Appropriation of Landscapes and Resource Management in the Evenki Native Village in the North Baikal

My dissertation analyses the construction of indigeneity in Kholodnaia Evenki village located in Severobaikalskii district in the Republic of Buriatiia in Russia. The aim of my PhD dissertation is to analyse how the "life projects" of the local population coexisted with various development projects, which took place in the North Baikal region. The project of the native village appeared to be on the intersection of various projects. It implied a need in the creation of new stationary structures both in the village and in the forest. However, it can not be examined as the opposition of sedentary way of life to nomadic. Rather the lifestyle of the locals included both the features of "nomadic" and "sedentary" life. Evenki villages continue to be temporary de stinations for many hunters and reindeer herders nowadays. The purpose of my project is to show how local identities are formed within people?s engagement in activities linked to the landscape, which includes both the village and the forest. During the 20 th century the Evenki population changed from taiga dwelling to dwelling in villages. The main purpose of this project is to deconstruct the process of how locals became village dwellers and to analyse how the Siberian "native Evenki" dwellers' use of spa ce changed in the context of industrial development projects. The aim of my work is to study the process of how local people became connected to the globalised landscape through the use of the village space and the infrastructure and how the village becam e the point people constantly return to. It is very often said that locals inhabit a cultural landscape. However the village also can be described as a cultural landscape. An important part of this project is the argument that there is no substantive diff erence between these two notions, as the local population inhabits both the village and the cultural landscape surrounding it.