Identity, Culture, Land, and Language: Stories of Insurgent Planning in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia

Abstract

Indigenous peoples have been struggling to maintain or regain rights to land, identity, and culture in the face of colonialism. In Russia, government policies have pushed European Russian/Soviet nationalism in an attempt to diminish or erase non-European identity. But there has been insurgency. We present the case of Buryat historical and contemporary insurgent planning. We contextualize indigenous insurgent planning using colonialism and identity as backdrops. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic study and review of historical sources, we tell the stories of how many Buryats use dynamic indigenous identities combined with appropriated Russian nomenclature to resist and negotiate postmodern imperialism.