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Golovnev A., Danilova E. Ethnography of Communications (Based on Lev Lashuk’s Research)

A. Golovnev
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS;
Saint Petersburg State University
St. Petersburg, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0002-5716-655X
E-mail: Andrei_golovnev@bk.ru

 

E. Danilova
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS
St. Petersburg, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0002-8183-4810
E-mail: danilova@northarch.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The article presents the origins and actualization of ethnography of communications focused on ethnically significant forms and mechanisms of connections and interactions, including those between peoples. The authors analyze Lev Lashuk’s scientific legacy from the perspective of ethnic relations, tracing his views from ethnohistorical studies of the Pechora region to theoretical constructs in the field of historical sociology. Based on the interpretation of Pechora materials and the methodology of anthropology of movement, the authors show how territorial communities and ethnic groups were formed through systems of connections, routes, and interactions. Special attention is paid to the Izma-Komi, who have created a unique system of reindeer herding entrepreneurship in the context of interethnic interaction with Russians and Nenets. In the final part of the article, the authors, drawing on the experience of their predecessors, propose a conceptualization of ethnography of communications as a specific research field that studies the mechanisms of ethnic self-organization through information systems, communicative practices, and the movement of humans, ideas, and cultural phenomena. The key parameters of the direction are defined as follows: the system of communications and the communicative landscape, which are the configuration of practices of intra-ethnic relations and inter-ethnic contacts, as well as the set of conditions and means for the exchange of information; the actors (large-scale plans and motivational and activity schemes) and communication nodes; and the “people in the ethnocenosis” — the functional niches of ethnic groups in the system of inter-ethnic relations and information connections.

 

KEYWORDS: Lev Lashuk, anthropology of movement, ethnography of communications, Pechora area, Izhma-Komi

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2025-4(30)-58-83
UDC 316.77:39

 

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