Co-written by an anthropologist and a reindeer herder (BRISK project co-researcher) on the basis of their field materials, this book offers documentation and analysis of complex traditional environmental knowledge. After discussing the methodology of the Evenki community-based transdisciplinary observatory for monitoring climate and environmental changes with herders (2012–2016), the book reveals some of the results of this co-production. It presents the emic typologies and concepts the Evenki use for understanding norms and anomalies, observing and predicting changes, and adaptating. Conceived together with the herders, the book’s structure combines analytical texts (traditional in anthropology) and other forms of presentation, such as abstract diagrams with explanations in Evenki, Russian, and English, diagrams on pictures, and encyclopaedic entries with pictures and trilingual explanations from the herders.
Alexandra Lavrillier is an anthropologist and associate professor in anthropology at CEARC (Cultures, Environments, Arctic, Representations, Climate) (UVSQ) of the University of Paris-Saclay. Fluent in Evenki, she has conducted around nine years of fieldwork on hunting, reindeer herding, landscape management, representations of the natural environment, adaptations brought by postsocialism, the market economy, climate change, and shamanism among the Evenki, Even, and Yakuts.
Semen Gabyshev is a Evenki reindeer herder and hunter with 27 years of experience in the Amur region and Yakutia (Russia). A native bearer of the Evenki TEK and language, since 2012–2013 he has been an associate member of CEARC and an indigenous co-researcher in scientific projects (BRISK, POLARIS, PARCS).
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