LIFESTYLE IN SIBERIA AND THE RUSSIAN NORTH, By Ayse Dietrich^*, Published by: OpenBook publishers, New York. Edited by Joachim Otto Habeck, Year of Publishing: 2019. Subject Area:  Social History in Russia. Book Type: Sociology and Anthropology. Total Number of Pages: 465. ISBN: 9781783747177, £25.95, Paperback.

This book is a collaborative study written by ten anthropologists who depict their own experiences and lifestyles in Siberia and the Russian North during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, decribe how the lifestyle of the people interacts with the notion of modernity and the most important social trends that emerged between 2010 and 2019.

The book consists of eleven chapters. In the Introduction the writers give an outline of their book and introduce the concept of lifestyle as it is understood in the sociological and anthropological literature of scholars in the US, France, Britain, and Germany. The writers of this book developed their arguments and the general theoretical framework of their study based on the analyses of the British scholar David Chaney’s and Pierre Bourdieu of France. Habeck argues that lifestyle is an expressive, habitualised and stylised mode of identification. The chapter continues with a discussion of the definition of the lifestyle concept used in Soviet and post-Soviet contexts, how it is used in social science literature and how the Soviet modernisation project in Siberia impacted this concept of lifestyle.

The Second Chapter deals with the major infrastructural and technological changes which contributed to the pluralisation of people’s lifestyles and social changes in Siberia. Then, the authors provide their own experiences about the use of technology through an experimental approach, and present the connections between peripherality and lifestyle choices from the perspective of infrastructure, mobility and telecommunication. The authors discussed changes in transport, availability and affordability of transportation, use of media, access to the internet which brought new developments, and the scarcity of monetary resources which limit inclusive mobility.

In the Third Chapter, Shaw examines people’s engagement with rural space as a lifestyle choice, and why rural people have more limited lifestyle choices compared to urbanites, and what drivers compel people to make the deliberate choice to live in a village, a choice that allows them to be the masters of their own lives, and to pursue their true values and aspirations.

In the Fourth Chapter, the authors examine late-Soviet period and present-day expectations of holiday-making, travel experiences, travel biographies in the first post-Soviet period, the growth of the Siberian tourist industry in the 2000s, new habits of travelling and holiday making, future tourism that promote leisure mobility across Siberia.

The Fifth Chapter investigates frameworks for analysing movement and place in travel biographical narratives of people living in Siberia, and shows the contsraints and possibilities that governed mobility in Soviet and post-Soviet Siberia through conducting interviews and collecting stories documented in photographic records.

In the Sixth Chapter, Panakova examines visual material in the study of lifestyles obtained during the interviews, and tries to analyse photographic respresentations and narratives to show how changing visual technology and social conditions relate to happiness which can be a stimulating force in people’s life in Siberia. She states that photographic framing removes the historical setting from its own context and transforms it into a transient moment of individual stories, that indicate the ways in which people dare to see their real life.

In the Seventh Chapter, Peers explores social changes in Sakha (Yakutia) and looks at the legacy of the Soviet period in the development of contemporary values, community and modes of expression. In particular, the writer uses the experience of the modern Sakha national revival as an example of both the overt and hidden impacts of Soviet policies on the Sakha community, Sakha self-identification and aesthetics.

In the Eight Chapter, the author explores the development of ethnic cultural production in the Soviet and post-Soviet period, the relationship between diverse ethnicity and lifestyle of the people in Siberia, the link between the concept of lifestyle and ethnic activism, the involvement of people in the ethnicity-based activities in national-cultural organizations, the changes in post-Soviet Russia that affected the members of these organizations, certain boundaries that restrict the opportunities to preserve and express ethnic affiliations of the members of the groups.

In the Ninth Chapter the author describes how the games and competitions of youth camps in Western Siberia mirror the social changes that have occurred in the region in the post-Soviet era, particularly in relation to normative lifestyles, tradition, and gender roles. She also examines common reactions of indigenous communities to social processes and changes  in Russian Far North, secular and sacred aspects of the role-playing game, gender norms, roles and experiences in the role-playing games.

In the Chapter Ten, the authors examines the lifestyle and Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP) in Siberia and the Russian Far East and show how participation in LARP changes their lives and self-perceptions, and the frequent blurring of the line between real life and play that occurs as that line is continually redrawn. After a summary look at the current state of LARP in Siberia, the author examines how different aspects of play interact with the concept of lifestyle, the shifting boundaries between game and reality, how some players view game and reality as different forms of existence, and the extent of personal investment various players have in their chosen game.

Chapter Eleven includes the Conclusion. In it, the author provides an overview of some of the most influential trends in Russian society in the past few years, then proceeds to examine the primary issues dealt with in the book and the authors’ findings on the concept of lifestyle and the understanding of modernity in contemporary Siberia.

This is well-conceived and well-written work of research that is addressed to researchers interested in the social life of Siberia and the Russian Far East. The book successfully meets the aim of contributing to the understanding of the concept lifestyle in the context of modernity and the people’s interaction with the most important social trends that have occurred during the Soviet and post-Soviet period.