The Microecology of Coastal Village Resettlement: Ecology, Economy, and Cultural Change on the Chukchi Peninsula, Russia

State induced resettlement policies intertwine political macro processes, local communities, and cultural and ecological change in the uprooted landscape of relocation. This paper reflects on a case study of forced relocation, which effected several villages around Chukotka's East Cape, in Northeastern Russia. From the 1930s to the 1960s the inhabitants of mainly native coastal villages have been subjected to relocalization policies enacted by the Soviet state that left dozens of settlements and hunting bases deserted.

The native coastal population of Chukotka was subjected to a twofold loss in the 20th century: the large-scale, state induced closures of many native villages, the subsequent, resettlement of the population to centralized villages, and the following collapse of the Soviet economy and infrastructure. The traumatic loss of their homeland and the vanishing of the socio-economic structures that had replaced traditional ways of living sent devastating ripples through the socio-cultural fabric of native communities.

Industrial impacts and forced relocation altered the ecology of and the access to subsistence hunting areas in a permanent way. Taking a microecological approach by focusing on the interaction opportunities of a specific place, the paper examines the effects and reactions of Arctic coastal communities to sudden ecological and rapid economic change. Extraordinary resilience as well as novel strategies of coping with Sovietization, subsequent loss, and industrial collapse created new forms of communities. The revitalization of traditional hunting technologies and the resettlement of formerly abandoned native villages is only one aspect of the current realities that gave rise to new forms of habitation in the ruins of a volatile past.

Thus, this paper explores local reactions of Arctic coastal communities to translocal forces through time (i.e., Sovietization of the High North, the Cold War, collapse of the Soviet Union, and global warming). Focusing on individual strategies of resilience and place making amidst a relocated population, the paper addresses the central role of space and ecology in relation to a changing maritime landscape and the impacts of equally altering state policies.