Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam

Default Avatar

Dr. Stephan Dudeck

Affiliate Scholar

Stephan Dudeck is an anthropologist working in close collaboration with Siberian indigenous peoples and conducted since 1993 long-term anthropological fieldwork with Siberian reindeer herding communities. For more than 20 years, he has been engaged in social science research at the crossroads of science and social activism. His scholarly interest grew with social engagement in Indigenous struggles for sustainable futures, land and resource rights and the preservation of Indigenous rights to self-definition in the face of dispossessions and resettlements by the state and the oil industry. He established close relations and friendships with Indigenous partners, some of which have already lasted for more than 25 years. In the years after his dissertation on Indigenous self-representation and resilience in Russia's oil-provinces in Western Siberia, he has expanded his collaborative projects by conducting research in oral history and later, by invitation of his Indigenous friends, on the preservation of their cultural heritage. He is a research fellow in Arctic Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia and has worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology, Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland and the Centre for Arctic Social Studies at the European University at Saint Petersburg.

Education

  • 2011 Doctor Philosophiae (Dr.phil.) at the Faculty of History, Arts and Oriental Studies at Leipzig University, Germany
  • 2008-2010 Doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany
  • 2005 Magister Artium (M.A.) at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Professional experience

  • 2015-2021 Teaching Arctic Social Studies at the Faculty of Anthropology at the European University at Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia
  • 2021 Research associate in the international project "Environmental Knowledge in Siberia: Sustainable relationships with nature in times of climate change" at Foundation for Siberian Cultures, Fürstenberg/Havel, (Germany)
  • 2021 Collaboration with the art and science project by Kristiina Koskentola and Bioartsociety "Enfleshed-Elaborated" online and in Turku (Finland)
  • 2019-2020 Member of the project "Arctic visual anthropology of the North" collaboration between European University at St. Petersburg, The Arctic University of Norway - UiT, University of Alaska Fairbanks
  • 2019 Realising and educational program and audio-visual transdisciplinary work with Indigenous artist Galina Yaptik at the Indigenous ethnocultural-camp „Numsang Yokh", village Kazym, Beloyarsk rayon, Khanty-Mansi autonomous district - Yugra
  • 2016-2019 Member of the research project Arctic Ark (Human-animal adaptations to the Arctic environment: natural and folk selection practices), financed by the Academy of Finland
  • 2013-2017 Member of the international POLARIS Project (Cultural and Natural Heritage in Arctic and Sub-Antarctic Regions for a Cross-Cultural and Sustainable Valorisation Process and Tourism Development: Siberia, Lapland and Patagonia)
  • 2011-2015 Member of the ORHELIA (Oral History of Empires by Elders in the Arctic) research project in collaboration with Indigenous communities in Finland and Russia, financed by the Academy of Finland
  • 2013 Production of the documentary "Before the Snow" (remastered and published on YouTube) with the film maker Christian Vagt
  • 2008-2010 Research on the public representation of Indigenous culture at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany
  • 2007 Fact-finding mission for a parallel report on Indigenous peoples in Russia submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Research funded by the German NGOs 'Brot für die Welt' and 'INFOE'
  • 2007 Freelance for the Academy of Sciences of Berlin and Brandenburg for research on the photographic legacy of Wolfgang Steinitz (Western Siberian Expedition in 1935)
  • 2006 Research and interviews for the documentary film 'Before the Snow' (director: Christian Vagt) about Khanty and Nenets ghost stories in Western Siberia
  • 1999, 2000 Research and production management for the documentary film 'Elsewhere' (2001, director: Nikolaus Geyrhalter) about a Khanty family in Western Siberia

  • Co-reation and co-production of knowledge
  • Methods of collaboration with Indigenous communities
  • Indigenous rights
  • Indigenous activism and resistance
  • Visual anthropology
  • Anthropological fieldwork
  • Oral history
  • Extractive industries
  • Cultural heritage
  • Human-animal relations
  • Strategies of silence, hiding and avoiding

Publications at the RIFS

2023

Monographs, book chapters, special issues

Reports and further scientific publications

Publications prior to joining the RIFS

Monographs:

  • 2013 Der Tag des Rentierzüchters: Repräsentation indigener Lebensstile zwischen Taigawohnplatz und Erdölstadt in Westsibirien. (The Day of the Reindeer-Herder: Representation of Indigenous Lifestyles between Taiga Settlement and Oil-industrial Town in Western Siberia.) Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien. 351 pp., ISBN: 978-3-942883-17-7
  • 2020 with Alla Al'bertovna Bolotova, Valerija Vladislavovna Vasil'eva, Nikolaj Borisovich Vahtin, Ksenija Andreevna Gavrilova, Anastasija Igorevna Karasjova, Elena Vladimirovna Ljarskaja, and Veronika Vital'evna Simonova. 2020. 'Deti devjanostyh' v sovremennoj Rossijskoj Arktike (Children of the ninetieth in the Russian Arctic). Edited by Nikolaj Borisovich Vahtin and Shtefan Dudek. Sankt Peterburg: Izd. Evropejskogo universiteta v Sankt Peterburge, 431 pp.

Articles and chapters:

  • 2022 with Tatiana Degai, Andrey N. Petrov, Renuka Badhe, Parnuna P. Egede Dahl, Nina Döring, Stephan Dudeck, Thora M. Hermann, et al. 2022. 'Shaping Arctic's Tomorrow through Indigenous Knowledge Engagement and Knowledge Co-Production'. Sustainability 14 (3): 1331. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031331.
  • 2021 'Ethnoblogging - Synergien Und Herausforderungen Für Indigenes Umweltwissen Auf Social-Media-Plattformen'. In Mensch Und Natur in Sibirien: Umweltwissen Und Nachhaltige Naturbeziehungen in Zeiten des Klimawandels, edited by Erich Kasten, 279-302. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.
  • 2021 with Otto Joahim Habek. 'Prolegomeny k programme gendernyh antropologicheskih issledovanij na rossijskom Severe' (Prolegomena to a program of gender studies in anthropology of the Russian North). In Pravo v kontekste ustojchivogo razvitija Arktiki: vyzovy vremeni i novye vozmozhnosti : sbornik materialov mezhdunarodnoj nauchno-prakticheskoj konferencii, posvjashhennoj 100-letiju doktora juridicheskih nauk, professora Mihaila Mihajlovicha Fedorova (g. Jakutsk, 17-21 nojabrja 2020 g.) / Severo-Vostochnyj feder. un-t im. M.K. Ammosova, Gos. Sobranie (Il Tumjen) Resp. Saha (Jakutija), Konstitucionnyj Sud Resp. Saha (Jakutija), 228-37. Kazan': Obshhestvo s ogranichennoj otvetstvennost'ju 'Buk'.
  • 2021 with Zsófia Schön, Christian Vagt, Agrafena Pesikova, Josif Kechimov, Vasilii Usanov, Yuri Vella "Troubling Visits and Uncanny Encounters - Indigenous Concepts of Other Than Humans and Their Homes" Translocal Culturas contemporâneas locais e urbanas nº5 Espaços (Des)Habitados | (Un)Inhabited Spaces.
  • 2021 with Hoogensen Gjørv, G., Kendall, S. S., Christensen, J., Dudeck, S., Greaves, W., Habeck, J. O., Hossain, K., Winsnes Johansen, T. M., Kukarenko, N., Nicol, H. N., Òmarsdòttir, S. B., Sergunin, A., Shaughnessy, K. & Vladimirova, V., "Security" In: Ágústsson, H. Ó., Biscaye, E., Hayfield, E. A., Jessen Williamson, K., Katchatag, L., Laroque, B., McDermott, A., Michaels, S., Nikolayeva, O., Oddsdóttir, E. E., Olsvig, S., Petrov, A., Shorty, N., Smieszek, M. & Svensson, E-M. (eds.). Pan-Arctic Report Gender Equality in the Arctic, Phase 3. Reykjavik: Arctic Council, p. 72-97.
  • 2021 with Voz'janov, Andrej Grigor'evich, Jel'za-Bair Macakovna Guchinova, Aleksandra Konstantinovna Kasatkina, Irina Vladimirovna Kozlova, Elena Vladimirovna Ljarskaja, Marija Mihajlovna Pirogovskaja, et al. 2021. 'FORUM: Opasnosti Polja: Perspektiva Issledovatelja' (FORUM: Risks in the field: researcher's perspectives). Antropologicheskij Forum 17 (48): 11-88. https://doi.org/10.31250/1815-8870-2021-17-48-11-88.
  • 2019 with Lukas Allemann, 'Sharing Oral History with Arctic Indigenous Communities: Ethical Implications of Bringing Back Research Results'. Qualitative Inquiry 25 (9-10): 890-906. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417738800.
  • 2018 with Joachim Otto Habeck „Hans Findeisens Korrespondenz mit dem Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg: Rekonstruktion einer prekären Akademischen Karriere". Mitteilungen Der Berliner Gesellschaft Für Anthropologie, Ethnologie Und Urgeschichte 39 (2018): 79 − 96.
  • 2018. 'Reindeer Returning from Combat: War Stories among the Nenets of European Russia'. Arctic Anthropology 55 (1): 73-90. https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.55.1.73.
  • 2018. 'Subsurface Resource Extraction and Indigenous Livelihoods in Western Siberia'. In Razvitie Arkticheskih Territorij: Opyt, Problemy, Perspektivy. Materialy mezhdunarodnoj nauchno-prakticheskoj konferencii., edited by G.V. Zhigunova, 116-19. Krasnojarsk: Obshhestvo s ogranichennoj otvetstvennost'ju 'Nauchno-innovacionnyj centr'.
  • 2018 with Florian Stammler, Nuccio Mazzullo, Päivi Soppela, Aytalina Ivanova, Vladislav Konstantinov, „Tri arkticheskie aborigennye porody loshadeĭ: sravnenie strategii adaptatsii i sokhranenie v arkticheskom zhivotnovodstve v finskoĭ Laplandii, v Mezenskom raĭone i v respublike Sakha (Yakutiiya) (Three Arctic Horse Breeds - Comparing adaptation and preservation strategies in Arctic husbandry in Finnish Lapland, Mezen and Sakha). In: I.B. Yureva (Hrsg.) Aborigennoe konevodstvo Rossii: istoriia, sovremennostʹ, perspektivy (Aboriginal horse breeding in Russia: history, present day and future perspectives) Sbornik nauchnykh trudov po materialam II Vseros-siĭskoĭnauchno-prakticheskoĭ konferentsii smezhdunarodnym uchastiem, 22 iiunia 2018 g., g. Mezenʹ Feder. agentstvo nauch. organizatsiĭ, Feder. gos. biudzhet. uchrezhdenie nauki Feder. issled. tsentr. kompleks. izucheniia Arktiki im. akad. N. P. Lavërova Ros. akad. nauk Primor. fil. - «Arkhang. nauch.-issled. in-tsel. khoz-va»; Arkhangelʹsk: 69-91, ISBN 978-5-7536-0477-4. http://www.ruhorses.ru/horse/local/Sbornik_po_konevodstvy.pdf
  • 2018 "Dialogical relationships and the bear in indigenous poetry - a review of "Mediations after the Bear Fest" by N. Scott Momaday and Y. Vaella" Sibirica 17 (2): 114-20. https://doi.org/10.3167/sib.2018.170208.
  • 2018 "Dva ponimanija «perevoda iz polja v tekst» (Two understandings of translation from the field to the text). Antropologicheskij forum, 36: 42-52.
  • 2017: "Shpion ili zyat'? - kak mozhno izuchat' to, chto olenevody ne xotyat raskryvat' vsem? ('Spy or son in law'? - How to study what reindeer herders do not want to reveal to everybody?) In: E. Pivneva (Ed.), Pole kak zhizn': K 60-letiyu Severnoi ekspedicii IEA RAN. (Field as Life: In honorary of the 60th anniversary of the Northern expedition of the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) Moscow, St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria 203-214. ISBN 978-5-4469-1296-4
  • 2017 "A v lesu tozhe nado zhit'": o kul'turnom potenciale i ustojchivosti olenevodov Surgutskogo Priob'ja v menjajushhihsja uslovijah. ("You have to live in the forest as well": on the cultural potential and sustainability of reindeer herders in the Surgut Ob-region under changing conditions.) Sever Rossii: strategii i perspektivy razvitija: materialy III Vseros. nauch.-prakt. konf. (g. Surgut, 26 maja 2017 g.) : v 3 t. - Surgut. gos. un-t. - Surgut : IC SurGU, 2017. - T. I. - 306p.. 85-94. ISBN 978-5-89545-482-4.
  • 2017 with Aleksei Anatol'evich Rud, Rudolf Havelka, Nikolai Mikhailovich Terebikhin, and Marina Nikolaevna Melyutina "Safeguarding Sacred Sites in the Subarctic Zone - three case studies from Northern Russia". In: L. Heinämäki, T. Herrmann (Eds.) Experiencing and Protecting Sacred Natural Sites of Sámi and Other Indigenous Peoples. New York: Springer. 159-180.
  • 2017 with Lukas Allemann „Indigene Oral History entlang des Eismeeres von Lappland bis zum Lena-Delta" In: Arktis und Subarktis: Geschichte, Kultur, Gesellschaft. Saxinger, G., Schweitzer, P. & Donecker, S. (eds.). Wien: new academic press, p. 83-102 (Edition Weltregionen; no. 24) ISBN: 9783700319795
  • 2016 with Toulouze, Eva "Preface". In: (Juri Vella) Rakkauden maa. Runoja ja dialogeja. Atrain Kustannus, 7−25. ISBN 978952315136 http://www.kiiltomato.net/juri-vella-rakkauden-maa/
  • 2015 with Svetlana Usenyuk and Nikolai Garin "The Making of a Home in a Changing Northern Context: An Ethnographic Account of Contemporary Housing Practices among Russian Reindeer Nomads". The Polar Journal, 5 (1): 170-202. doi:10.1080/2154896X.2015.1038059.
  • 2015 "'Do You Respect Me?' Drinking as a Social Catalyst in the Reindeer Herding Communities of European Russia and Western Siberia." Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 61: 89-116. doi:10.7592/FEJF2015.61.dudeck.
  • 2015 "Khanty Subsistence in a Changing Environment - Reindeer Herding and Indigenous Survival Strategies in Western Siberia." In Proceedings of the 29th International Abashiri Symposium: Environmental Change and Subsistance of Northern Peoples: Developement and Adaptation. Abashiri: Association for the Promotion of Northern Cultures, 33-40.
  • 2015 "«Kochujushhaja pamjat'» - metodologicheskij opyt izuchenija ustnoj istorii korennyh soobshhestv Arktiki." ("Nomadic memories" - methodological experiences during research among indigenous communities of the Arctic) In: N.M. Terebikhin (Ed.). Semiotika edinstva i jetnokul'turnogo mnogoobrazija istoricheskogo prostranstva Russkogo Severa (Pomorskie chtenija po semiotike kul'tury, vol. 8). Arhangel'sk: M-vo obrazovaniya i nauki [etc.], 41-53.
  • 2014 "Drinking and Driving Is So Much Fun." Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 7 (2): 93-95.
  • 2013 "Oral History of Empires by Elders in the Arctic (ORHELIA): A Common History, a Common Economy, Common Language Roots, and Different Practices among Four Arctic Indigenous Peoples." In Oral History: Dialogue with Society = Mutvārdu Vēsture: Dialogs Ar Sabiedrību, 56-76. Rīga.
  • 2013 "Challenging the state educational system in Western Siberia: Taiga-school and multimedia center on the Tiuityakha river." In Erich Kasten and Tjeerd de Graaf (Eds). Sustaining Indigenous Knowledge: Learning Tools and Community Initiatives for Preserving Endangered Languages and Local Cultural Heritage. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien, 129-157.
  • 2012"Multiple Privacies-Nesting Spheres of Intimacy in Western Siberian Indigenous Lifestyles" (with Elena Liarskaya) In Margherita Carucci (ed). Revealing Privacy: Debating the Understandings of Privacy. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers, 61-74. ISBN: 9783631621288
  • 2012 "From the Reindeer Path to the Highway and Back - Understanding the Movements of Khanty Reindeer Herders in Western Siberia". Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 6 (1): 89-106.
  • 2010 "Indigenous Oil Workers between the Oil Town of Kogalym and Reindeer Herder's Camps in the Surrounding Area." In Biography, Shift-Labour and Socialisation in a Northern Industrial City - The Far North: Particularities of Labour and Human Socialisation Proceedings of the International Conference in Novy Urengoy, Russia, 4th - 6th December 2008, 138-146.
  • 2009 "Siberian Reindeer Pastoralism and Challenges Facing Reindeer Herders in Western Siberia." Indigenous Affairs 3-4 (3): 60-70.
  • 2008 "Wolfgang Steinitz' fotografischer Nachlass von der Expedition zu den Ostjaken (Chanty) 1935". (The photographic heritage of Wolfgang Steinitz from his expedition to the Ostyak (Khanty) in 1935) In: Arkheologiia i etnografiia Priob'ia: materialy i issledovaniia (k 70-letnemu iubileiu d. i. n. professora N. V. Lukinoi). Sbornik trudov Kafedry arkheologii i etnologii Istoriko-geograficheskogo fakul'teta. Tomsk: Tomskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet, 34-46.
  • 2007 "Vzgliad so storony - Problemy pravovogo obespechenia etnicheskogo predstavleniia korennykh narodov v organakh vlasti". (Look from aside - problems of rights to ethnic representation of indigenous people in the state administration) In: Opyt i perspektivy. Sbornik dokladov uchastnikov Mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferencii. Poligrafist, Khanti-Mansiisk, 56-58.
  • 2006 "Westsibirien: Wieviel kostet ein Indigener? Entschädigung der Ölindustrie und indigener Widerstand." (Western Siberia: What does a native cost? Oil industry compensations and indigenous resistance) Infoe-Magazin 'Die Taiga im Tank - Russlands indigene Völker und das Erdöl', 19: 8-13.
  • 2004 "Who Owns Tradition? Conflicts around Cultural Property among Khanty and Forest Nenets". In: H. Fischer (Ed.). The national awakening of endangered Uralic peoples. Papers of the SOKRATES Intensive Programme, Institute of Finno-Ugrian and Uralic Studies of Hamburg University, 109-116.
  • 2001 with A. Ventsel, "Necesitan los Khanty un Curriculo Khanty? - Conceptos indigenas de la educacion escolar." (Do Khanty need a Khanty school curriculum? - indigenous concepts of school education) In: Küper, W. Juncosa, José (Eds.). Experiencias de educacion bilingüe en pueblos indigenas del Norte. (Pueblos indigenas y educacion, vol. 49-50). Waxmann, Münster/New York/München/Berlin, 87-98.
  • 2000 "Gelebte Anthropologie. Erfahrungen aus einem Projekttutorium am Institut für Ethnologie der Freien Universität Berlin" (Hands-On Anthropology: experiences from a students' project at the Institute of Ethnology of the Freie Universität Berlin). In: Wolfgang Steinitz und die westsibirischen Völker der Chanti und Mansi. DAMU Hefte, 2, 2000, 64-72.
  • 2000 "Die Reichtümer Westsibiriens Traditionelle Kultur oder 'schwarzes Gold'?" (The Resources of Western Siberia Traditional Culture or 'Black Gold'?) In: Hirnsperger, Markus (Ed.), Conference: Siberia and the Circumpolar North. Contributions by Anthropologists and NGOs, Vienna, Working Group Arctic and Subarctic, 18-19.
  • 1998 "Do the Khanty need a Khanty Curriculum? Indigenous Concepts of School Education" (with A. Ventsel). In: E. Kasten (Ed.). Bicultural Education in the North. Münster, New York, München, Berlin: Waxmann, 89-99.

  • July 2021 workshop with indigenous artist Galina Yaptik at the art residency "POLARIS" in Salekhard, Yamal Nenets autonomous district, Russia

  • April - September 2021 collaboration with the art and science project by Kristiina Koskentola and Bioartsociety "Enfleshed-Elaborated" online and in Turku, Finland

  • October 2019 interdisciplinary Euro-American seminar with indigenous participants from the US, Canada, Finland and Siberia, researchers and artists in Sápmi reindeer herding camp, Finland

  • August 2019 teaching and audiovisual transdisciplinary work with indigenous artist Galina Yaptik at the indigenous ethnocultural-camp „Numsang Yokh" near the village Kazym, Beloyarsk rayon, Khanty-Mansi autonomous district - Yugra, Russia

  • 18.06. 2018 together with director Christian Vagt presentation of the film „Before the Snow" at „Poryadok slov" in St. Petersburg, Russia

  • 2017 invited as the producer of the film "Before the Snow" to the "NATIVe - Indigenous Cinema" program at the Berlin International Film Festival, Germany

  • September 2015 transdisciplinary art and science field laboratory "Field_Notes - HYBRID MATTERs" by the Bioartsociety at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station Field_Notes - HYBRID MATTERs, Finland

  • 2016 organising the workshop "Gender Asymmetry in Northern Communities (Perspectives from the Margins)" 25-28 January 2016, financed by the International Arctic Science Committee in Lychen, Germany

  • 2016 member of the organising committee of the International Siberian Studies Conference "Passion for Life: Emotions, Feelings and Perception in the North and Siberia" held on 24-26 October 2016 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia

  • 2015 organising the conference panel "Moving memories: Oral histories about people's movements across social, temporal, spatial and ideological borders" at the conference of The Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration (ETMU), 22-23.10.2015, Rovaniemi, Finland

  • 2014 Production of a multimedia DVD "Nomadic Memories" as an outreach product of the ORHELIA project

  • 2014 Finishing of the short documentary film 'Taiga school at the Tiuitiakha River' about an indigenous educational project for Khanty and Nenets reindeer herders in Russia

  • 2012-14 Multimedia project "Cool experts" - filming at the Nenets Autonomous District and in Rovaniemi, production of a multimedia website together with the artist Antti Tenetz

  • 2013 Production of the documentary "Before the Snow" (remastered and published on YouTube) together with the filmmaker Christian Vagt

  • 2006 Research and interviews for the documentary film 'Before the Snow' (director: Christian Vagt) about Khanty and Nenets ghost stories in Western Siberia

  • 2003 - 2004 Photographs at the exhibition 'Aus mythischen Zeiten. Schamanismus in Westsibirien' (From mythic times, shamanism in Western Siberia) Museum of World Cultures in Frankfurt/Main

  • 1999 and 2000 Research and production management for the documentary film 'Elsewhere' (director: Nikolaus Gayrhalter) about a Khanty family in Western Siberia

  • 1999 Exhibition of photos and ethnographic objects at the Grassi Museum for Ethnography in Leipzig

  • 1998 Participation in the exhibition 'Sibirien, Finnland, Ungarn' with ethnographic objects showing the daily life of herders and fishermen of Western Siberia at the University Library in Göttingen

  • 1994, 1996 - 1997 Photo exhibitions and lectures in Germany at the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle, the Hungarian Cultural Centre 'Haus Ungarn', Berlin, and in Potsdam, Wittenberge, Rathenow, Cottbus, and in the House of Sciences and Culture of the Russian Federation in Berlin.