| How do indigenous agropastoralists survive the transition from a communist infrastructure to a democratic economy? This dissertation explores how Viliui Sakha, inhabitants of Sakha Republic northeast Siberia, Russia, are adapting on a household food production level in the post-Soviet context. Sakha are the highest latitude agropastoralist horse and cattle breeders on the earth today. In the last 100 years their livelihood has gone from subsistence food production in clan clusters of single-family homesteads scattered across the landscape, to village-level state agri-business farm production in compact settlements, to the present-day reliance on household-level food production.;In a localized two-village study, combining quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, I explored the extent to which the historical processes of Sovietization and de-Sovietization have influenced contemporary subsistence strategies. In the contemporary context, rural Viliui Sakha have developed household and inter-household food production capacities based on keeping cows and relying on kin. One of the basic tenets of cultural ecologist Robert Netting's smallholder-householder theory is that in times of change, the household system is the most resilient unit due to specific qualities including intimate ecological knowledge and implicit labor contracts. This study adds additional verification to Netting's theories and also expands his study group, formerly focused on intensive agriculturalists, to include agropastoralist peoples.;This study helps define processes of household adaptation that are generalizable beyond their original cases and makes gestures toward understanding microeconomic adaptation strategies across rural Russia in Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Additionally, this study identifies alternatives the Viliui Sakha have, given the limitations of their natural environment, in building sustainable localized economies. |
