Abstract

In the last two decades, there has been an increased awareness of the traditions and issues that link aboriginal people across the circumpolar North. One of the key aspects of the lives of circumpolar peoples, be they in Scandinavia, Alaska, Russia, or Canada, is their relationship to the wild animals that support them. Although divided for most of the 20th Century by various national trading blocks, and the Cold War, aboriginal people in each region share common stories about the various capitalist and socialist states that claimed control over their lands and animals. Now, aboriginal peoples throughout the region are reclaiming their rights.

This volume is the first to give a well-rounded portrait of wildlife management, aboriginal rights, and politics in the circumpolar north. The book reveals unexpected continuities between socialist and capitalist ecological styles, as well as addressing the problems facing a new era of cultural exchanges between aboriginal peoples in each region.

David G. Anderson is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.

"The edited work contains one of the most interesting sets of northern papers to appear in a very long time...each paper is excellent...this book will hopefully provoke considerable thought...This is a work that should be discussed in terms of the particulars of the various papers, but also for the overview it provides." - Polar Record

Mark Nuttall is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.