”To you, to us, to oil and gas” – The symbolic and socio-economic attachment of the workforce to oil, gas and its spaces of extraction in the Yamal-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Districts in Russia

Author(s)

Gertrude Saxinger

Abstract

This article examines ways in which workers and the people around them become enmeshed with oil and gas resources, the extractive industry and the social and geographical space of the Russian Far North: in particular, the Yamal-Nenets and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Districts (YNAO and KMAO). It highlights how both the local workforce and the long-distance commuters who travel back and forth from all over Russia develop strong attachments to the social and economic meaning and symbolism of oil and gas. New labour conditions and a new configuration of the labour market have emerged in the context of privatization and out-sourcing in the last two decades. These changes have created new certainties and uncertainties for the future in a region that until now has been conceived as harsh, but stable, and as conferring both prosperity and privilege on those who can cope with the extreme conditions. This study is based on ethnographic long-term fieldwork in YNAO and KMAO.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Fennia - International Journal of Geography

Volume

193

Pages

83–98

No. of pages

16

Publication date

2015

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504017 Cultural anthropology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geography, Planning and Development, Forestry, Ecology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c5117b88-7e38-486f-a4db-92d189d4362b