Karina Lukin, title of docent

Description of research and teaching

I am an Academy of Finland research fellow with the title of docent in folklore studies. I have studied the oral and written culture and cultural heritage of the Nenets living in Northern Russia and Western Siberia in the light of contemporary and historical materials. I am interested in the definitions of tradition made and used by both researchers and the Nenets, and the identity and cultural heritage processes and ideologies related to the definitions. My research has dealt with, among other things, the interaction between the material and the oral in the context of narrative, poetry and rituals related to everyday and mythical places. In addition, I have studied the boundary between oral and written and the vacillation of these boundaries in the 20th century Nenets literature. In addition to the study of the Nenets culture, I am interested in the history of research and the ways in which perceptions of tradition and indigenous peoples have influenced researchers' ways of collecting materials, especially of recording tradition and of describing the communities they study.