Publication Announcement
SAMI POTATOES: LIVING WITH REINDEER AND PERESTROIKA
By Michael P. Robinson and Karim-Aly S. Kassam
(Sponsored by the Gorbachev Foundation
and The Arctic Institute of North America)
Sami Potatoes is at once a participatory research case study, a personal
journal, a contribution to the international literature on northern planning
and development studies, and a testimony to the cultural and political
strength of the Russian Sami Association of the Kola Peninsula. This book
demonstrates in its organization and writing style the reality of PAR: it is
truly interdisciplinary, it promotes the tradition of the democratic
intellect, it accords equal respect to wisdom and to science, and it
champions the humanities' critique of reason in the West, valuing common
sense, doubt, creativity and imagination. Sami Potatoes offers a shared
Canadian-Sami vision of how co-management could flourish in post-perestroika
Russian society.
Readers should note at the outset that every word of this text has been
reviewed and approved by the Russian Sami Association in community
validation meetings held in the village of Lovozero in the summer of 1997.
Sami Potatoes is the Sami story of the struggle for co-management of their
traditional lands in the Kola Peninsula, for the protection of 60,000
reindeer, and for social justice in an economic system in the advanced
stages of collapse. It is both tinged with sadness and coloured by hope for
a different kind of future - one in which the Sami have a say in the
stewardship of their lands and lives.
CONTENTS: Preface / Introduction / Land, History, Culture, and Survival:
The Kola Peninsula and the Russian Sami / Why Sami Potatoes? / The Practice
of Co-Management in Canada and its Relevance for Russia / First Steps for
Mapping the Pattern of Sami Land Use / A Walk Through Jona, July 1996 / The
Kola Peninsula Maps / Sacred Sites and Profane Acts: A Day From My Diary /
There is a Map and More is Coming (An article in the local Lovozero
newspaper) / Perestroika and the Ponoy / The Dream of Implementing
Co-Management in the Kola Peninsula / References / Index / Complete Land
Use Map
1998 / 120 pages
Paperback: $19.95 + 7% G.S.T
Hardcover: $24.95 + 7 % G.S.T
* It is important to note that the author's royalties go directly to the
Russian Sami Associations of Jona and Lovozero.
Order Department:
Terry Keys
The Arctic Institute of North America
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2N 1N4
Phone: (403) 220-4035
Fax: (403) 282-4609
e-mail: tkeys [at] ucalgary.ca
Website: http://www.ucalgary.ca/AINA
Publisher:
Bayeux Arts, Inc.
119 Stratton Crescent S.W.
Calgary, Alberta Canada
T3H 1T7
Phone/fax: (403) 249-2477
Website: http://www.bayeux.com/