Salmon fishery under inequal rights. The case of a multiethnic village

Abstract

Indigenous peoples in many countries receive benefits in the field of using natural resources, and researchers, as well as politicians, almost unanimously advocate the need to expand their preferences and rights. Accordingly, in multiethnic communities consisting of representatives
of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, despite the initial identity of living conditions and economic patterns, non-indigenous residents, even old-timers, are discriminated against. Despite this, in our expeditions, as a rule, we do not observe conflicts at the local level between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Using the example of one spatially isolated Far Eastern village with a mixed population, the article describes the structure of salmon fishing in a community whose members are used to living on red fish, but not everyone has the opportunity to legally extract it. It is shown that non-indigenous residents are forced to either leave the village or change their economic structure. The difference in rights between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples leads both to new forms of cooperation and, paradoxically, to the emergence of some colonial practices. The material was collected over nine days using methods of in-depth interview, observation and participant observation.