This presentation will examine theoretical insights from the field of Indigenous Feminist Studies, as perceived by a non-indigenous but non-majority female anthropologist. I will explore the possibility for more general application of critical analysis of anthropological and ethnographic epistemologies inspired by Indigenous Feminist Studies. I will focus on research about women in the Russian part of the Arctic conducted by Russian and other scholars at different periods in the 20th century. My goal is three-fold: 1) to test to what extent a culturally and politically situated epistemological and methodological practice like Indigenous Feminist Studies can provide critical analytic tools broadly accessible for scholars from different cultures and schools of thought; 2) to provide some insights into how indigenous women in Russia and their place in society have been portrayed within different national and theoretical traditions of academic anthropological practice; and 3) to contribute to the understanding of the epistemological grounds of Soviet and Russian ethnography in different times at its interface with research on gender in the Russian North. The suggested presentation thus addresses the issue of borders and follows crossings between borders at different levels: 1) epistemological borders 2) cultural borders 3) time periods.

Vladislava Vladimirova, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Anthropology at Uppsala University. She has long term research interest in Circumpolar Russia. In her publications she has addressed a wide range of topics, among which Indigenous economic practices, ethnicity and Indigenous activism, Indigenous law and self-determination, gendered relations, cultural heritage, nature conservation within the green economy, morality and justice.

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