SUMMARY:

In this article, the author discusses landownership among the seminomadic Dolgan in the Republic of Sakha. Despite their nomadic lifestyle, the Dolgan have developed a complicated landownership system based on biographical and ancestral narratives linked to particular territories. The article shows how these narratives make “wilderness” into “inhabited” land and are essential for the “appropriation of nature.” Aimar Ventsel seeks an answer to the question of why informal clan-based landownership has been so vital and still today regulates the use of the tundra’s resources. The concept of the “narrative of the land” is so strong that even formal administrative structures cannot ignore this form of landownership. Moreover, the post-Soviet dismantling of state structures for controlling the use of environmental resources makes the concept of the “narrative of land” more instrumental for monitoring the use of resources in the Russian Arctic. Ventsel’s hypothesis is that informal landownership or “moral possession” is constructed through a complex set of tangible and intangible objects that support each other in creating emotional bonds to a territory and thus establishing a family’s right to control a territory’s resources.