Indigeneity and Industry at Bovanenkovo- Cooperation? Confrontation? Justice?

Abstract: The Nenets, an indigenous peoples in the North of Russia, are increasingly being affected by the gas industry. The increasing prioritisation of extractive industries, the status of the Arctic as a bellwether and the threatened situation of indigenous people in Russia has drawn greater attention to this field of study. One resulting issue concerns the relationship between the Nenets and the gas industry, especially regarding the traditional activity of the Nenets; reindeer pastoralism. The implications of this relationship remains little chronicled and understood, with only piecemeal attempts to consider the wider industry-indigenous pastoralism association. This thesis investigates this issue, with particular reference to the framework of energy justice and the Bovanenkovo gas field on the Yamal Peninsula. Energy justice is a relatively new theoretical framework that probes how justicial extractive industries are, whilst Bovanenkovo is a large and expanding gas field on the traditional territory of the Nenets. A systematic literature review has been employed as this thesis’ methodology, which has detailed the various frames by which the relationship on Yamal has been interpreted around the lens of energy justice. Overall, this review has revealed the presence of injustices on Yamal with distinct distributional, procedural and recognition injustices affecting reindeer pastoralism. The implicit nature by which energy justice is featured within the corpus’ authorship as well as the limited reference to the concept of justice are also demonstrated. A number of alternative frames characterising the relationship have also been elucidated, all of which contribute further to frames of injustice but also indicate remediation. A conclusion is drawn that the situation on Yamal remains complex with many different stakeholders, and that the indigenous Nenets remain ever-affected by resource extractive industries.