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The Altai Republic in southern Siberia is renowned for excavations of frozen mummies from high-altitude burial sites. Less well-known is the fact that it hosts fallout zones for the second stages of rockets launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Local inhabitants blame ‘evil spirits’ released by archaeological work and toxic fuel from rocket debris for their misfortunes. This book explores the divergent fates of such claims when confronted with state-fostered ‘rationalisms’ of science and governance.
“The messages of this delightful book are compelling yet provocative and disturbing.” • Anthropos
“Ultimately, the book should satisfy readers with a general interest in the region’s religious traditions and experiences, but it should also stimulate some discussion among regional experts, especially those who work in the theoretical milieu of the ontological turn.” • Sibirica
“At the core of this text is the single best message that anthropology has always delivered: that there is much at stake in not just learning how to listen, but in how to hear what people are trying to tell us, and how to be fully open to new worlds.” • Bruce Grant, New York University
Ludek Broz is Head of the Department of Ecological Anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. He co-edited the volume Suicide and Agency: Anthropological Perspectives on Self-destruction, Personhood and Power (Routledge, 2016) with Daniel Muenster.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
Chapter 1. Between Ancient Graves and Modern Rocket Junk
Chapter 2. How to Read a Letter
Chapter 3. Souls and Their Predators
Chapter 4. Property and (Non-)Human Personhood
Chapter 5. The Comparison Impossible
Chapter 6. Towards Strict Ontological Continuities
Conclusion
References
Index