscow, Leningrad, and Anadyr, and the people in northern communities in Alaska and Russia, as well as academics and indigenous marine hunters. Her exceptional role as a partner and knowledge expert was in her ability to personally relate to these many ‘cultural layers’ but also to remain a researcher herself, a thoughtful person, insightful about the mission of science. She was at once a source of invaluable information but also its active performer and cultural interpreter. The article illustrates how interacting with Aynganga during her lifetime helped enrich the authors as scholars and humanists. It assesses the factors that shifted the paradigms of cooperation between academic scholars and Indigenous leaders and knowledge holders, during the late 1900s and the first decades on the 21st century.

 

KEYWORDS: patterns of research partnership, indigenous intellectuals, Asiatic Eskimo (Yupik), paradigm shift in anthropology

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2022-3(17)-220-246
УДК 304.444

 

REFERENCES

  • Akuzilleput Igaqullghet. Our Words Put to Paper. Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Heritage and History. (Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 3). Washington DC: Arctic Studies Center, 2002. (In English).
  • Berman J. Unpublished Materials of Franz Boas and George Hunt: A Record of 45 Years of Collaboration. Gateways. Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897–1902. (Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 1). Washington DC: Arctic Studies Center. 2001, pp. 181–2013. (In English).
  • Bogoslovskaia L. S., Krupnik I. I. Nashi l’dy, snega i vetry. Narodnye i nauchnye znaniia ledovykh landshaftakh i klimate Vostochnoi Chukotki [Our Ice, Snow, and Winds. Indigenous and academic knowledge on ice-scapes and climate of Eastern Chukotka]. Moscow, Washington: Institut naslediia Publ., 2013. (In Russian).
  • Bogoslovskaya L. Ainana L. Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Ed. by Mark Nuttall. Vol. 1. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. P. 17. (In English).
  • Freeman M. M. R., Bogoslovskaya L., Caulfield R. A., Egede I., Krupnik I., Stevenson M. G., eds. Inuit, Whaling, and Sustainability. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998. (In English).
  • Kan S., ed. Strangers to Relatives: The Adoption and Naming of Anthropologists in Native North America. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. (In English).
  • Krupnik I. I. [In memory of a friend of Chukotka: Michael Krauss — “Uncle Misha” (1934–2019)]. Prikladnaia etnologiia Chukotki: Narodnye znaniia, muzei, kul’turnoe nasledie [Applied Ethnology of Chukotka: Indigenous Knowledge, Museums, and Cultural Heritage]. M.: Izd-vo PressPass Publ., 2020, pp. 430–438. (In Russian).
  • Krupnik I. I., Chlenov M. A. [Dynamics of the Ethno-Linguistic Situation among the Asian Eskimos (late 19th century — 1970s)]. Sovetskaia etnografiia [Soviet ethnography], 1979, no. 2, pp. 19–29. (In Russian).
  • Krupnik I., Chlenov M. Yupik Transitions. Change and Survival at Bering Strait: 1900–1960. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2013. (In English).
  • Liberty M., ed. American Indian Intellectuals of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. University of Oklahoma Press, Red River books, 1978. (In English).
  • Mark J. A Stranger in Her Native Land: Alice Fletcher and the American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. (In English).
  • Michaelsen S. Ely S. Parker and Amerindian Voices in Ethnography. American Literary History, 1996, no. 8 (4), pp. 615–638. (In English).
  • Mymrin N. I. [Work with observers, indigenous people of Chukotka. Some impressions and reflections]. Litsom k moriu. Pamiati Liudmily Bogoslovskoi [Those who face the sea. In memory of Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya]. Moscow: Avgust Borg Publ., 2016, pp. 68–86. (In Russian).
  • Oparin D. A. [Ainana: The history of a nation in the 20 century, through the fate of one person]. Prikladnaia etnologiia Chukotki: Narodnye znaniia, muzei, kul’turnoe nasledie [Applied Ethnology of Chukotka: Indigenous Knowledge, Museums, and Cultural Heritage]. Moscow: Izd-vo PressPass Publ., 2020, pp. 405–420. (In Russian).
  • Oparin D. Souvenirs de Lioudmila Aïnana, une aînée yupik. Les Cahiers du CIERA, 2014, no. 12, pp. 71–94. (In French).
  • Sirina A. A. [Evenki Pavla Vasilievna Afanas’eva in the scientific life of S. M. Shirokogorova and G. M. Vasilevich]. Severo-Vostochnyi gumanitarnyi vestnik [Northeast Humanitarian Bulletin], 2021, no. 1 (34), pp. 36–42. (In Russian).
  • Vakhtin N. B. [Birds of Sireniki 1984 (outline for memoirs)]. Litsom k moriu. Pamiati Liudmily Bogoslovskoi [Those who face the sea. In memory of Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya]. Moscow: Avgust Borg Publ., 2016. pp. 150–164. (In Russian).
  • Vakhtin N. B. Yazyki narodov Severa v 20 veke: ocherki iazykovogo sdviga [Languages of the Peoples of the North in the 20th Century: Essays on the Language Shift]. St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin Publ., 2001. (In Russian).
  • Zagrebin I. A. [How countries and people should cooperate]. Litsom k moriu. Pamiati Liudmily Bogoslovskoi [Those who face the sea. In memory of Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya]. Moscow: Avgust Borg Publ., 2016, pp. 87–106. (In Russian).