The Canadian Circumpolar Institute (CCI) Press at the University of Alberta published Anna A. Sirina's Katanga Evenkis in the 20th Century and the Ordering of their Life-world, the second volume of a series on Northern Hunters-Gatherers Research in collaboration with the Baikal Archeology Project.
Extensively illustrated with contemporary and archival photographs, detailed diagrams, and original artistic renderings, this work documents the history and present lives of a group of Evenki hunters and reindeer herders living at the headwaters of the Lower Tunguska River in Eastern Siberia.
According to Sirina, Katanga Evenkis are best described by the flexible and creative way they use the land around them. They have exercised a strong presence in their environment despite severe pressure by Soviet-era ethnic and industrial development policies, and by recent economic privatization.
The author further argues that today Katanga Evenkis continue to ‘make a home for themselves in the taiga’ using a variety of adaptive strategies and intuitions in a way that reflects what she calls the ‘outlook of a mobile people.’ Based on Sirina’s extensive fieldwork, this book includes numerous first-person accounts as well as a multi-season hunter’s diary, and is also supported by an excellent command of the published and archival material on the region.
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