Continuity and change: (re)constructing environmental geographies in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

Author: Graybill, Jessica K

Source: Area, Volume 39, Number 1, March 2007 , pp. 6-19(14)

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Abstract:

Environmental studies conducted worldwide often overlook the knowledge traditions of the locales where they are conducted. Addressing this issue, I investigated the geographic journal literature of late Soviet (1980-1989) and post-Soviet (1990-2003) Russia. Notable trends are increasing criticism of environmental and resource management in Russia and a (re)turn to pre-socialist Russian theorizations of society-nature interactions. Specifically, the noösphere, ethnogenesis and geosystems are trends in the literature that signify how Russian geographers (re)construct environmental knowledge. For non-Russian geographers working in Russia, awareness of these trends situates place-based knowledge relative to multiple cultures (ethnic, scientific) and time periods, promoting cross-cultural understanding of different traditions of geographic inquiry.

Keywords: Russia; transformation; history of geography; nature-society interactions; science studies

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2007.00726.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Geography, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA, Email: jgraybill@mail.colgate.edu

Publication date: 2007-03-01