The Temporality of Food Security of Local Communities in the Northeastern Part of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2025-4/7-24

Authors

Keywords:

Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Allaikhovsky district, Nizhnekolymsky district, food security, foodscape, food, temporality

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to consider the temporal heterogeneity of food security in the Allaikhovsky and Nizhnekolymsky regions of the Sakha Republic  (Yakutia), manifested both linearly and cyclically. The study is based on the materials the author obtained during fieldwork in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Instability and limited time are the most important constraints of food security for the population of the region, which reflect the deep connection between the system of subsistence of local communities and environmental rhythms. The flow of time in the north of Yakutia is directly related to the transformation of the affordability of the gastronomic landscape. The dominance of ecological temporality leads to a lack of stability in food security, since variability forms its basis. The strengthening of the role of seasonal rhythms in many areas of everyday life of local residents, observed in the post-Soviet period, often does not occur in a harmonious interweaving of different temporalities, leading to an increase in food security of the population, but acts as an inevitable mode of energy regimes in conditions of shortage of quantity and quality of resources. The involvement of actors in a cyclical pattern of functioning indicates the unification of the temporal pattern and signals great difficulties in the implementation of other temporal forms of food security.

Author Biography

  • Nikolai Goncharov, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

    Goncharov, Nikolai S. — Ph.D. in History, Researcher of Department of Siberian Ethnography, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). E-mail: Nikola.gon4arov@yandex.ru ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0755-4877

    For citation: Goncharov, N. S. 2025. The Temporality of Food Security of Local Communities in the Northeastern Part of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 4: 7–24.

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Published

14.12.2025

Issue

No. 4 (2025): Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik antropologii)

Section

The Anthropology of Modern Society