Continuous Militarization in Russia and Indigenous People: the Case of Kola Peninsula

CBEES Advanced Seminar with Vladislava Vladimirova, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University

Speaker: Vladislava Vladimirova, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University

Discussant: Tatiana Kasperski, Researcher in history of environment and technology, Södertörn University

Chair: Tatiana Sokolova, PhD Candidate in Environmental Studies, Södertörn University

Abstract: This presentation provides perspectives on continuous militarization in Russia through ethnographic research with Indigenous communities in the Arctic. I elaborate here research from the Kola Peninsula, which is the Russian border with the Nordic countries and therefore an emblematic example of a heavily militarized area. My premise is that militarization in Russia is a long-term process that has run uninterrupted since the Cold War until the present. I employ the post-structuralist notion of environmental subjectivity to show how Indigenous individuals, groups, and cultures have been reformed to align with the objectives of militarization. I show how knowledge of place, material military infrastructure, encounters with military personnel, and obligatory and voluntary military practice in the army are intertwined in the process of formation of Indigenous subjectivities. I operationalize an anthropological perspective where militarization is a process of social and material production that includes the accumulation of military infrastructure and personnel, as well as long‐term formation of social institutions, knowledge, identity reconstruction, ideology, and values which normalize war and justify state violence in the achievement of some goals. The presentation is connected to my recently published article External link, opens in new window., but also includes unpublished empirical material and analysis.