On the collective monograph “Ethnonational processes in the Arctic: trends, problems, and prospects”

The peer-reviewed work is an original collective work of researchers from Russian scientific centers specializing in the study of the Arctic [1]. The Russian Arctic is considered a separate region, where the interdisciplinary approach is applied. The analysis of the political situation in the Russian Arctic is carried out by researchers specializing in the field of historical, sociological, political, economic, and legal sciences.

The subject of research is ethnic and national processes in the context of socio-economic, socio-political, legal, socio-cultural development of Arctic territories of Russia and other states of Europe and America.

The research on Russia partially includes the events of the 18th century (sometimes even earlier periods), but mainly the attention of the authors is focused on the 20th — 21st centuries. The monograph gives a detailed analysis of the history of the development of the northern territories with all their contradictions (chapter 1). In detail, the normative and institutional foundations of the national policy of Russia in the late 20th — early 21st centuries are investigated (chapter 2) in relation to the dynamics of its ethnic and national structure (chapter 3), migration and demogra-

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phy (chapters 4 and 5). Concerning Scandinavia, Finland (chapter 15), the Arctic regions of the USA and Canada (chapter 16), the authors limited themselves to a brief outline of the ethnic and national policy of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Historical and modern aspects of the research are refracted through the analysis of ethnic and national policy of Russia and other northern states in 2000–2010.

The monograph is distinguished by the verified theoretical and methodological conceptualization, detailed analysis of the concepts and terms. The Introduction defines the interdisciplinary nature of the study, based on a combination of anthropological, historical, and system-structural approaches which help conceptualization and choice of the conceptual thesaurus. The content of the following concepts reveals: “Arctic”, “Arctic states”, “ethnopolitical processes”, “ethnicity”, “ethnopolitical policy of Arctic subjects” and “national policy of the state”, “indigenous peoples”, “demographic”, “migration”, “cultural policy”, and “ethnic situation”. Theoretical research is correlated with the analysis of legal, normative and methodological documents, and political programs of the states.

One of the strengths of the monograph is the study of ethnic and national policy in the Arctic regions in close connection with the natural-territorial (geographical), demographic and migration realities. The authors used extensive databases and statistics from various official sources (population censuses, interdepartmental information, and statistical systems, demographic yearbooks, and other data of federal and territorial state bodies and municipal administration). Official political and legal instruments (UN and ILO conventions, national laws and regulations, draft legislation, state reports, federal and regional targeted programs, concepts, strategies of public policy, reports of ministerial departments, bulletins, and press releases). All this is supplemented by data of corporations and public associations, sample surveys of territories (cities) and complex sociological studies (surveys of employers, research of Russian centers of demoscopy, and author's sociological research). The work correctly uses the data of many scientists, but the main part of the material is obtained by the authors of this monograph, incl. studies supported by scientific funds, as well as obtained in the implementation of scientific programs of academic institutions and universities. Among the subjects influencing the ethnic and national policy of the Russian territories, the authors studied not only the state bodies represented by federal and territorial institutions (legislative, executive, control and supervision), also municipal bodies, enterprises, NGOs, diaspora, cultural and national autonomies.

In the peer-reviewed monograph the ethnonational policy of all 8 subjects of the Russian Federation, incl. territories officially recognized as the Arctic. They are the Murmansk Oblast and the Arkhangelsk Oblast, the republics of Komi and Sakha (Yakutia), the Nenets and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous districts, Chukotka and the Krasnoyarsk Krai. The state ethnic policy is considered as a combination of three directions (chapter 9):

• 1)    consolidation of all peoples living in the studied territories in the context of the Russian nation formation, the integrity of the Russian state and subjects of the Russian Federation;

• 2)    interaction with migration policy and demographic development of territories;

• 3)    preservation and development of small indigenous peoples of the North in the context of sustainable development of territories of traditional nature use.

All of the above distinguishes the content of the peer-reviewed work from others, e.g., from the fundamental monograph “Russian Arctic: indigenous peoples and industrial development”, where the policy of the state is analyzed concerning indigenous peoples and industrial development only in two northern territories of the Russian Federation [2].

The authors of the monograph do not ignore the acute problems of the ethnic and national policy of Russia and foreign states in the Arctic, stemming from the contradictions of traditional nature management and industrial development, indigenous demography and migration exchange, historical memory and modern development, sometimes leading to inter-ethnic conflicts. Based on the positive experience and contradictions, recommendations are given for improving the institutional framework and practice of ethnic and national policy of Russia and its subjects.

Wide coverage of ethnic and national policy and subregions, depth of research, visualization of material with tables, diagrams, graphs, maps determine not only academic but also encyclopedic nature of the peer-reviewed monograph. And this makes it useful for a wide range of researchers (ethnologists, political scientists, sociologists, lawyers, cultural scientists, social geographers, specialists in international relations and regional studies), teachers, students, graduate students and all interested in multi-ethnic regions where people live and work in the unique conditions of the Arctic.