Funk Dmitry (Moscow, Russia)

The Identity Discourses of Indigenous Groups on the Internet

(57th Annual Meeting of the PIAC Vladivostok, 2014)

The last 15 years have brought about a digital revolution in the regions where indigenous Siberian groups live. The Internet became, if not always in the reality, a part of everyday indigenous culture. The Southern part of Western Siberia, especially Kemerovo region, our goal in the presentation, can be well described as a highly industrial one, where the Internet plays a significant role even in the not long ago completely remote villages. The results of my study are based on the content-analysis of some texts available on the sites of Internet groups of the Shor people (a group of Turkic origin) and on open-structured interviews with some leaders of the groups under research that have been conducted in the last 4 years. The research shows what urban Shors think about their native culture and about the ways how it can be (re)presented nowadays, what are the main motifs for Shors to join such Internet groups, and how these groups can and actually change the Shor ethnic (or more broadly – cultural) identity.