Foreign Bodies in the Russian North: On the Physiological and Psychological Adaptation of Soviet Settlers and ‘Oil Nomads’ to the Oil-Rich Arctic

Abstract

Based on more than a year of ethnographic field research in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) in the Barents Sea region, as well as on a review of the literature existing in the field of Arctic medicine in Russia, this chapter focuses on the various discourses regarding adaptation to the Arctic of two groups who share the same ethnic background: the Russian settlers who arrived in the NAO to be involved in oil and gas prospecting, and the shift-workers – described as “oil nomads” in the chapter – who have been coming to the district since the mid-2000s from southern and central Russia to extract the oil discovered by their predecessors. This chapter examines the evolution of medical knowledge on adaptation to the Arctic from the Soviet period to the current day. I show that depictions of the bodies of settlers and oil nomads in both recent medical knowledge and popular discourses support the changes taking place in the organization of the workforce in the NAO, changes which appear to favor the oil nomads.