Abstract
State induced resettlement policies intertwine political macro processes, local communities, and various forms of belonging in the uprooted landscape of relocation. This chapter reflects on a case study of forced relocation on the Chukchi Peninsula in northeastern Russia. From the 1930s to the 1970s the inhabitants of mainly native coastal villages were subjected to a relocalization policy of the Soviet state that left dozens of settlements deserted. I argue that the Sovietization of the Russian North and the corresponding village relocations in Chukotka led to a collision of different forms of spatial practices, wherein a Soviet spatial logic was implanted on the traditional space usage of native sea mammal hunters and reindeer herders. The village relocations can be seen as a large scale experiment of social engineering with often devastating results on native cultures and settlement patters. Yet, the ruins of former settlements are not only places of the Soviet past, but they now play a role in present-day lives as some individuals have moved back into the formerly abandoned villages.
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Holzlehner, T. (2011). Engineering Socialism: A History of Village Relocations in Chukotka, Russia. In: Brunn, S. (eds) Engineering Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9920-4_108
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9920-4_108
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