ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPERT REVIEW: ACADEMIC DISCOURSE AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS

This article focuses on the anthropological expert review (AER), its legal foundation and its practical application in the Russian Arctic. The analysis is based on field research, and the experience of carrying out AERs and taking part in legal proceedings as an expert of the State Duma. Methods include analysis of legislation, expert interviews and surveys. In public and scientific discourse, AER represents expert conclusions regarding the influence of an industrial project on indigenous peoples’ way of life. As Russia still has no federal law on AER, international instruments, such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and standards of international financial institutions are very important. The AER is also a mechanism for implementing a process of free, prior and informed consent. Ethnographic field research is essential, e.g. analysis of demographic and social indicators, traditional livelihood activities, employment. Special attention is paid to quality of life; land use and customary law; sacred sites; and other questions that distinguish aboriginal people from the wider community. AER researchers focus on traditional knowledge and resource-use practices. They should be wary of academic and legal discourses that portray indigenous peoples as practicing exclusively traditional livelihoods, as these overlook the innovation that characterises their contemporary development. The only Russian region to have passed a law making AER mandatory for industrial projects is the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in 2010. The text of the law and the results of expert reviews in Sakha have been analyzed. In public perception and corporate policy there exists an opinion that financial compensation is the main AER outcome. However, the most important result of an AER must be the experts’ opinion about the project impacts, which should have lasting legal consequences for the company and for the indigenous peoples. This will only be possible after passing the federal law on AER and amendments to the resource legislation.

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