Полевая работа с точки зрения управленческой документации Института этнографии АН СССР

Этнографическое обозрение. 2025. № 1. С. 135–159.

Москвина Д. А.

In this article, I consider the manner in which Soviet ethnographers responded to the combination of the di culties in undertaking eldwork and the need to meet the normative requirements and expectations of the Institute of Ethnography, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The analysis will focus speci cally on how ethnographers studying foreign countries worked on ethnographic texts, with a particular emphasis on the volumes of the “Peoples of the World” (Narody mira) series, during the period of the seven-year plan (1959-1965). I attempt an examination of eldwork from the perspective of institutional bureaucracy, thus facilitating a reevaluation of the notion of “scarcity” of eldwork and the articulation of its nuances. Indeed, the lack of eldwork in the sense of actual trips and travels did not equate to its absence from the institutional discourse. I further wish to shift research attention from the archive of eld materials and diaries to the archive of administrative documentation which, in my opinion, should be examined as painstakingly as eldwork records in writing any history of eldwork. Scrutinizing the transcripts of the meetings of the Academic Council of the Institute of Ethnography, I argue that these meetings provided an opportunity for Soviet ethnographers to discuss both the importance of eldwork and the way ethnographic texts were to be written.

Keywords: бюрократия, bureaucracy, история антропологии, fieldwork, советская наука, полевая работа, history of anthropology, советская этнография, Soviet Ethnography, soviet science