Dima Oparin interviendra, en anglais, mardi 27 octobre 2026 à l'Université de New York sur le thème "Indigenous Heritage in the Arctic: Elusive Materiality and Shifting Semantics of Family Heirlooms in Coastal Chukotka". L'inscription est nécessaire pour assister en ligne : https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/D5vNQYFLQ7CoiLEnS1zxMQ

résumé

"Over the past several years, a large body of work has emerged on Siberian and Arctic Indigenous material culture within the framework of critical heritage and museum studies. In particular, many anthropologists and historians have begun to view Siberian ethnographic collections in Western museums through the lenses of decolonial and material turns. On the one hand, this shift is linked to the large-scale war in Ukraine that began in 2022 and the resulting closure of opportunities for fieldwork—for both foreign anthropologists and some Russian researchers. On the other hand, it reflects a boom in both academic and broader public interest in questions of heritage in Russia more generally. This presentation seeks to explore the application of the flexible concept of “heritage” to the cultural realities and perceptions of contemporary Asiatic Yupik communities living along the Chukotkan coast—the Arctic borderland of Russia adjacent to Alaska. It explores the dynamic biographies of pagitaq (Central Siberian Yupik)—ancestral objects preserved and ritually used by the Asiatic Yupik of Chukotka. Far from being static heirlooms, pagitaq-things are flexible tools of remembrance, whose value is shaped by family genealogy, personal attachments and ritual usefulness. It examined how these objects are preserved, concealed, consumed and transformed across generations, embodying intangible dimension of Yupik heritage. By investigating different forms of communication between humans, ancestral spirits and heirlooms, the study expands understanding of what constitutes Indigenous heritage. Analysing heritagisation beyond institutional frameworks, the presentation argues for a relational, situational and fluid concept of heritage rooted in Indigenous epistemologies. Pagitaq thus emerges as a powerful expression of cultural continuity and resilience, sustaining local cosmologies and family memory amid rupture and oblivion." Page de la présentation : https://jordanrussiacenter.org/events/indigenous-heritage-in-the-arctic-elusive-materiality-and-shifting-semantics-of-family-heirlooms-in-coastalchukotka