Sibirica

This article concerns the space through which shamans journey (its relationship to physical space as well as to the person), and how it is represented in indigenous Nanai discourse. From the perspective of traditional Nanai shamans, spiritual and physical spaces are interconnected. Events having spiritual significance saturate physical space and thereby open up an additional spiritual dimension. Shamanists believe that by appearing simultaneously on different sides of the border between the spiritual and physical worlds, they are able to observe one another and, having met in the spiritual world, they can enter into lasting relations with one another, continuing them in the physical world. These and other analogous emic ideas permit the conclusion that, for practicing traditional shamans, spiritual space is objective and in relation to the person is externally situated.

Using longitudinal ethnographic material, anthropologists are skilled to discern how change, in its many forms, interacts with the livelihoods of affected communities. Furthermore, multi-sited ethnography can show how local change is both a result of global to local phenomena and of origins affecting similar local contexts. Ethnographic material is therefore critical to interdisciplinary understandings of change. Through case study in native villages in north-eastern Siberia, Russia, this article argues for ethnography's unique capacity to understand change. In addition, it argues for ethnography's much-needed contribution in interdisciplinary efforts to account for attributes of global change both highly local and human.

What started as a daring idea to fly a biplane from Bellingham, Washington, to Alaska and then across the Bering Strait to Provideniya, Russia, has evolved into a project of international scale. Few people have ever heard of the Lend-Lease Air Route (otherwise known as the Northern Route and the Alaska-Siberia Airway) or know of the key role it played during World War II. It was a vital support network for the Soviet Union and one of the great logistical efforts of the twentieth century. In 2013, the BRAVO 369 Flight Foundation test flew the first leg of this air route as part of the flight recreation and documentary Warplanes to Siberia.

Peter Jordan, Landscape and Culture in Northern Eurasia Andrzej Rozwadowski

Andrew Wiget and Olga Balalaeva, Khanty: People of the Taiga: Surviving the 20th Century Brian Donahoe

Andrew A. Gentes, trans., Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's “Sakhalin” Olga M. Cooke

Erich Kasten, Cultures and landscapes of the North-East Asia: 250 years of Russian-German research in ecology and culture of indigenous peoples of Kamchatka Dmitri Funk and Iraida Nam

Mertin I. Eren, Hunter-Gatherer Behavior: Human Response during the Younger Dryas Christopher Hill

Anna A. Sirina, Katanga Evenkis in the 20th Century and the Ordering of Their Life-World; Olga Ulturgasheva, Narrating the Future in Siberia: Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography among the Eveny Tero Mustonen

Charles Hartley, G. Bike Yazicioglu, and Adam T. Smith, The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia: Regimes and Revolutions Brad Paige

Benedict J. Colombi and James F. Brooks, Keystone Nations: Indigenous Peoples and Salmon across the North Pacific David G. Anderson

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