Bøger i Studies in the Circumpolar Nor serien

Through diverse engagements with natural resource extraction and ecological vulnerability in the contemporary Arctic, contributors to this volume apprehend Arctic resource regimes through the concept of abstraction. Abstraction refers to the creation of new material substances and cultural values by detaching parts from existing substances and values. The abstractive process differs from the activity of extractive industries by its focus on the conceptual resources that conceal processes of exploitation associated with extraction. The study of abstraction can thus help us attune to the formal operations that make appropriations of value possible while disclosing the politics of extraction and of its representation.

Nowhere have recent environmental and social changes been more pronounced than in post-Soviet Siberia. Donatas Brandi¿auskas probes the strategies that Orochen reindeer herders of southeastern Siberia have developed to navigate these changes. "Catching luck" is one such strategy that plays a central role in Orochen cosmology -- luck implies a vernacular theory of causality based on active interactions of humans, non-humans, material objects, and places. Brandi¿auskas describes in rich details the skills, knowledge, ritual practices, storytelling, and movements that enable the Orochen to "catch luck" (or not, sometimes), to navigate times of change and upheaval.