Leaving Footprints in the Taiga: Luck, Spirits and Ambivalence Among the Siberian Orochen Reindeer Herders and Hunters - Paperback

by Donatas Brandisauskas (Author)

Nowhere have recent environmental and social changes been more pronounced than in post-Soviet Siberia. Donatas Brandisauskas probes the strategies that Orochen reindeer herders of southeastern Siberia have developed to navigate these changes. "Catching luck" is one such strategy that plays a central role in Orochen cosmology -- luck implies a vernacular theory of causality based on active interactions of humans, non-humans, material objects, and places. Brandisauskas describes in rich details the skills, knowledge, ritual practices, storytelling, and movements that enable the Orochen to "catch luck" (or not, sometimes), to navigate times of change and upheaval.

Author Biography

Donatas Brandisauskas is Professor at the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies and Senior Researcher at the Department of History at Vilnius University in Lithuania. He is Associate Researcher at the Centre of Arctic and Siberian Exploration at the Russian Academy of Science, and Associate Researcher at the University of Versailles (CEARC) in France.