Cows, Kin, and Globalization - (Globalization and the Environment) by Susan Alexandra Crate (Paperback)

About the Book

Crate presents the first cultural ecological study of a Siberian people: the Viliui Sakha, describing the local and global forces of modernization that continue to challenge their survival, and will be of interest to environmental and economic anthropologists, as well as to pr...

Book Synopsis

Crate presents the first cultural ecological study of a Siberian people: the Viliui Sakha, describing the local and global forces of modernization that continue to challenge their survival, and will be of interest to environmental and economic anthropologists, as well as to practitioners interested in sustainable rural development, globalization, indigenous rights in Eurasia, and post-Soviet Russia.

Review Quotes

Cows, Kin, and Globalization is three books in one: a vivid description of the Sakha people of Siberia, a comparative review of the impact of high-value mining on indigenous cultures, and a thoughtful exploration of the possibilities and perils of reconciling diamond mining and local populations. Because it brings these topics together, it is ideally suited for students and scholars in environmental studies, geography, and anthropology.

Excellent empirical data... well-documented

Excellent scholarship....Cows, Kin, and Globalization is a clearly written, easy-to-read monograph.... Could be productively used in undergraduate and graduate anthropology courses.

In this richly detailed work, Susan Crate offers a new take on an old form. Her ethnography of the Viliui Sakha captures the complex dimensions of daily life for one native people of contemporary Russia. This work, situated within a cultural, ecological, historical, and comparative framework, presents the 'how' and 'why' of human adaptation. In short, this is a multi-faceted jewel of a work.

It is delightful to see ethnography conducted in the former Soviet Union linked so closely to pressing concerns in broader anthropology and, indeed, in the social and natural sciences.

This collection would be a welcome addition to a university library since many do not subscribe to the journals where Crate originally published her material. Crate's powerful personal connection to these Viliui Sakha communities allow her to understand local issues in great depth.

This ethnography provides a gripping account of historical movements and transformations in sub-Arctic practices of human ecology.

Through her eloquent description of the personal, daily choices of contemporary Viliui Sakha, Crate steers us toward the conclusion that 'truly sustainable development both enlarges the range of local people's choices to make development more democratic and participatory and incorporate(s) an in-depth knowledge of local ecosystems and cultures.' Hers is a cogent, necessary case study for anyone interested in issues of indigenous peoples, adaptaion, and sustainability seen through the lens of ethnographic inquiry.

Through this innovative multi-sited ethnography of complex local and global indigenous sustainability, we see how under diamond mining the Viliui Sakha were transformed from their pre-Soviet subsistence strategies into the Soviet working class then to a post-Soviet household production system founded upon having and knowing land. The Viliui Sakha reemerged as victors of sustainability. This is a perceptive ethnography of sustainability that passionately advances indigenous peoples' rights to socioecological equity, cultural survival, and political devolution.

About the Author

Susan A. Crate is a writer and scholar who conducts research in cultural and political ecology, enviornmental policy, sustainable community development, and global climate change in Siberia, Russia, and the circumpolar North. She is assistant professor of human ecology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.